Rub el Hizb

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The Rub el Hizb (Arabic: رُبْع الحِزْب, romanized: rubʿ al-ḥizb, lit. 'quarter of the party')^[1] is an Islamic symbol in the shape of an octagram, represented as two overlapping squares ۞. While its main utility today is to mark a division inside some copies of the Quran to facilitate recitation, it has originally featured on a number of emblems and flags in the past and continues to do so today. It has traditionally been called the Seljuk Star.

In Arabic, rubʿ means 'one-fourth' or 'quarter', while ḥizb (plural aḥzāb) translates to 'a group'. The Quran is divided into 60 aḥzāb (groups of roughly equal length in turn grouped into 30 ajzāʾ), with instances of Rub el Hizb further dividing each ḥizb into four, for a total of 240 divisions.