Science and education in Western Azerbaijan
The names of hundreds of sciences, cultural, art and religion figures who were born and grew up in Western Azerbaijan are engraved in the history of Azerbaijan. Travelers, chroniclers, and researchers who visited Yerevan at different times described the city of Yerevan as an advanced scientific and cultural center of the East. Today the works of Yerevan intellectuals, scientists, cultural and religious figures are kept in various libraries, archives and museums of the world.
In the Middle Ages, after the establishment of beylerbey and khanate administrations in Yerevan, favorable conditions for the development of science and culture were created. Unfortunately, as a result of the migration processes that occurred due to the devastating wars and natural disasters, only a small number of works written in that period have survived. At the beginning of the 19th century, after the occupation of the Iravan Khanate by Russian troops, a significant part of the wealthy and intelligent elite of Iravan left the city. There is information about dozens of scientific and cultural figures in foreign countries who were originally from Yerevan, and wrote their works under the surname and pseudonym “Iravani”. At the end of the 19th century, the outstanding Azerbaijani literary critic and educator Firudin Bey Kocherli, who worked in Yerevan for some time, rightly called Yerevan the city of “central ulema, fuzela and shuera” – that is, the city of ulemas, virtues and poets. It is possible to get a lot of information about science and education in the city of Yerevan from the works of individual authors, statistical data of that time and archival documents.
Both during the khanate period and during the Russian occupation, special attention was paid to the proper education of the children of khans and nobles, dignitaries, and clerics. Many wealthy families sent their children to study in secular or higher religious schools in foreign countries. Since the Shiite sect was established in Yerevan, the children of wealthy families mainly received higher religious education in Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Mashhad, Khorasan, Tabriz, and Cairo. Dozens of religious leaders with the title of ayatollahs, mujtahids, and Hojjat al-Islam, originally from the city of Iravan, bearing the surname “Iravani” grew up in those cities. The names of Ayatollah Molla Muhammad bin Muhammad Baghir Iravani-Hajafi, Ayatollah Sayyid Abdulmajid Iravani, Ayatullah Seyyid Ali Iravani, Ayatullah Mirza Abdulhusein Iravani, Haji Mirza Aliagha Iravani, Mirza Fazlali Agha, who left behind a rich legacy, are mentioned among famous Islamic scholars.
The work “Favaidul-hikmat” (“The benefit of wisdom”) written in Persian by Haji Suleyman Qajar Iravani (18th century), an outstanding Azerbaijani doctor and scientist born in the city of Iravan, gained great fame not only in Azerbaijan, but also in Central Asia and Iran. This book is a medieval encyclopedia of pharmaceuticals and describes the medicinal properties of thousands of medicinal plants, animals and minerals. Rare manuscript copies of “Fawaid al-hikmat” are kept in the Institute of Manuscripts of Azerbaijan named after Mohammad Fuzuli, as well as in Iran and Egypt. The book consists of two parts. The first part lists medicinal properties in alphabetical order. The second part is an explanatory dictionary of medieval pharmacological terms. The names of plants, animals and minerals in Azerbaijani, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Chinese, Indian and other languages are given.
