Publications and Research

Autumn 1998

Lower inflation: Benefits and costs by Don Coletti and Brian O'Reilly Currency crises and fixed exchange rates in the 1990s: A review by Patrick Osakwe and Lawrence Schembri The LVTS—Canada's large-value transfer system by Jim Dingle A primer on the implementation of monetary policy in the LVTS environment by Donna Howard

Cover: Ottoman five-kurush piece

In Islamic nations, portraiture was prohibited under religious law, and therefore the coinage bore no portraits, just artistically arranged inscriptions. One of the most distinctive of these Islamic renditions is shown on the Ottoman five-kurush piece on the cover.

The symbol on the coin, a "tughra," was used for centuries as the official mark of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire and appeared on coins, notes, stamps, and other documents. It was said to have originated with Sultan Murad I (1360–1389) who, unable to sign his name, dipped his hand in ink and pressed it onto the paper of a treaty. The three vertical strokes of the tughra supposedly represent the ring, index, and middle fingers; the extension to the right, the small finger; and the curved line to the left, the thumb. From sultan to sultan, the general design of the tughra remained the same, but each sultan's mark was distinctive, consisting of a complex monogram formed by the ruler's name, that of his father, the title khan, and the epithet, 'ever victorious.' The tughra was typically centred on the obverse of the coin with various symbols to the right and the regnal year of the sultan below.

This coin was struck during the fifteenth year of the reign of Sultan Abdul-Medjid (1839–1861). It forms part of a series of machine-struck coins called "Medjidie," a series introduced in the fifth year of this sultan's reign and continuing until the sultanate was abolished in 1922.

This piece is silver and about the size of a twenty-five cent piece. It forms part of the National Currency Collection at the Bank of Canada.

Photography by James Zagon.