Why is Allah represented by a crescent moon?

In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah! [Alfred Buillaume, Islam (London: Penguin Books, 1954), p. 6]

Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

"Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and 'daughters of Allah.'" [Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61]

The Mandaean remnants of the early Nazoreans are also asociated with a place called Hauran:

In his Semitic Mythology, Langdon indicates that Allat was the high goddess of choice, even more than Allah. The Nabataeans claimed that Allat was the goddess-consort of Dusares, which duplicated the North Arabian marriage of Tammuz and Ishtar, the Babylonian godhead. "

For this reason the muslim have destroyed all ancient documents and inscriptions of Allah. However, many pre-islamic names of those goddess names were recorded:

In pre-Islamic Arabia we know about such names as Abd' Allat (abd'=servant), Abd' Manat, Abd' al-Uzza, Abd' Allah, defined by the parents' belief. If this trend happened to apply to Muhammed, we might suggest that his name was Abd' al-Uzza (Abdul Uzza).

We know that during his younger years, Muhammed sacrificed to the deity al-Uzza, which most likely was his family's deity. Even the early Muslim writer Ibn al-Kalbi, in his Book of Idols, counts Muhammed amongst the followers of al-UzzaUzza.

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

"'Allah' is a pre-Islamic name...corresponding to the Babylonian Bel." [Encyclopedia of Religion, eds. Paul Meagher, Thomas O'Brian, Consuela Aherne (Washington D.C.: Corpus Pub., 1979), I:117]

For those people who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following citations may be helpful:

"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" (Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. Gibb). [Encyclopedia of Islam (e. Gibb), I:406]

"Ilah ... appears in pre-Islamic poetry ... By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry" (Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. Lewis).

I think you're having a misconception here. The Islamic calendar follows the moon, which might be a good reason why many Muslim countries have a crescent on their flag. Allah is or was never symbolised by a crescent. If anyone ever does such a thing, then he/she has done a major sin because Allah, the Almighty, is far above that and cannot be compared with the moon which is, in fact, one of His creations.

That is not true. In fact the Crescent moon and star is not even an Islamic symbol. Muslims don't use symbols and don't believe in them. The Crescent moon and star is a symbol that the Ottoman Turks used when they had control of the Middle East and somehow it got thought of as a Muslim symbol.

A serious misconception I must say.

Coming from a Christian am not surprised. Why?

Because Christians are used to using the cross to represent the things Jesus went through and its a holy sign for them. Completely against the Bible as far as using symbols and idols go but nevetheless, its a huge part of Christianity now.

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Islam on the other hand, does not have a symbol, the crescent is rather modern and came about through the conquests of the Ottoman empire and is no where near being holy for Muslims.

Thus, the crescent is not a representation of anything in Islam.

Culturally, thats a different matter tho.

The early Muslim community did not really have a symbol. During the time of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Islamic armies and caravans flew simple solid-colored flags (generally black, green, or white) for identification purposes. In later generations, the Muslim leaders continued to use a simple black, white, or green flag with no markings, writing, or symbolism on it.

It wasn't until the Ottoman Empire that the crescent moon and star became affiliated with the Muslim world. When the Turks conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, they adopted the city's existing flag and symbol. Legend holds that the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Osman, had a dream in which the crescent moon stretched from one end of the earth to the other. Taking this as a good omen, he chose to keep the crescent and make it the symbol of his dynasty. There is speculation that the five points on the star represent the five pillars of Islam, but this is pure conjecture. The five points were not standard on the Ottoman flags, and as you will see on the following page, it is still not standard on flags used in the Muslim world today.

For hundreds of years, the Ottoman Empire ruled over the Muslim world. After centuries of battle with Christian Europe, it is understandable how the symbols of this empire became linked in people's minds with the faith of Islam as a whole.

Based on this history, many Muslims reject using the crescent moon as a symbol of Islam. The faith of Islam has historically had no symbol, and many refuse to accept what is essentially an ancient pagan icon. It is certainly not in uniform use among Muslims.

Dear Truth Seekers: Please pickup a copy of the Holy Bible in Arabic and ask any of your Arabic speaking friend to read loudly the first page from the Old Testament. Keep counting how many times he reads the word "Allah"? I guarantee, it is at least half a dozen times. If "Allah" of the Holy Qur'an is the "moon-god", what is "Allah" of the Holy Bible? I hope Dr. Morey has an answer!!!

A Christian reader responded to me, after reading the article on "moon-god" that the "Muslim Rulers" were so ruthless that they would not allow the circulation of any Bible in Arabic that would dare substitute the word "Allah" with any other word. I asked him; what about the copies that are being presently published and circulated from North America and Europe? Needless to mention, he did not respond.

The Home Of The Research And Education Foundation should rather first undertake the job collecting copies of the "tainted" Arabic Bible from their fellow Christians and replacing them with copies that have no trace of "moon-god", before asking Muslims to clean their houses.

Finally, Jesus Christ and many of his disciples spoke Aramaic. In the Aramaic language the word for the Almighty God is ‘Allaha’ and the name of Jesus is 'Iessa'. There are records of Jesus praying in Aramaic to his God 'Allaha". Was Christ also misguided by the Pagan Arabs?

I don't know but everyone wants a piece of the moon don't they. Might have something to do with the Jews going by the moon and mazaroth for their calendar, after all they did take the Temple so why not?

Very popular the moon is.

Yes. The crescent moon is of pagan origin; remember Arabia was Pagan before becoming Muslim. SO???

The Crescent and the Star is NOT representing Almighty Allah, it was first initiated by the Ottoman Empire as their Flag, so it was seen as an Islamic Flag, in reality, Islamic Flag is the flag of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Allah is the ancient Moon God of the east, before Muhammad changed its name to Allah.

Where did you get such an idea. Allah is undescribable. The cresent moon in Islam only refers to the beginning of every islamic month because in the desesrt at that time and in the sea people were guided by the stars and moon.