☪️ Star and Crescent emoji

The Star and Crescent emoji ☪️ was approved under Unicode 1.1 in 1993. On most major platforms, the emoji depicts a white crescent moon with a white star to its right on a purple square with rounded corners. The Microsoft version depicts a sharp-cornered square with a bolded black outline. The WhatsApp version of the emoji depicts a tilted crescent moon.

The star and crescent moon is often seen as a symbol—although unofficial—of the religion of Islam. This symbol appears on the flags of many Muslim countries and is often used to refer to Islam in popular culture. For this reason, the Star and Crescent emoji ☪️ is often used to refer to Islam and Muslims. In this sense, it is used similarly to other emoji that depict religious symbols such as the Latin Cross emoji ✝️ representing Christianity, the Star of David emoji ✡️ representing Judaism, and the Wheel of Dharma emoji ☸️ representing Buddhism and other Indian religions.

The popular association of the star and crescent moon with Islam is due to its use by the Muslim Ottoman Empire, who controlled a large portion of southeastern Europe for centuries. However, the star and crescent symbols are not Islamic in origin and predate the Muslim religion. For this reason, some Muslims refuse to accept the star and crescent as the symbol of Islam.