Moon and venus

We had a wonderful view yesterday and today of the moon alongside Venus in
the evening sky here in Western Europe. The moon, as a crescent, trailed
behind the setting Venus. It then came into my mind that many Arab countries
have in their flags a crescent moon embracing some star (It would almost
look like present moon and Venus configuration, but for the direction of the
moon). Does anybody know what star or planet is represented and what it
symbolizes?

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 19:02:39 +0100, "Bill Linares"
wrote:

We had a wonderful view yesterday and today of the moon alongside Venus in
the evening sky here in Western Europe. The moon, as a crescent, trailed
behind the setting Venus. It then came into my mind that many Arab countries
have in their flags a crescent moon embracing some star (It would almost
look like present moon and Venus configuration, but for the direction of the
moon). Does anybody know what star or planet is represented and what it
symbolizes?

No, but you might be able to figure it out from some history. The
crescent moon became a symbol of Islam as follows:

During the early period of expansion of the Ottoman empire,
Constantinople retained its independance as the capitol of what
remained of the Byzantine empire, and was regarded by the Ottomans as
their main objective.

The city was well fortified, and resisted several attacks. One of the
later ones was an attempted night assault, with the Turkish forces
approaching as silently as possible. They were revealed to the
sentries by the light of the rising crescent moon in time to rally the
defenders for a successful repulse of the attackers, after which the
crescent became a symbol of the city. It was taken over along with the
rest of the city with the conquest in 1453.

Find the date of the failed night attack[1] and you can probably
identify the other body present with the crescent moon.

Al Moore

[1] I'd look it up for you myself, but most of my resources had to be
abandoned when I left Beirut in '75.