IRANIAN STUDENTS IN THE OTTOMAN STATE

Abstract

In this paper, Iranian students who came to the Ottoman Empire during the Qajar Dynasty (1795-1925) will be examined. Iran’s first attempts to reap the benefits of European education began by sending students to European universities, as in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. As it is known, Iranians sent students to London for the first time in 1811 in order to learn new science and art. Afterwards, students had experience abroad in small groups. In 1839, Muhammad Shah (1834-1848) wanted to send a group of 40-50 people to Egypt, but this could not be realized. The first students who came to the Ottoman State for educational purposes date back to 1849. Mirza Taqi Khan Amir-e Kabir (1807-1852), along with a group of students he sent to Russia on the same date, sent two people from Kashan to Istanbul to learn the Silk Industry. After the opening of the Dar-al Fonun in Iran in 1851, we observe that an increasing number of students reached the Ottoman geography both by the Iranian governments and through the personal connections of their families. Often, if a diplomat traveled to the Ottoman Empire on an official mission, he brought a family member with him to study in the Ottoman Empire. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Iranians who came to the Ottoman Empire for educational purposes reached serious numbers. Iranians, who preferred Ottoman institutions to receive education and experience in various fields, were placed in important positions of the state when they returned to their countries. Although some of them preferred traditional education in the Nizamiye Madrasah in Istanbul, there are many graduates who received education in the Mekteb-i Harbiye, Mekteb-i Tıbbiye, Mekteb-i Mülkiye, Mekteb-i Sultani, Tophane Roshdieh, which were modern schools of the period. Mahmud Cevad İbnü'ş Şeyh Nafi stated in his book titled Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti Tarihçe-i Teşkilât ve İcraatı that Iranian students came to the Ottoman Empire instead of Europe for education in 1877. As a result of our research, Iranian students who came to the Ottoman Empire will be determined. In this study, Iranian and Ottoman archival sources will be compared and trilingual literature in Turkish, Persian and English will be used. The increasing interaction of the Ottoman-Iranian states through students and the main reasons for their preference for the Ottoman State will be examined.