Tuba Azmudeh ( fa, طوبی آزموده}; 1878–1936) was an Iranian educator who established the first school for girls in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

in 1907. She maintained and expanded the school, despite continuous opposition from her community.

Early life

Azmudeh married an officer in the army when she was fourteen. Her husband supported her continued education, which she pursued both independently and with the help of language tutors.

Namus school

In 1907 or 1911, a group of women met in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

to discuss and work towards improving the education of girls in Iran. At the time, girls were not usually educated outside of their homes. Though a small number of schools for girls had been opened by foreigners as early as 1874, the Iranian government did not allow

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

girls to attend schools until 1896. After this meeting, Azmudeh opened the first Iranian school for girls in Iran, called the Namus school (after

Namus Nāmūs is the Arabic word (Greek "νόμος") of a concept of an ethical category, a virtue, in Middle Eastern patriarchal character. Literally translated as "virtue", it is now more popularly used in a strong gender-specific context of relati ...

, roughly honor). She ran the school in her home in Tehran, where she taught twenty girls. As it was not a state-run school, Azmudeh was responsible for protecting it herself. She and her pupils received considerable criticism from the community and the government. Her pupils were criticized for studying outside of their own homes, and accused of being prostitutes. Azmudeh continuously received threats, both to her life and to the school, and was denigrated as immoral. The Namus school expanded in size and curriculum, and Azmudeh eventually brought in her husband and friends to help teach. The school eventually achieved some prestige, and progressive Iranians began to send their daughters to study there. Azmudeh later began to also offer literacy classes to adult women.

Legacy

Azmudeh has been credited for inspiring other female educators in Iran. A number of her pupils later studied to become

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

teachers themselves.

References

{{Authority control 1878 births 1936 deaths Iranian educators 20th-century Iranian educators