summer solstice occurs. In the Babylonian zodiac, it became the symbol of the victory of the sun. Just as Jesus is called the Lion of Judah, and in Islamic traditions Ali Ibn Abu Talib is called the "Lion of God" (Asadullah) by Shiite Muslims, Hamzah, the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, was also called Lion of God. Iranian background The male sun had always been associated with Iranian royalty: Iranian tradition recalls that Kayanids had a golden sun as their emblem. From the Greek historians of classical antiquity it is known that a crystal image of the sun adorned the royal tent of Darius III, that the Arsacid banner was adorned with the sun, and that the Sassanid standards had a red ball symbolizing the sun. The Byzantine chronicler Malalas records that the salutation of a letter from the "Persian king, the Sun of the East," was addressed to the "Roman Caesar, the Moon of the West". The Turanian king Afrasiab is recalled as saying: "I have heard from wise men that when the Moon of the Turan rises up it will be harmed by the Sun of the Iranians." The sun was always imagined as male, and in some banners a figure of a male replaces the symbol of the sun. In others, a male figure accompanies the sun. Similarly, the lion too has always had a close association with Iranian kingship. The garments and throne decorations of the Achaemenid kings were embroidered with lion motifs. The crown of the half-Persian Seleucid king Antiochus I was adorned with a lion. In the investiture inscription of Ardashir I at Naqsh-e Rustam, the breast armour of the king is decorated with lions. Further, in some Iranian dialects the word for king (shah) is pronounced as sher, homonymous with the word for lion. Islamic, Turkish, and Mongol influences also stressed the symbolic association of the lion and royalty. The earliest evidence for the use of a lion on a standard comes from the Shahnameh, which noted that the feudal house of Godarz (presumably a family of Parthian or Sassanid times) adopted a golden lion for its devices. Islamic, Turkic, Mongolic roots Islamic, Turkic, and Mongol traditions stressed the symbolic association of the lion and royalty in the lion and sun motif. These cultures reaffirmed the charismatic power of the sun and the Mongols re-introduced the veneration of the sun, especially the