The al-Quds star (Arabic نجمة القدس, najmat al-Quds, “star of Jerusalem”) is an eight-pointed star associated, as its name suggests, with Jerusalem. It is said to be inspired by the octagonal ground-plan of the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem as well as by the Rub el Hizb symbol ۞.
Siddhartha Mukherjee writes in his illuminating article on Humayun’s mausoleum that
the eight-pointed star has also been observed to have existed in various renditions with civilizations and cultures. <...> The Islamic Najmat-al-Quds and its predecessor the Rub-el-Hizb, however, are two unique variations of the eight-pointed star that inherits at its core a set of overlapping squares and a symbol that can be more strongly and clearly traced to similar Roman-Byzantine designs that existed in the east <than to the star of Ishtar>, especially during Christianity’s early phase. Attested by findings in Akhmim, upper Egypt, by archaeologist Albert Kendrick in 1920, which revealed their existence in Christian graves, dating back to between the 2nd and 4th century A.D. — approximately two hundred years before the advent of Islam.
More photos of stars, octagrams and sea glass @ Shutterstock.
No comments:
Post a Comment