Visual Chronicles: A Collection of Stamps Housed in Amman Tells Stories of Jerusalem

The world of stamps demonstrates that the tiniest imprint of ink could have deep significance for cultural and historical memory. What stamps from a given time and place depict tell a great deal about how stamp-makers—philatelists—understood and wished to preserve of that location’s history, political identity, architecture, culture, and people, and how they wanted to present it to the world. Indeed, traveling across borders, these miniature artful portraits reflect what their creators deemed worth printing for the world to see at a given time, and perhaps also why.

This Blog Post is inspired by visits to the Jordan Stamp Museum and the gallery of Jalil Tannous, both located in Amman, Jordan, as well as by follow-up discussions with experts on the stamps of Jordan and their connection to the history of Jerusalem.

Following a brief introduction to the history of stamp collection and preservation and its significance in the historic documentation of Jerusalem, this Blog Post explores the importance of the Jerusalem stamp to the interconnected histories of Jordan and Palestine in the early 20th century before partition. The piece ends with a discussion of the importance of this interconnection in the Hashemite legacy of custodianship over the Christian and Muslim holy sites of Jerusalem, which is also preserved in the stamps.

Stamp collecting, known as philately, started in the mid-19th century. It is believed that the world’s first postage stamp, the Penny Black, was issued in the United Kingdom in 1840,1 and that John Edward Gray was the first to deliberately purchase a block of those stamps for preservation, in 1862. Thereafter, the pastime spread.2 Millions of people have been collecting postage stamps ever since.

By broadening one’s knowledge of history, geography, culture, peoples, and more, philately enhances cognitive skills and sharpens the mind. It also helps in individual knowledge retention and in creating a collective archive of significant moments and achievements in human history for posterity.

“I never really liked history as a subject, until I developed a passion for stamps,”3 says Jalil Tannous, the president of the Jordan Philatelic and Numismatic Society. A connoisseur of stamps pertaining to holy sites in the region, Jalil owns a gallery in Amman with rare collections of stamps, coins, and valuable historic documents. In 2020, he published a book in Arabic titled, The City of Jerusalem in World Stamps, offering an extensive overview of all stamps of Jerusalem connected to Jordan and Palestine since the Ottoman period.

“Stamp collecting enabled me to add the pieces together and form an understanding of historic events,” Jalil says. In high-resolution and colored images, his book offers a generous array of stamps of Jerusalem throughout the decades, as well as stamps printed of Jerusalem by neighboring countries—namely, Jordan.

The stamps of Jerusalem, as Jalil explains, portray the city’s deep-rooted culture and history, as well as its regional significance. These miniature symbols traversed long distances by land, air, and sea to ultimately shape an image of the historic city in global public opinion.

A man devoted to his trade, Jalil explains that he generally divides his stamps into six categories, giving a sense of their function and global scope:

• Definitive stamps are for regular, everyday use.
• Commemorative stamps honor or commemorate anniversaries.
• Airmail stamps, commonly referred to as “par avion,” are used for mail sent by air.
• Service stamps are used by governments or consulates.
• Special stamps are for charities and humanitarian causes.
• Stamps of international associations represent their organization’s mission, values, or primary function.

“A stamp is a formal certification of a country’s existence,” Jalil explains. The issuance of each reflects a specific date and occasion, demonstrating how the philatelist decided to represent it to the world for perpetuity. Jalil’s book showcases the different transitions that the stamps of Jerusalem underwent between the Ottoman, British, and Jordanian periods. Through them, he evidences Jerusalem’s Palestinian culture, past and present.

As Jalil shows in his book, the Ottomans were the first to issue a stamp with the image of the Dome of the Rock in 1917. This stamp indicated the Ottoman para currency (pronounced barra in Arabic).4 Upon Britain’s occupation of Palestine in December 1917, British forces began issuing stamps bearing the letters “EEF,” in reference to the 1916 British military formation, the Egyptian Expedition Force. The stamp also included the overprint with the word “paid.”

It was Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner for Palestine between 1920 and 1925, who commissioned the stamps to bear the name “Palestine” in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. Tobias Zywietz, editor of the Middle East Philatelic Bulletin, explained that “Palestine,” written in the three languages with the overprint “EEF,” was reported by the London-based Philatelic Magazine as early as 1920.5

Palestinian historian Sahar Huneidi explains how this 1920 stamp bearing the word “Palestine” was ironically significant for the creation of the State of Israel.6 “Israel was first born on a postage stamp,”7 she declares intriguingly, in reference to Herbert Samuel’s commitment to the Zionist project, preparations for which he oversaw, sometimes without the British government’s awareness or approval. She writes:

Though often overlooked or understudied, stamps can ultimately offer invaluable historical details, including about geography and the politics of naming—two crucial fields when it comes to Palestine.

Studying stamps of Jerusalem in Amman cannot be completed without a visit to the Philatelic Directorate and Stamp Museum, officially established in its current location in Amman in 2011. The museum houses an extensive collection of stamps following the Ottoman period, starting with the Faisali era and the Colonial British Mandate years, through the years of independence onward. As any visitor will quickly surmise, the stamps therein demonstrate the historic interconnectedness of Palestine and Jordan.

The earliest stamp collection from Jordan, notes Nour Abu Ghaida, director of the museum, is from 1921,9 which coincides with the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan as a British protectorate in the same year.10 By 1925, stamps from Transjordan (after 1949, renamed Jordan) were simply the same ones printed in Jerusalem with the overprint “East of Jordan” (i.e., the Jordan River) displayed on them in Arabic.11

As Nour explains, stamps of Jordan “were first printed in Jerusalem, Palestine, which is where the printers were.” The overprints on the stamps changed over time, she describes, indicating the political and historic developments in the region that saw the division of southern Greater Syria into Palestine and Transjordan as part of British and French colonial designs.

Nour shares that she is in awe of the rarity of the stamps of Jordan. “Many people around the world, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews, have particular interest in these stamps,” she says. The stamps in the museum, as she sees it, offer a historic account not just of Jordan, but also of Palestine, and most notably of Jerusalem.

Prominent Amman-based photographer Razan Fakhouri also keeps an impressive collection of stamps from the area. As Razan explains, every stamp was “designed, printed, and issued for a distinct purpose with a specific date.”12 She likens this to capturing a photo, which “becomes an official witness to identity.”

Jalil’s publications and exhibitions of the stamps of Jerusalem, Razan confirms, “have a key role in preserving the people’s history and identity, while also denying the Zionist claim about Palestine being ‘a land without a people for a people without a land.’”

Collecting stamps, she explains, is not merely about accumulation. Rather, it stems from a deep interest in studying, questioning, relating to, and connecting with the narrative captured in time by these tiny, tangible, and invaluable truths. “A stamp is never just a stamp,” she adds. “It offers a library of stories, a museum of miniature art.”

Razan considers that the stamps of Palestine and Jordan in particular serve as proof of the deep history of the region’s people, rooted in the land and culture. “It’s not a distant concept, but a reality etched into every postmark.” In this respect, Razan is inclined to move beyond the overemphasis on religious sites and symbols and redirect the focus to people and their stories. She also insists on rejecting the colonial borders—the “manmade lines”—that created the political labels of “Palestine,” “Jordan,” “Lebanon,” and “Syria.” She opts, instead, to stress the collective identity of the “people of Greater Syria”—the intertwined entity rooted in the rich and unique history of the land.

The king of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan remains the official and internationally recognized custodian safeguarding Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites.13 This legacy dates back to 1924, when the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem chose Sharif Hussein bin Ali, leader of the 1916–18 Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during World War I, as custodian of al-Aqsa Mosque. Following Sharif Hussein, the role of custodianship has passed down through consecutive Jordanian kings to this day.14

Hashemite connection to Jerusalem may have started with Sharif Hussein’s custodianship of al-Aqsa Mosque, but the late king emphasized the protection of Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Arab rule. He issued various proclamations stressing that minorities were all equal citizens of the Arab lands, and his call in the Great Arab Revolt was not framed as a Muslim struggle, but rather as a collective Arab nationalist one against Ottoman repression.

An important example of this was Sharif Hussein’s 1917 public condemnation of the atrocities committed by the Ottomans against the Armenians and other minorities of the empire, including the Greeks and Assyrians. In fact, the Armenian National Institute in Yerevan attests that the king was the first head of state to publicly declare the condemnation of the Armenian genocide.15 Many survivors attributed their survival to the fact that Sharif Hussein saved up to 4,000 people by giving them refuge in Arab lands, especially Jerusalem.16

Prince Ali Bin al-Hussein, son of Jordan’s late king Hussein bin Talal, stated that he was “honored . . . to know that my great great grandfather was the first to stand up in the face of genocide.”17

This important Hashemite legacy in Jerusalem persists. King Abdullah II of Jordan has frequently stressed Jordan’s key role in “preserving the city’s identity and its legal status, as well as the historic status quo in relation to holy sites, Islamic and Christian alike”18 (see What Is the Status Quo?). In an interview with CNN in 2022, he affirmed Jordan’s role in providing safety and security for Christians in the region:

Historically, Jordan’s custodianship of Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites was also reflected through stamps. Among them is a set of 14 stamps and miniature sheets issued by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan commemorating the Passion of Jesus Christ, the final stages of his life before crucifixion. This comprehensive collection, all from the Old City of Jerusalem, is illustrated with Arabic and English inscriptions.20

“You’ll find a wide array of Jordan-issued stamps celebrating, commemorating, appreciating, and recalling Christian presence and holy sites in Jerusalem,” Nour tells Jerusalem Story. “You’ll see more images of the Ibrahimi Mosque and Jerusalem than images of Petra and the kings of Jordan,” she adds.

Beyond the Via Dolorosa set, the museum in Amman houses stamps depicting the meeting of the late king Hussein with Pope Paul VI in 1964, with images of both figures with Jerusalem in the background. Another set from 1964 commemorates the inauguration of the Dome of the Rock.

The collections presented at the Stamp Museum in Amman speak to the significance of Jerusalem to the Hashemite Kingdom, both culturally, through a shared religious history forcibly partitioned by colonial forces, and politically, through the enduring legacy of Hashemite custodianship.