I wanted to write about this Tunisian stamp after coming across it one day because I was intrigued with the images on the stamp. In the foreground, you have a woman staring at a bird. Charming. In the background, you have a bespectacled dentist working on his patient who has his mouth ajar. Next to the dental patient is a sitting man who is dozing off or staring intently downwards with his eyes closed. On the left, there is another man lying down with one arm raised, either calling for help or pontificating about philosophy. In front of his bed is a man staring into a round-bottom flask. What a fascinating hodgepodge of images! Let’s make sense of it.
The stamp was issued in Tunisia on December 16, 1985 and it was designed by prominent Tunisian painter Hatem El Mekki and engraved by French engraver Claude Jumelet. The subject and woman in the stamp is Princess Aziza Othmana (عزيزة عثمانة). She was said to be born in 1606 (?) and died in 1669. This was the time of Ottoman Tunisia — Tunisia was part of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, after being taken control by Turks in early 1534, until the French colonization of Tunisia in 1881.
Princess Aziza Othmana’s real name was Fetima Othmana. “Aziza” was a nickname given to her by the people who cherished her for her generosity. In Arabic, “Aziza” means “precious” or “valuable”. It can also refer to something highly esteemed or cherished due to its rarity or quality. So cherished and well known was she that Al Jazeera even made a documentary about her 4 years ago. The documentary is ~26 minutes long and is in Arabic. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles or closed captions available.
The princess was known for her charitable acts.
She accomplished her hajj by taking her servants and slaves with her. Firstly, this was a courageous undertaking for a woman back in the 17th century because of the land and sea journey one must take (desert bandits and Barbary corsairs / pirates!). It was also seen as generous because the hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey. Servants and slaves are not rich and typically never get to go to hajj.
Towards the end of her life, she freed all of her slaves and set up a habous or waqf (charitable endowment under Islamic law) for all of her property — more than 90 thousand hectares of planted or sown land — for the benefit of a various charities: funds for freeing slaves and buying back prisoners, funds for poor girls’ wedding trousseaus, funds to house orphans, funds to feed the elderly, etc.1
Most importantly, she also founded and financed a hospital called Maristan Al-Azafin2. Later, this hospital moved and became the current Aziza Othmana Hospital - a university hospital still in operation today.3
This explains the imagery in the stamp from the beginning. The background images were of patients and physicians from the hospital she founded.
Before she passed, the princess explicitly requested in her will that there always be flowers at her tomb. Her tomb is located in a mausoleum after her namesake — Tourbet Aziza Othmana, in the Medina of Tunis4.
Digression: When I was doing research on the Internet to write this, many web search results of ‘Aziza Othmana’ kept showing a photograph of a woman. Photography wasn’t even invented until 1839, so how can it be a photo of Aziza Othmana who died in 1669?
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“Aziza Othmana.” femme.valorisation-patrimoine.nat.tn, https://web.archive.org/web/20091117194655/http://www.femme.valorisation-patrimoine.nat.tn/html/faziza.html.
‘“عزيزة عثمانة”.. الأميرة التي أغدقت مالها على فقراء تونس حية وميتة’ Al Jazeera, 19 Oct. 2021, https://doc.aljazeera.net/portrait/2021/10/19/%D8%B9%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%B2%D8%A9-%D8%B9%D8%AB%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%8A-%D8%A3%D8%BA%D8%AF%D9%82%D8%AA-%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87
Facebook, UIB - Groupe Société Générale, 9 Mar. 2021, https://www.facebook.com/societegenerale.UIB/photos/a.236081143847750/899334567522401.
“Monuments De La Medina.” Commune-Tunis.gov.tn, Municipalité De Tunis, http://www.commune-tunis.gov.tn/publish/content/article.asp?id=875.