The Story of the Establishment of the Doshizegan School, Iran’s First Girls’ School During the Qajar Era / The Difficult Path Women Took to Learn + Photo

According to Saed News History Service, in the late Qajar period, when education for girls was a controversial topic, a woman named Bibi Khanum Estrabadi established a school dedicated to girls’ education. This school, known as the Doshizegan School, is considered the starting point in the history of formal education for Iranian women.

The school was founded around the year 1285 in the Iranian calendar (1324 Hijri) in the Sarpolak neighborhood of Tehran. Bibi Khanum Estrabadi, who was previously known as a critical figure against the patriarchal environment of her time through her book Maayeb al-Rijal (The Faults of Men), personally supervised the school. Girls were taught reading, writing, the Quran, Persian, and sometimes basic arithmetic. The school was managed by educated women and operated in a women-only environment.

Doshizegan was the first girls’ school in Iran founded by a Muslim Iranian woman. This historic initiative paved the way for the establishment of other girls’ schools after the Constitutional Revolution and secured Bibi Khanum Estrabadi’s name as one of the pioneers of the Iranian women’s movement in history.

Doshizegan School

Sources:

• Homa Nategh, History of Women’s Education in Iran

• Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, Bibi Khanum Estrabadi and the Beginning of the Iranian Women’s Movement

• Arash Magazine, Issue 9, 1974

• Abdolhossein Zarrinkoub, Ruzgaran

• Mehdi Ghazvini, History of Girls’ Schools in Iran