the islamic crescent is a symbol consisting of a crescent with a star at the concave side. in its modern form, the star is usually shown with five points (though in earlier centuries a higher number of points was often used). the two signs together, or the crescent only, was long a symbol of byzantium and also appeared on coins of the sassanid empire. now it is often a symbol of islam. it is seen on a number of different country flags such as turkey, libya, maldives, algeria, azerbaijan, malaysia, singapore, turkmenistan, uzbekistan, tunisia, western sahara, comoros, north cyprus, mauritania, pakistan respectively.