Our theologians have not regarded the second Commandment as a condemnation of the making of pictures, though many an earnest believer, during the phases of pictorial frenzy through which we have passed and are still passing, may have regarded the picture paper and the picture palace as abominations of Satan's work.
The new pictorial stamps of Turkey have dispelled one of the mellow myths of our cult, a myth which, perhaps, was simply an exaggeration of a prohibition which is more in common with Western ideas than with Western practices. For instance, there have been recorded seizures of pictorial postcards in Turkey, attributed to the Muhammedan law; but these probably concerned cards which gave offence to Muslim susceptibilities by their blatant portrayal of the unveiled faces (inter alia) of women. If the prohibition of pictures in the past has been no myth, and the late departure from precedent is the result of the advent of the New Turk, then, indeed, the New Turk hath courage, for each true believer of the Prophet must needs regard every new-born child, whether a creature of the flesh or of the mind, as a thing that is touched by Satan.
Yet one other illusion concerning Turkish stamps has been shattered of recent years. We are told now that the Crescent, so long an emblem of the Sublime Empire, owes nothing to the moon. The barking of dogs on the appearance of the moon at the siege of Byzantium may have saved the city, and the partial eclipse of the orb of night may have aided the Turks at the capture of Constantinople, but the Turkish Crescent is no memorial thereof, merely a horse-shoe or an amulet. Professor Ridgeway says it is the result of the base-to-base conjunction of two claw or tusk amulets. Says another writer, "There is no historical evidence that the Turks thought at all of the moon when they adopted a crescent as their national symbol."
Turkey's first departure from the Thoughra device for its stamps was in 1913, when a set of crude picture stamps displayed an alleged view of the new General Post Office at Constantinople (Fig. 280). Later in the same year a finely-engraved set of three denominations, 10, 20, and 40 paras, was issued to commemorate the recapture on July 22, 1913, of the fortress of Adrianople after the Balkan War. The design,
which was engraved in London, shows a view of the Mosque of Selim (Fig. 281).
280 281
On January 15, 1914, a fine new set of London-printed stamps was issued depicting a number of scenes in the Turkish Empire and a portrait of H.M. Sultan Muhammed V. Incidentally some of the designs are of warlike interest, notably the cruiser Hamidieh on the 2 piastres ([Fig. 272]), Turkish War Office on the 5 piastres ([Fig. 274]), and the forts of the Bosphorus on the 50 piastres ([Fig. 277]).
The vignettes of the full set of the 1914 issue are:
| 2 | paras, | mauve. | Hippodrome Obelisk. |
| 4 | " | sepia. | Column of Constantine. |
| 5 | " | purple-brown. | The Seven Towers. |
| 6 | " | deep blue. | Leander's Tower. |
| 10 | " | green. | Fanaraki. |
| 20 | " | scarlet. | Castle of Europe. |
| 1 | piastre, | bright blue. | Sultan Ahmed Mosque. |
| 1½ | " | carmine and black. | Martyr's Monument. |
| 1¾ | " | grey and red-brown. | Bathing Fountains of Salem. |
| 2 | piastres, | green and black. | Cruiser Hamidieh. |
| 2½ | " | orange and green. | Candilli. |
| 5 | " | deep lilac. | Ministry of War. |
| 10 | " | red-brown. | Sweet Waters of Europe. |
| 25 | " | dull yellow-green. | Suleimanieh Mosque. |
| 50 | " | rose. | The Bosphorus. |
| 100 | " | indigo. | Sultan Ahmed's Fountain. |
| 200 | " | green and black. | Sultan Muhammed V. |