OFFICIAL FIRST DAY COVER AND FOUR-STAMP SET
Designer: Sheikh Abdullah Farhan
Issued by Sultanate of Zanzibar
1383 AH/1963 CE
This four-stamp set was issued to celebrate the independence gained by the Sultanate of
Zanzibar from British colonial rule that had lasted for over a century.
The set illustrates the main attributes of the Sultanate of Zanzibar – the clove standing
against a rising morning sun, an elaborately decorated wooden window frame that opens
towards the horizon with the inscription Uhuru, which means freedom in Swahili, and the
inscription in English ‘To Prosperity’. Another stamp illustrates Mangapwani caves with
the inscription ‘Towards the Light’. The last stamp was designed by Sheikh Abdullah
Farhan, a leading art teacher in Zanzibar, and is dedicated to the subject of religious
tolerance with illustrations from left to right showing the Roman Catholic cathedral of St
Joseph, the Anglican Christ Church cathedral, the Malindi Minaret Mosque, the Shia
Hujjat al-Islam Mosque at Hamamni and the Shree Shiv Shakti Mandir Hindu temple.
This set of stamps, the first and the only one to be issued post-independence, stands as a
manifestation of the Zanzibar government’s vision to create a prosperous, cosmopolitan,
multicultural and tolerant nation.
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