Azerbaijanis, Azeris, or Azerbaijani Turks are a Turkic ethnic group living mainly in the Azerbaijan region of northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are predominantly Shia Muslims. They comprise the largest ethnic group in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the second-largest ethnic group in neighboring Iran and Georgia. They speak the Azerbaijani language, belonging to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages.
Bride kidnapping, also known as marriage by abduction or marriage by capture, is a practice in which a man abducts and rapes the woman he wishes to marry.
The Empress Alexandra Russian Muslim School for Girls of Baku was the first secular school for Muslim girls in the Russian Empire. It was built in 1901 sponsored by the Azerbaijani oil baron and philanthropist Zeynalabdin Taghiyev.
Brenda Shaffer is an American scholar who holds positions as Fellow with the Atlantic Council and professor at University of Haifa. Shaffer was the former research director of the Caspian Studies Program at Harvard Kennedy School and past president of the Foreign Policy Section of the American Political Science Association. She specializes on energy in international relations and energy policy in the Caspian region and has written or edited several books of these topics, including "Energy Politics" and "Beyond the Resource Curse." Shaffer has also written a number of books on the topic of identity and culture in the Caucasus including explorations of Azeri literature and culture. She has been accused of lobbying for Azerbaijan and failing to disclose conflicts of interest. According to the 2019 book Lobbying in the European Union: Strategies, Dynamics and Trends, published by Springer: "research shows that her [Shaffer's] entire career has benefitted from financial support from sources tied to Azerbaijan's leadership".
Jafar Gafar oghlu Jabbarly, was the eminent Azerbaijani and Soviet writer, the founder of the Azerbaijan Soviet dramaturgy. He was a director, playwright and screenwriter.
Nadje Sadig Al-Ali is a German-Iraqi academic of social anthropology and Middle East studies and feminist activist. She is currently the Robert Family Professor of International Studies at Brown University and director of Middle East Studies at Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. From 2010 to 2018, Al-Ali taught at SOAS University of London as a professor of gender studies.
Sakina Mirza Heybat qizi Akhundzadeh was an Azerbaijani playwright. She was the first known female playwright and dramatist in Azerbaijani literature.
Hamida Ahmad bey qizi Javanshir was an Azerbaijani activist and one of the first enlightened women of Azerbaijan, wife of Jalil Mammadguluzadeh, daughter of historian Ahmad Bey Javanshir, philanthropist, translator, member of Azerbaijan Writers' Union.
Women in Azerbaijan nominally enjoy the same legal rights as men; however, societal discrimination remains a problem. Baku Research Institute reports that: "Violations of privacy in political and social relations, such as interfering in private life, the sharing of private information, and unauthorized access to private space, are widespread in Azerbaijan".
Prostitution in Azerbaijan is illegal but common. Prostitution is an administrative offence and punishable by a fine. Keeping a brothel is a criminal offence and punishable by up to 6 years' imprisonment. In 2017 a draft law proposing to add heavy fines to the punishment for keeping a brothel was before the National Assembly. It has been estimated that there are 25,054 prostitutes in Azerbaijan, some of which are aged 15 to 18.
Nayereh Esfahlani Tohidi is an Iranian-born American professor, researcher, and academic administrator. Tohidi is a professor emerita and former chair of gender and women’s studies, and the founding director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at California State University, Northridge.
Tahmina is a 1993 Azerbaijani romantic drama. The screenplay was written by Anar Rzayev based on his novel Beşmərtəbəli Evin Altıncı Mərtəbəsi. Directed by Rasim Ojagov, this film depicts the love affair between Zaur, a man from an affluent family, and Tahmina, a divorced woman doing her best to survive in a conservative society. The film is considered to be one of the best Azerbaijani movies produced in the 1990s. Funding for the film was provided by a Turkish businessman.
The evolution and history of women in Asia coincide with the evolution and history of Asian continent itself. They also correspond with the cultures that developed within the region. Asian women can be categorically grouped as women from the Asian subregions of Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Western Asia.
Javad Heyat was an Iranian surgeon and writer. He performed the first open heart surgery in Iran and was Ayatollah Khamenei's personal physician when the latter was President of Iran in the 1980s. Heyat was the publisher and founding editor of Varliq, which he established in 1979 in Tehran. He was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees from universities in Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Elisabeth Joan "Lisa" Croll, was a New Zealand anthropologist. She is known as the first anthropologist to visit Chinese villages in a period when political actions made access into the country for foreigners difficult. Croll published books on the subject and held several short-term fellowships at various educational institutions. She also worked for United Nations agencies and international non-government organisations.
Statue of a Liberated Woman is a statue by Fuad Abdurahmanov in Baku, Azerbaijan. It was built in 1960 at the Public Square at the intersection of Gurbanov and Jafar Jabbarly streets in Yasamal raion, and was inspired by the character of Sevil from the Jafar Jabbarly's play Sevil. The act of publicly removing the veil symbolizes the transition of Azerbaijani women from seclusion to participation in Soviet society.
Sevil is a play by Azerbaijani playwright Jafar Jabbarly written in 1928. It focused on the theme of the role of women, their oppression, struggle, and ultimately, victory over dated patriarchal traditions. Many women discarded their veils in the city theater after seeing the play.
Rebecca Ruth Gould is a writer, translator, and Distinguished Professor, Comparative Poetics & Global Politics at SOAS University of London. Her interests range across the Caucasus, Comparative Literature, Islam, Islamic Law, Islamic Studies, Persian literature, poetry, and poetics. Her PhD dissertation focused on Persian prison poetry, and was published in revised form as The Persian Prison Poem: Sovereignty and the Political Imagination (2021). Her articles and translations have received awards from English PEN, the International Society for Intellectual History’s Charles Schmitt Prize, the Modern Language Association’s Florence Howe Award for Feminist Scholarship, and the British Association for American Studies’ Arthur Miller Centre Essay Prize. Gould's work also deals with legal theory and the theory of racism, and she is a critic of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's Working Definition of Antisemitism.
Nazli Najafova was a pioneering female educator in Azerbaijan. The founder of several academic programs for girls, including the first women's pedagogical school in her home city of Nakhchivan, and a forceful advocate for women's literacy, she was frequently targeted by religious leaders and other authorities for her work. After spending 10 years in exile in Kazakhstan, she returned to Azerbaijan in the late 1940s and continued her educational mission.
Ali-Qoli Khan Qajar was a son of Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar and half-brother of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, the founder of the Qajar dynasty of Iran. Unlike Agha Mohammad Khan's full brothers, Ali-Qoli Khan served loyally from the outset and supported, for around twenty years, Agha Mohammad Khan's conquest for control over all of Iran. Following Agha Mohammad Khan's assassination in 1797, he unsuccessfully tried to claim himself as his brother's rightful successor. Ali-Qoli Khan was eventually blinded and exiled by his nephew Baba Khan, who would ascend the Iranian throne as Fath-Ali Shah Qajar.
