Islam
Père Zakaria Boutros

Sources of Islam
The crescent moon
 

The author      : Father Zakaria Boutros
The publisher:  www.fatherzakaria.com
 

What is the relation between Islam and the crescent moon?

On a question about the relation between Islam and the crescent moon, his eminence Sheikh Al-Karadawy answered saying: there is no relation at all between the Islam and the crescent moon

I am wondering how he could say that. Doesn't he know? Or he is trying to ignore, and hide facts.

On that very intimate relation between Islam and the crescent moon, here are the facts:

The number of quran verses speaking about the crescent and the moon are 50 verses

The number of converses speaking about the crescent and the moon are 2027 converses

About the moon

 We can see that Allah (God) was swearing by the moon as in:
The One Enveloped chapter (Surat Al-Muddathir) 32, 33:" by the moon, And by the night when it withdraws"
The Sun chapter (Surat Ash-Shams) 1.2:" by the sun and its brightness, And by the moon as it follows it"
In the Islamic encyclopedia , part 32, page 10055:" the crescent has a great importance in the Islamic legislations" the encyclopedia showed 55 proofs for that , for example ;the Hijri calendar depends on the crescent, also the fasting of Ramadan and the  time of pilgrimage (Hajj )all are related to the crescent
In the cow chapter (Surat Al-Baqarah) 189:"They ask you, about the new moons. Say: These are signs to mark fixed periods of time for mankind and for the pilgrimage"
The crescent as a symbol of Islam:
- The crescent was put on the coins at the time of Salah Al-din Al-Ayouby
- It was present in the dome of Kobat Al-Sakhra mosque
- It was put on the earrings and ornaments for human
- It was the symbol for the Muslim leaders throughout history
- In the fifth Hijri century, in Anne church in Europe, that was transformed to a mosque they replace the cross present over it by the crescent as an Islamic symbol
-  The crescent had been put over the dooms of mosques
- The crescent was the official symbol in the othmanian nation
- The crescent had been put in the national flag of many countries as Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Mauritania, Malaysia, Libya and Malawi
- The crescent was the differentiating symbol between the graves for Muslims, and those for the Jewish and Christians
Why is the crescent used by Muslims as a symbol?
The Christians take the cross as their symbol, as it represents the redemption of the Christ
The Jewish take David's star as symbol, as it represents the kingdom
But why do Muslims take the crescent as their symbol?
The secret behind that is: the crescent had a great importance in the ancient pre-Islam paganism epoch, as it was the symbol of the Moon God for the pagan
The encyclopedias Britannica mentioned in part 1, page 1057and 1058:" the Arabs in the south of Arabic peninsula were worshiping the trinity of Al-lah the moon god, Al-lat the sun god , and their son Ashtar , and Al-lah was the greatest of that trinity "
Dr Al-Kemny said in his book "the legendary in the quran", page 4-11:" among the names of Arabs' god was" kitth" that is translated as Al-lah, the lord of the sacred house, present in Makkah
From the archaeological studies of the Arabic peninsula, it was found that" Al-lah" the greatest was worshiped by the people in the Arabic peninsula, it was the moon god; the greatest of gods, there was a statue inside Al-Ka'bah for it
The worshiped moon god was called Al-lah, and the word was abbreviated as Allah
That was the attitude of Muhammad towards that great god "Allah the greatest"
For that reason the korishians people were not surprised to hear Muhammad speaking about Allah, as they knew him and worshiped him and they had no reason to ask Muhammad about Allah ,as he was familiar to them, so Muhammad was raised in that culture worshiping the moon god Allah
As the greatest of all their gods, they called him Allah The greatest "Allah Akbar"
So why did Muslims consider the crescent as their symbol?
It is Muhammad who considered it as his symbol, but why did Muhammad consider the symbol of the moon god as the symbol of Islam? Was there any relation between Islam and the moon?
The moon was the god worshiped by people during the time of Muhammad, so he considered the crescent, the symbol of the worshiped moon god as his symbol
As mentioned in history; Muhammad tried hardly to attract the Jewish and Christians but was unsuccessful in that, so he showed a great respect for the moon and Ka'bah and was performing all the pagan rituals , trying to please the pagan
Dr Al-Kemny said I his book, page 11:
Al-lah was the male moon god
Al-lat was the female sun god
Ashtar was their son, and its symbol is the star
So beside the Islamic crescent there is a star near its lower end, representing Al-lah and his son Ashtar
For knowing more about the studies and archaeological researches for that on the internet log on to:
http://www.biblebelievers.org  under the title "archaeology of the middle east"
It said: the archaeologists discovered many temples for the moon god widely dispersed in the area from turkey till the Nile River
The moon god was named by the Babylians. Ashurians and keldanian as the god "S"
 The scientists proved that the Sumerian people had the same god,
 The crescent symbol of the moon god was present in the prisons; they also made the bread with a crescent shape, as they were offering it to the god
In the previous century they discovered a big temple for the moon god in Palestine in an area called Hazer, within it they found two statues for two men sitting on a throne with the crescent engraved over their chests
Were there any discoveries in the Arabic peninsula?
In the nineteen century, the archaeologists made many digging in Saba' and Kotban in the Arabic peninsula, they found many codices showing the moon god
Thousands of fossils were discovered with the moon god symbol the crescent on them
The question is why they are putting the crescent with the star over the mosques?
In the quran in the prophet chapter, it said that Ibrahim removed the idols and Muhammad removed the idols from Al-Ka'bah
So using the crescent and the star; isn't that considered worshiping of idols?
Muslim should know well the roots of Islam