I never thought the flame represented Islam to me it always stood for his moto on the campaign trail to “reignite the promise of America.”
Consider googling ‘Arabic Logos.’
I can see any number of flame-looking logos there. Altho not the color of Cruz’ flame logo, my mind ‘sees’ the Arabic logo.
If I can ‘see’ it, so can thousands of others.
Result: time spent on that unfortunate logo rather than Cruz. . .