ARABIC STAR

:''For stars with Arabic names, see List of Arabic star names.''
The 'Arabic star' is a punctuation mark developed to be distinct from the asterisk (
★ ). The asterisk had existed in feudal times, and the original shape of the asterisk was six-pointed, each point like a teardrop coming from the center. However, some typewriters had difficulty printing the six arms distinctly. Furthermore, due to Arab-Israeli tension, many Arabs would not buy typewriters with a six-armed symbol, which they identified with the Star of David on the Israeli flag. Hence many systems use a distinct symbol referred to as the "Arabic star".^[1]
The Arabic star is given a distinct character in Unicode, U+066D, in the space reserved for the Arabic alphabet. The official name is "Arabic five-pointed star."^[2]
In many modern fonts, however, the asterisk is five-pointed, and the Arabic star is sometimes six- or eight-pointed. The two symbols are compared below (the display depends on your browser's font).

Asterisk	Arabic star	five-pointed star	six-pointed star	eight-pointed star
★	٭	★	✶	✴

Contents

See also

References

External links

See also

★ Star (glyph)

References

1. Persian Asterisk from PersianComputing forum
2. Unicode Arabic five-pointed star

External links

★ Windows Programming/Unicode/Character reference/0000-0FFF