Halbmond und Stern? Ein altes osmanisches Feldzeichen und ein neuer Deutungsansatz

摘要

The origins of the emblems on the Turkish flag, usually described as a crescent and a star, have yet to be fully clarified. This paper takes a new approach to this problem by interpreting the symbols as a crescent and a sun. The crescent was already used as a symbol on banners by the early Turkic peoples. In the ancient Near East, sun and moon were symbols of world supremacy. The Romans and the Byzantines adopted this symbolism, the Christians applied it to Christ as kosmokrator, and Christian rulers later used it. It was thus a mixture of Turkish, oriental and Islamic as well as imperial and Christian representations of world supremacy. It was then adopted by the Ottomans - who blended Turkish and Mongolian claims to world supremacy with Roman and Byzantine thinking - and used on their military flags. From there, it was taken for the modern Turkish flags.