Yusif Ziya Talibzadeh

Did You Know?

• He was appointed chairman of the commission for organizing volunteer groups in Baku on June 10, 1919, with a monthly salary of five thousand rubles.
• He served briefly as the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs for Nakhchivan in October 1921.
• He drowned while trying to cross the Amudarya river after being seriously wounded in a battle with the Red Army on May 18, 1923.

Biography

Yusif Ziya Talibzadeh was born on January 22, 1877 in the Shaitanbazar neighborhood of Tiflis. He attended the Rushdia school under the Transcaucasia spiritual administration. In 1894 he moved to Khorasan with his family, where a teacher from Urmia named Yusif Ziya influenced him to adopt the nickname 'Ziya'. He studied at the Mirza Jafar madrasa and later completed his education in Baghdad, learning Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Russian. Returning to Tiflis in 1899, he passed the exam at the Transcaucasian Clergy Department and received the rank of akhund, but refused a post at the Shah Abbas Mosque and moved to Baku in 1900.

Activity

After arriving in Baku, Yusif Ziya Talibzadeh passed an inspection commission on September 15, 1900 to work as a sharia teacher at a Russian-Tatar school. He met Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, Nariman Narimanov, Habib Bey Mahmudbeyov, and other intellectuals. He published several works: in 1902 'Tahsili-gavaid' on Azerbaijani grammar; in 1903 'Hadiyyi-nisvan' on women's education in the Islamic world and a biography of Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev; 'Teacher-Sharia' in 1903; 'Tealumush-Sharia' in 1904; 'The Truth of Islam' in 1905; 'Islam History' in 1907; and 'Letters from Turkey' in 1913.

His book 'Muallimus-Sharia' was printed three times (1903, 1908, 1909). He translated Nariman Narimanov's 'Nadir Shah' into Persian and in 1904 printed a map titled 'Islamic history and historical-historical map of places and map of Islamic countries'. From 1903 his articles appeared in 'Sharqi-rus' newspaper, and from 1905 to 1913 in 'Hayat', 'Irshad', 'Fuyuzat', 'Taraqqi', 'Yeni fuyuzat', and 'Shalala'. After the Quran was first translated into Azerbaijani by Mirmohammed Karim Mirjafarzadeh and printed with Taghiyev's support, Yusif Ziya Talibzadeh was assigned to deliver a copy as a gift to Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II.

According to a 1957 article by Naghi Bey Sheykhzamanli, the gifted book was decorated with precious jewelry and diamonds worth 4,000 gold lira; a 1992 article by Kamal Talibzadeh stated that 50 copies were printed with gold water and the cover of the gifted book was made of thick silver with the words 'La ilaha illallah, Muhammedan Rasulillah' written in the middle.