The first secular school for girls in the Muslim East was opened in Baku, Azerbaijan. This article is about the story of the opening of the school and the challenges Taghiyev faced.
Written by Yusif Babayev
The first secular school for girls in the Muslim East was opened in Baku, Azerbaijan. The school was financed and funded by Azerbaijani millionaire Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev. At that time, it was not easy to open such a school for girls in a Muslim country. The local clergy did not approve of the idea of educating girls and incited the public, saying that this action was a betrayal of religion. However, despite all these difficulties, the school opened on 7 October 1901. What difficulties did Taghiyev face? Let’s find out.
Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, who wanted to open secular school for Muslim girls in Baku, asked Emperor Alexander III for permission, but his request was denied. In 1894, when Nicholas II ascended the Russian throne, Taghiyev once again tried to obtain permission. In 1895 Zeynalabdin Taghiyev attended the coronation of Nicholas II and presented very expensive, valuable gifts to Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra Fyodorova. Here he reiterated his request, proposing to name the school after the tsar’s wife, Alexandra Fyodorova. Two years later, he received official approval. With permission granted, Taghiyev, thinking that the difficult part of the work had been solved, immediately set to work, but several more difficulties awaited him ahead.
Permission was granted and now it was time to select a suitable place for the school building and begin construction. Despite Taghiyev’s efforts, the solution to the problem was artificially delayed by the Russian imperial administration. As a result, considerable amount of time was spent on determining the location of the school building. It was decided to build the school next to the Ismailiyya Palace building. In fact, it was planned to build a Mosque on the school grounds, but due to various obstacles, this project could not be realized. Taghiyev entrusted the construction project of the school building to I.V. Goslovsky, who was the chief architect of Baku in 1892–1904. Goslovsky began construction work in 1898. 2 years later, the building was ready. Taghiyev spent 183,533 rubles to build the school. Great intellectuals of the time supported Taghiyev in bringing the school to life.
As I mentioned above, there were some difficulties that Taghiyev faced after obtaining permission, one of which was the artificial delay of the work by the Russian imperial authorities, and the other was the local clergy. The local clerics was against the opening of a secular school for girls.
The clerics, outraged by the proposal to educate girls in secular school, incited the public against this idea. Conservative clerics threatened families who wanted to enroll their daughters in the school. According to some sources, one of the progressive Islamic clerics who enrolled his two daughters in school was killed by conservative. The old-fashioned, conservative people of that time also wanted to kill Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, as they considered it a great sin for Azerbaijani girls to study in secular school.
Local Muslim authorities continued to oppose the establishment of a secular all-girls school and referred to the teachings of Muslim scholars worldwide. In response, Taghiyev send representatives to the main places of Islamic worship — Mecca, Medina, Karbala, Mashhad, Cairo, Istanbul and Teheran to meet with the world’s most prominent Muslim clergy and have them sign a document in which they confirmed that Islam did not forbid Muslim girls to study secular disciplines, just like boys. Molla Mirza Muhammad returned to the country. with the 8 world-renowned Islamic Scholars signatures. Taghiyev arranged a meeting with the Baku Imams at the mosque. He pressented the signatures and in his speech…
Part of the Taghiyev’s speech:
“People, it is important that our girls recieve modern education. Their eyes will be opened, they will be comfortable with difficulties. Molla Ali, son of Haji Khalil, Listen! Day before yesterday your twenty-year-old daughter was sick and she almost died. You brought male doctor, he examined your daughter, gave her medicine and she was saved from death. Now tell me, if there was a Muslim female dactor instead of a male doctor, which would have been more correct according to Sharia? We are in dire need of female doctors, female teachers. I decided to open that school, after the kingdom called us savages. I invested a lot of money into this and had a building built for this purpos”…
Initially, the school was intended to enroll 50 students. 20 of them were to be educated with Haji’s donation. However, the number of applicants to the school exceeded 50 in the very first year. On 7 September 1901, the the Empress Alexandra Russian Muslim Boarding School for Girls officially opened with 58 female students, 35 of them from working-class families. The protests had already subsided, and when the Empress sent a congratulatory telegram to the students, protests completely stopped. The entire population of the city gathered for the opening of the school. The newspaper “Kaspi” described the event as follows: “The beautiful mansion on Nikolayevsky Street was decorated with flags. The large hall on the second floor was filled with guests and city dignitaries at 12 noon. After the speeches made about the establishment and construction of the school, a choir of girls who would study at the school performed several Azerbaijani songs. Then the congratulatory telegrams sent to the school were read.” These congratulatory telegrams were among the letters that Taghiyev received from St. Petersburg, Kazan, Crimea and Central Asia. With the opening of the Empress Alexandra Russian-Muslim Girls’ School or popularly known as Taghiyev’s Girls’ School, the foundation of secular female education in Azerbaijan was laid.
The school provided 4 years of education. Girls started school at the age of 7 and stayed in school. Students wore European-style uniforms with white collars and hoods. Classes were conducted in Russian. In addition to the Azerbaijani language, mathematics, geography, music and drama classes were also held. In addition to these, they took embroidery, housework and religion classes. Over the years, the school’s reputation grew. Haji donated a large amount of money and obtained the status of a Girls’ Seminary for the school, and the school. became a 6-year school.