Messenger, May God Bless Him and Grant Him Peace, Adopt the Crescent as a Symbol

Question: It was mentioned in Al-Isabah by Ibn Hajar: Sad bin Malik bin Al-Aqeesar bin Malik bin Qurai bin Dhal bin Al-Dayil bin Malik Al-Azdi Abu Al-Kanud. Ibn Yunus said that he came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him ) as a delegation, and he gave him a black banner with a white crescent on it over his people. He witnessed the conquest of Egypt and had descendants there. His son Al-Qasim bin Abi Al-Kanud narrated from him. Said bin Ufair narrated from Amr bin Zuhair bin Asmar bin Abi Al-Kanud that Abu Al-Kanud came to the delegation and mentioned it. Is this hadith authentic? Does this hadith indicate that the Messenger adopted the crescent as a symbol?

Answer:

This report that Al-Hafiz included in the biography of Abu Al-Kanud is not authentic, because `Amr bin Zuhair is unknown and not known, and it is not possible that he met his grandfather Abu Al-Kanud, for two reasons:

First: Ibn Yunus did not mention a narrator for Abu Al-Kanud other than his son Al-Qasim.

Second: Saeed bin Ufayr, the narrator of the report on the authority of Amr bin Zuhair, does not narrate on the authority of any of the Tabi’un. Rather, his most prominent sheikhs were from the followers of the Tabi’un, from their middle and junior ranks, such as: Al-Layth bin Sa’d, Malik, Ibn Lahi’ah, Sulayman bin Bilal, Yahya bin Ayoub Al-Ghafiqi, Ya’qub bin Abd Al-Rahman, Ibn Wahb, and their likes.

Therefore, Al-Hafiz counted him in At-Taqreeb as being from the tenth class.

See: “Taqreeb At-Tahdheeb” (1/362) - “Tahdheeb At-Tahdheeb” (4/66).

This is the class of the most prominent scholars who took from the followers of the Tabi’un, who did not meet the Tabi’un, such as Ahmad bin Hanbal.

See: “Taqreeb At-Tahdheeb” (1/26).

Saeed did not take from any of the Tabi’un, and therefore his sheikh in the aforementioned report, who is Amr bin Zuhair, is not from the Tabi’un. Since he did not attribute it to a chain of transmission, the report is weak and cannot be used as evidence.

Therefore, it is not valid to use it as evidence that the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, adopted the crescent as a symbol .

Second:

The adoption of

the crescent as a symbol has no known basis in Islamic law, and it was not known during the time of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace , nor during the time of his companions, may God be pleased with them, nor during the time of the followers. Since the virtuous centuries did not know it, it is not part of the Sunnah of the Muslims, but rather it was transmitted to them from others. He said in “Deaths of the Ancestors”: “Placing the crescent moon on the tops of the minarets of mosques is an innovation. **The kings of the Ottoman Empire used the crescent moon as an official symbol, **taking it from the Caesars. Its origin is that when the father of Alexander the Great attacked Byzantium, which is Constantinople, with his army on some nights, its people defended him, defeated him , and expelled him from the country. This happened at the time of dawn, so they took it as a good omen and adopted the crescent moon on their official flag as a reminder of the incident. The Caesars inherited this from them, then the Ottomans when they defeated it. Then this happened in the land of Kazan, the administrative arrangements