Why are the star and crescent symbols of Islam?
Let me tell you, I had to do some research on this one. Couldn’t find jack on the “Ask a Mullah” site; even less on the Virtual Mosque site. The Virtual Mosque’s virtual mullah just says “Islam ain’t got no symbols, bub.” Which we know is bunk, otherwise why the question? But I got to the bottom of it at last. In fact, the star and crescent are not (repeat, NOT) official symbols of Islam. According to the Hadiths (collection of binding religous decisions), it is a sin to use anything as a symbol of Allah (Arabic for “God”). So we look back into history, although it’s somewhat cloudy. Our preferred explanation: the crescent moon was a symbol of a local deity of Istanbul, the sky-god. When the Ottoman Turks took over Istanbul, they decided to use the town’s symbol as their own. Other explanations, however include the story that Osman, founder of the Ottoman Turkish Empire in 1295, had a dream of a crescent moon stretching over the earth, took it as a good omen, and adopted it as the symb
