Research

Over the past years I have examined how postage stamps serve as powerful tools of political messaging and historical storytelling. By analyzing the visual language of these miniature government documents including their imagery, symbols, and geographic representations, I uncover how they have been used to assert national identity, promote territorial claims, and navigate shifting political landscapes in the Middle East.

In “Visualizing Palestine in Arab Postage Stamps: 1948–1967” I argue that from 1948 to 1967, Arab regimes treated Palestine’s borders as flexible constructs: Egypt portrayed Gaza as part of a broader Arab nation, Jordan saw the West Bank as both part of its kingdom and a placeholder for a future Palestinian state, and all Arab states acknowledged that these areas had been part of British Mandatory Palestine.

I analyze how Jordan used stamps to project its religious and political authority over Jerusalem in “Jordanian Stamps of Islamic Holy Sites in Jerusalem: 1967–1989.” Featuring iconic Islamic sites such as the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, these stamps emphasized the Hashemite monarchy’s custodianship over Muslim holy places as an essential element of Jordan’s domestic legitimacy and international diplomacy.

In “The Hashemite Regime on Jordanian Postage Stamps: A Visual History of Nation-Building” I trace how Jordan systematically used stamps to cultivate a unifying national narrative centered on the Hashemite dynasty. Portraits of kings, national symbols, and historical references served to strengthen Hashemite rule and promote a unified Jordanian national identity during times of regional instability and internal transformation.

Additionally, in “Maps of the West Bank in Jordanian Postage Stamps, 1952–1985” I argue that Jordanian stamps aligned with official Hashemite policy by portraying the West Bank as both part of Jordan and Palestine. This dual representation symbolized that administratively the West Bank was part of Jordan and morally and nationally it had been a central part of Mandatory Palestine.

“The Arab-Iranian Stamp War Over the Persian Gulf: 1949-1973” reveals how the Persian Gulf naming dispute was represented on Arab and Iranian postage stamps. Spanning 1949 to 1973, it explains and analyzes how Iran used stamps to assert its claim and national identity, while Arab states, influenced by pan-Arabism, prioritized their philatelic messaging on anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian imagery.

My latest study, “Imagining Palestine in Iranian Stamps: 1980-1987,” argues that Iranian stamp depictions of Jerusalem and the Palestinians aim to reframe the Arab-Israeli conflict from an ethnic and territorial dispute to a religious and ideological conflict.