looking at the heading i could not resist commenting that as far as my knwledge is concerned, the symbol of crescent has no authentic significance in Islaam...

it is one of the attributes of non-Muslims to pick a symbol and attribute some religious importance to it... and sadly, many Muslims follow... with crescents, stars, cubes in the shape of ka'aba, more recently AK-47's and others...

Islaam is not about symbols...

MOCKBA

Mockba said: "Islam is not about symbols..."

I agree with you, but I think this is not haram. People associate with that kind of things, just make it easy to remember and recognized. I think there is benefit of it even though just a little. For example if we go to someplace that we don't know the language and you want to find a mosque or a church or a synagogue, the symbol will be very useful. It's very easy to differentiate the mosque with other building because the doom or crescent or arabic character, you even can see it from distance.

So we don't need to waste our energy to argue the crescent, doom or etc are OK or not. If you like it, use it; if not, don't use it.

semar wrote: I agree with you, but I think this is not haram. ... If you like it, use it; if not, don't use it.

When it comes to classifying haraam and halaal we must be very careful and not propose something out of our own thinking. It is better to leave something unclassified... leaving it for qualified people to handle.

Similarly our "likes" and "dislikes" are not to navigate religious matters and practices of our daily lives... Mosques are best located by keeping in touch with brothers and sisters in Islaam, which at the same time helps strengthen the bond.

I totally agree with you that time should not be wasted on a topic like this. However, as mentioned earlier was too much tempted to comment... perhaps due to it's simplicity. Although, within generations to come this 'crescent phenomenon' may evolve into something distant from Islaam much closer to  today's 'cross phenomenon'.

Ma'a salaam.

MOCKBA