<P> The star and crescent is an iconographic symbol used in various historical contexts but most well known today as a symbol of the former Ottoman Empire and, by popular extension, the Islamic world . It develops in the iconography of the Hellenistic period (4th--1st centuries BCE) in the Kingdom of Pontus, the Bosporan Kingdom and notably the city of Byzantium by the 2nd century BCE . It is the conjoined representation of the crescent and a star, both of which constituent elements have a long prior history in the iconography of the Ancient Near East as representing either Sun and Moon or Moon and Morning Star (or their divine personifications). Coins with crescent and star symbols represented separately have a longer history, with possible ties to older Mesopotamian iconography . The star, or Sun, is often shown within the arc of the crescent (also called star in crescent, or star within crescent, for disambiguation of depictions of a star and a crescent side by side); In numismatics in particular, the term crescent and pellet is used in cases where the star is simplified to a single dot . </P> <P> The combination is found comparatively rarely in late medieval and early modern heraldry . It rose to prominence with its adoption as the flag and emblem of the Ottoman Empire and some of its administrative divisions (eyalets and vilayets) and later in the 19th - century Westernizing tanzimat (reforms). The Ottoman flag of 1844, with a white ay - yıldız (Turkish for "crescent - star") on a red background, continues to be in use as the flag of the Republic of Turkey, with minor modifications . Other states formerly part of the Ottoman Empire also used the symbol, including Libya (1951--1969 and after 2011), Tunisia (1956) and Algeria (1958). The same symbol was used in other national flags introduced during the 20th century, including the flags of Azerbaijan (1918), Pakistan (1947), Malaysia (1948), Singapore (1959), Mauritania (1959), Uzbekistan (1991), Turkmenistan (1991), Comoros (2001), and Maldives (1965). </P>

What does crescent moon and star mean in islam
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