THE season of stargazing is upon us again. In a few weeks, trained eyes will be straining to see the new moon and the arrival of Eid al-FitrAidilfitri. For an object of such practical value, its use is surprisingly sparse in Islamic art. Nowadays, the crescent is a graphic that is all around us. From national flags to the Red Crescent organisation to the gravestones of US Muslim soldiers, it has become the most obvious symbol of Islam.
Bodies such as Daesh and the Taliban reject it, as do many religious scholars. The most avid enthusiasts are greeting card companies and museum curators on the look-out for catchy exhibition titles.
One that comes to mind because of its relevance to Malaysia was held at two major Australian museums in 2006. With the title "Crescent Moon: Islamic Art and Civilisation in Southeast Asia", it must have sounded exotic. You would have needed an extremely sharp eyesight to spot more than a couple of exhibits that featured any sort of moon.
Despite this, the crescent moon has been important to the Islamic art tradition. This mostly derived from being part of the symbolic package of the Ottoman Empire. To some extent, the Ottomans simply took on board the old Byzantine symbolism of the lands they conquered.
When Sultan Mehmet marched into Constantinople in 1453, he declared himself Emperor of Rome, which made the crescent motif his as well. In turn, the Byzantine Christians had adopted this from the preceding pagan cultures from centuries before.
The Ottomans liked to team the crescent up with a star, as is still seen on Malaysia's Jalur Gemilang. There were many links between the Ottoman Empire and the Malay sultanates. This didn't bring total conviction on the subject of crescents, though.
Adopting it in the peninsula was a slow process, and it never caught on in East Malaysia. The Sultanate of Sulu, on the other hand, has used a crescent moon for its war banners at various times; intriguingly it faces the opposite direction from almost every other flag that uses this symbol.
IMPORTANT EMBLEM
It wasn't only the Ottomans who adopted the crescent as an official emblem. The Mughals of India liked to use it on shields and banners. Their most famous legacy, the Taj Mahal, has a roof finial that is somewhat unlike the upturned moon motif that is seen on mosques throughout much of the Islamic world. It has a central lotus flower that gives more than a passing resemblance to the Hindu trident symbol.
Crescents do turn up in all sorts of situations in the art of the Islamic world. They are just not nearly as common as might be expected. They often served a practical purpose, such as the spouts on kendi. Nor does there seem to be the same feeling of romance or philosophy as has existed in many other cultures.
A full moon reflected in the water was common in Chinese and, especially Japanese art. Western artists of the past 200 years were also transfixed by this celestial body. There could be no more romantic artist than the 19th century German, Caspar David Friedrich.
One of his finest paintings shows him seemingly looking intently for the new moon. This is what is so rarely found in traditional Islamic art. Mughal miniature paintings contain more human interest than most, and even they are generally devoid of moonstruck couples. When the moon is shown, it's likely to be there as an indication that there's some adult activity going on.
The Islamic world's chief interest in heavenly sightings is scientific. There are countless treatises on astronomy and, of course, a large number of astrolabes. For a culture that started in the sandy wastes of Arabia, the moon and the stars are the most valuable guides to timing and navigation available. There has never been an element of moon worship — it is there to be studied and used.
When an object from the applied arts looks like a crescent moon, it's probably because it happens to be a useful shape. Similarly, the idea of the crescent moon being an early symbol of Muslim conquest is often wishful thinking by Westerners.
War banners would have featured this symbol on occasion, but often they are later whimsies. The Ottomans owned at least one standard of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) with a small crescent moon and a large number of words.
It was captured by a Polish army in 1683, and they too believed they had the real thing. In reality, it's unlikely to have looked like this but the presence of a crescent must have heartened the Ottomans.
It's only in the 20th century that some Muslim artists really began to make use of the crescent moon. Among the most eloquent of these is Ahmad Moustafa. Along with the 99 Names of God, he sometimes likes to add a gorgeously gleaming semi-circle of light and an enticing title such as Transcendental Mansion of the Moon. Few others have followed his example.
Follow Lucien de Guise at Instagram @crossxcultural.