The Sun is the star at the center of our solar system. It is unbelievably bright, measured in watts, some 380 followed by 24 zeros! The whole reason the Sun is so bright is because it is so hot. Its energy is generated by thermonuclear reactions at about 15 million kelvins. In Plato's VI Republic, a foundation of western thought, Socrates proposes that just as the Sun illumines the visible with light so the idea of goodness illumines the intelligible with truth. In later chapters, through the allegory of the cave, he proposes that those who have ascended to the highest level, where the Sun (truth) shines, must not remain there but must return to the cave and dwell with the prisoners, sharing in their labors and honors. Who might those be?
Let us now look at the Moon. The light coming from the Moon is in fact an illusion. We are actually seeing the reflected light from the Sun, bouncing off the Moon which acts like a mirror. A really terrible mirror. The Moon only reflects about 12% of the light that hits it. During its first and last quarters, the Moon is half illuminated, but it’s only 8% as bright when it’s full. This means that the crescent Moon reflects just slightly less than 1% of the sun's light, 0.96% to be exact.
Islam uses the crescent Moon as a symbol. How much Sun is there in the crescent? Roughly 1%, as indicated above. All borrowed from the Sun. Does this explain the amount of truth that makes it to the Muslim world, mirrored off a really bad surface, the Quran?
Think about Plato's Sun, and the light of the crescent Moon next time, and every time, Islam makes absolutely no sense to you.
