Coat of arms stamps, 1892

The Ottoman Coat of Arms appeared as the central motif on the 1892 issue. This stamp was the first to be designed and issued during the reign of Abdul Hamid  II. It is highly likely that he had a key role in the choice of design.

20 paras stamp of the 1892 issue (printed by the office of the Dette Publique Ottomane, Istanbul)

At the very centre of a modified coat of arms and the dead centre of the stamp itself is Abdul Hamid  II, represented by his tughra and al Ghazi insignia.

The coat of arms has been modified to give centrality to Abdul Hamid’s tughra, but also for aesthetic reasons, given the constraints on space.

The centrality of the Sultan on the stamp is symbolic of the political situation at the time. The brief experiment in parliamentary democracy begun one month after Abdul Hamid  became the Sultan in 1876, which replaced the Tanzimat Era with the First Constitutional Era, was ended by Abdul Hamid  when he suspended the constitution and Parliament in 1878.

The First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire was the period of constitutional monarchy supported by the Young Ottomans, that began on 23 December 1876 and lasted until 14 February 1878. These Young Ottomans were dissatisfied by the Tanzimat and instead pushed for a constitutional government similar to that in Europe. The constitutional period started with the dethroning of Sultan Abdülaziz and enthronement of Murad V. Abdul Hamid II took Murad's place as Sultan following only a brief three month reign. The era ended with the suspension of the Ottoman Parliament and the constitution by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, after which he established his own absolute monarchy or sultanate.

The calligraphy and revivalist arabesque design features (unique to each stamp value) of the 1892 issue present an Islamic aesthetic that was wholly in keeping with Abdul Hamid’s Islamist state ideology.

Latin script was kept to the absolute minimum required by the Universal Postal Union. The calligraphy at the centre-top is in the script of Jeli Diwani, which make no consessions to readabilty other than to scholarly Ottoman eyes. This kind of calligraphy is distinguished by the intertwining of its letters and its straight lines from top to bottom. The diacritical marks and decoration are placed to make the individual words appear as one piece, a symbol to be recognised rather than words to be read. It does in fact read as - from right to left - ‘Postai devleti aliyeyi Osmaniye’, which translates as ‘Post of the Sublime Ottoman Empire’. The Diwani calligraphy is known for the intertwining of its letters, which makes it very difficult to read or write, and difficult to forge.

So, in the 1892 issue we see symbolically represented the absolutist monarchy and Islamist state ideology of the Ottoman Empire under Abdul Hamid II.