Abbasgulu agha Bakikhanov () (21 June 1794, Amirjan – 31 May 1847, Wadi Fatima, near Jeddah), Abbas Qoli Bakikhanov, or Abbas-Qoli ibn Mirza Mohammad (Taghi) Khan Badkubi was an Azerbaijani writer, historian, journalist, linguist, poet and philosopher.
He was son of the third khan of Baku Mirza Muhammad Khan II. He later served as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army and participated in the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828. He later retired and settled in Quba.
Also known by his pen name Qodsi / Qudsi / Gudsi (Azeri: Qüdsi), many Azerbaijani scholars view Bakikhanov as among their first thinkers and historians. He is credited with being the first person that wrote a "scholarly monograph on the history of greater Shirvan"; the area that would later make up most of the Republic of Azerbaijan. His Qanun-e Qudsi, was the first Persian grammar manual published.
Early life
Bakikhanov was the son of the 3rd khan of Baku, Mirza Muhammad Khan II and a Georgian woman named Sofia. In 1813, seven years after the loss of the khanate's sovereignty, the family moved to Quba, where over the next ten years, he learned Arabic, Turkish, and Russian, followed later by French and Polish. In 1818, he established the first Azeri literary society Gulistan-i Iram. In 1820, he enlisted in the Russian army as an interpreter and received a commission for taking part in suppressing a rebellion in the Kazikumukh Khanate (in southern Daghestan).
Political and diplomatic career
Bakikhanov was a member of the Russian diplomatic mission in charge of negotiating border issues between Russia and Persia in the 1820s. In 1823, he helped gather ethnographic information for the Description of the Province of Karabakh. In 1828, he was among the Russian military command under General Paskevich that took part in peace negotiations with Persia, which resulted in signing the Treaty of Turkmenchay. He convinced Khan Ehsan of Nakhchivan, as well as a number of Kurdish leaders of Persia to ally with Russia. In 1829 he was awarded the 4th Degree Medal of St. Vladimir for participating in the siege of Kars in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829. For a while he served at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Saint Petersburg. He retired in 1835 and returned to the village of Amsar near Quba.
Career in education
Bakikhanov's religious views were generally liberal due to major European influences. He criticized fanaticism among the religious masses and the Obscurantism of the clergy. He promoted the Islamic culture in the region and in Russia as a whole. His ultimate goal was to establish a Muslim college in Baku and an Oriental languages school in Tbilisi. In 1832, he came up with a project for establishing a major educational institution for Muslims, where subjects would be taught in Russian, Persian, and Azeri. He went further, and wrote a number of textbooks through which students were expected to study. The project was sent to the governor of the Caucasus for approval but was disregarded. Bakikhanov also translated several fables by Ivan Krylov into Azeri, one of which survives. His greatest accomplishment in the field of education was writing Qanun-e Qudsi, the first Persian grammar manual published in history.