The study of apprenticeship in the classical social system of Azerbaijan in terms of training, upbringing, and morality

In ancient Egypt, Ptah-Hotep, the vizier of Pharaoh Isis, was the first educator to emphasize the importance of labor activities in education. In one of his statements about the child's time, which is included in the "Book of Lessons", allegedly written in 2870 BC, it is said that "the best method is to make the child work. A working (child) is never useless."

The concept that led Ptah-Hotep to this conclusion came from the problematic education system of Egypt. Thus, in ancient Egypt, education was only for the young, and it was considered an insult for children to engage in professional activities. As a result of the educational policy initiated by Ptah-Hotep, a "fight against laziness" began in Egypt and a law was issued ordering young people to have a profession at a young age (Kocher H.A. 1971, pp. 19, 26).

Although there is information about people engaging in professional activities from an early age in the city-states of ancient Greece, such activities were not welcomed in ancient philosophy. Aristotle and Plato noted that artistic and professional education was not worthy of free people, but of slaves. According to them, the highest education is “physical education.” The concept of education that ancient philosophers called “physical education” is completely different from its modern meaning. This educational method, called “Gnothi seaton”, that is, “self-awareness”, was based on a deep mystical, methodological and philosophical learning system (Koçer H.A. 1980, p. 216).

Unlike Greek philosophers, Roman thinkers gave extensive space to the importance of children, especially boys, engaging in professional activities. One such philosopher, Cicero, drew attention to the free formation of children’s interests, desires and skills in their inclination towards any profession. He considered vocational education, which forms the labor capacity of a person from childhood, as a prerequisite, in addition to the physical and mental education method that Greek philosophers accepted as the basis for physical education (Arslan A.1995, p. 2).

The above quotes about vocational education covered only a certain stratum of society. Therefore, it is not correct to evaluate these statements within the framework of a general pedagogical concept.

The Huns were the ones who made teaching a craft to all children within the concept of “apprenticeship” a basic way of life. The only way of life for the Huns, who were an ancient Turkic people, was military service. Therefore, military education in Hun society began at the age of 4. Military education, which formed the basis of Hun economic, military and social life, was applicable to everyone, and every child (mainly boys) was obliged to learn the art of war from the age of 4, when he was able to speak and move freely. Ancient Chinese sources, when discussing the social life of the Huns, mention that “young boys rode sheep and began to hunt birds and field mice with bows and arrows.” As a result of these military trainings, which were carried out within a kind of game logic, when the child reached adulthood (12-14 years old), he was considered a soldier who was already at the level of participating in battles. Thus, the mentioned source mentions that the child gradually reached the level of a professional soldier in military trainings based on hunter-hunter and game relationships. For example, among the Huns, children as young as 10 years old became skilled hunters who could obtain their daily food on their own (Watson B. 1993, p. 129).

Since the Huns, regardless of their identity and class affiliation, placed soldiers in the upper strata of society, every adult child worked with all his might to acquire the identity of a warrior until the “adolescence exams”. Since the exams described in the scene of Bugaj wrestling with a camel in the “Dede-Gorgud Oghuzname” meant that young people “confirmed their masculinity”? The ritual and mystical aspects of such educational systems were extremely strong. For example, ancient kams (shamans), bakhshis and ozans, who later became figures such as Dede Gorgud, played a direct role in the process of training and educating children to pass the adolescence exams. This process was remembered with very dramatic and ritual scenes, festivities, games and tests. There are numerous folklore examples that such forms of training continued among the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus until the beginning of the 20th century. In particular, it is natural to observe the initial and primitive images of that military training and education system in Azerbaijani children's games.

The emergence of apprenticeship

Information about the expansion of professional activities under the name of "apprenticeship" and its transformation into the main socio-professional education method in society has been increasing since the 6th-7th centuries. This information gives us reason to say that scientific approaches and concepts related to apprenticeship began to form in parallel with the development of economic relations.

It is clear that apprenticeship, which is the pronunciation form of the word "apprentice" in oral literature, emerged from the Goyturk economic cultural environment. Thus, the word apprentice was first established in the language of the Sogdians, a people of Iranian origin, and later was widely used in Persian and Turkic languages. The main occupation of this people, who were under the control of the Turkic Khaganate (6th-8th centuries), was trade. The Sogdians, who taught their children the trade from childhood, were considered the most skilled merchants of the early Middle Ages, operating on the Silk Road from China to the Mediterranean. The Sogdians, who built all their educational systems with the funds they earned from trade, controlled the large money turnover on the Silk Road. It is possible to see the depth and diversity of those trade relations in the written documents found about them. According to the Sogdians, every Sogdian had to learn the practical rules of trade from childhood. By the time that student reached adolescence, he had mastered the trade to the level of being able to independently manage his activities. Professional activity in this profession began with and under the supervision of a master merchant, and the first basic stage of apprenticeship lasted five years. Having completed this stage of learning, the apprentice gained the opportunity to open his own business under the supervision of the master. There are no precise and absolutely methodological ideas about the duration and order of apprenticeship. For example, it depended on the ability and ability of the apprentice to learn, understand and apply. At the end of this vocational education, it was natural to find 16-year-olds among the Sogdian merchants who owned large trading colonies in China (Qe ^ meli I . 2007, p. 131).

The rapid spread of Islam from the middle of the 7th century also had a strong impact on industrial relations. Since the Islamic religion created wide opportunities for trade, it completely changed the social status of merchants, who were considered a lower class in large empires such as China,

Byzantium and the Sassanids. In the new economic system that was formed, cities and countries established strong economic ties with each other, as a result of which the basis of economic relations and types of economic sectors were created. As Y. Gozelova also noted, “It was natural that the cities of the Caliphate developed rapidly compared to Western European cities: these cities had been the main centers of craftsmanship, a wide raw material market and, finally, international trade in the 5th-7th centuries. It was not difficult for them to revive and reconcile with a society with a fairly democratic attitude to the development of the urban economy. Moreover, the Caliphate had united important junctions of international trade routes into a single economic structure, which could not but be a progressive factor for the development of cities” (Gozelova Y. 2011, p. 107).

The great revival in economic life, especially the rapid development of trade, increased the volume of production relations to an incomparable extent compared to previous periods. In such a situation, the great demand for human labor gave impetus to the development of previous fields of work, the emergence of new ones, and the activation of the working class. In particular, family and inter-family labor activities took on professional forms and led to specialization. During this period, those who specialized in one field of production worked in that field for 8-10 generations, laying the foundation for professional families. In the Middle Ages, there are mentions of families whose family professions were carpentry, hat making, carpentry, glassmaking, blacksmithing, leatherworking, silk weaving, etc. for 6-7 generations. These families raised their children from an early age according to the profession considered to be the father's or family profession, and a profession was continued by being passed down from one generation to another according to traditional rules. In this system, specialized education, training, and upbringing were carried out on the basis of a method called apprenticeship. Over time, this method of training and education has become widespread, moving away from intrafamily specialization and becoming a concept of life. Thus, as masters who previously only raised their own children increased their work opportunities, they began to use the labor capacity of the younger generation of families they were close to and trusted, in proportion to the demand for labor. Already in the 9th-10th centuries, the tradition of giving a child to a master as an apprentice from an early age had formed in Azerbaijan. In fact, apprenticeship was so widespread that each field had its own apprentice profiles. Being a blacksmith apprentice, a carpenter apprentice, or a barber apprentice became a social status in society.

Apprenticeship stage

As a term often used in the Middle Ages in production relations, guild organizations were formed in the early feudal systems. These organizations, called guilds in medieval Muslim societies, are the initial form of cooperation. Organizations called “cooperatio” in Latin and meaning “union” existed as early as the Byzantine period. In guilds, lodges, and cooperatives, which were special forms of labor organization, “a large number of people regularly and jointly participated in the same labor process, or in different but interconnected labor processes” (Explanatory Dictionary of the Azerbaijani Language. 2006, vol. II, p. 736).

At the head of a guild organization, the master was in absolute dominion. The assistants of the masters were called kalfas, and the workers and students were called chirags or shayirds. Such organizations, which were essentially professional, had moral and religious missions. Thus, in the Middle Ages, including in Azerbaijan, every guild organization was affiliated with a sect or religious community. In fact, every guild organization was considered a family in itself. The members of the family were considered “brothers.” The futuwwat and akhiya groups, which had undergone a strong organizational process in Azerbaijan, Khorasan, Anatolia and Syria since the 12th century, are the best examples of these guild organizations.

Economic or labor activities in guilds were based not on the principle of profit, but on the principle of duty. The brother who performed the work assigned to him best was selected and promoted to a higher level within the organization. In these organizations, which operated on the basis of merit principles, profit depended on the parallel implementation of quality and quantity.

The guild system is a system in which the rights of every individual included in the family are strictly protected (Karaaslan P. 2012, p. 9). Because the activities of guild organizations are determined by general legal norms, scholars, foundations and the state had the right to intervene in them within the framework of that law. In addition, since guild organizations wanted to protect their reputation in terms of both economic, moral and power, the membership system was strictly controlled. In general, in the Middle Ages, the age at which a person was accepted as an individual in society was much lower than in the present. In other words, while in the present era, every person who completed 18 years of age is accepted as a legal citizen with individual powers, in the Middle Ages this age ranged between 8-12. Every person who completed 8 years of age, unless physically disabled and did not continue their academic education, had to enter the working life and provide for their needs with their own labor. Therefore, in the medieval Islamic world, every child began working at the age of 8-10. The places that families trusted most for the moral, educational, and professional development of a child were trade organizations, lodges, and artisans' workshops. Children who started working in such places were collectively called apprentices or apprentices. The apprenticeship period varied between 2-7 years. There was no obstacle to the rise of apprentices to the highest level in trade organizations due to their skills, abilities, and especially their skill. That is, a child who started working at the age of 10 could reach the level of a journeyman, assistant master, and master in the shortest possible time. In other words, apprenticeship, in the true sense of the word, formed a personality. Khaja Nasireddin Evren Khoyi, who is considered the founder of the akh organizations, explains the existence of this system in his work "Advice to the Sultans" by meeting the internal needs of society. From his explanation, it becomes clear that trade organizations were supposed to function as a kind of "non-governmental organization". According to Axi Evren, “since society needs people who are active in various fields of art, it is necessary for a large number of people who are active in these fields of art to gather in a certain place and each of them should be engaged in one field of art so that all the needs of society are met” (Bayram M. 1986, pp. 175-176).

In the classical Azerbaijani labor system, the process of learning a profession for a shayrid who started working under a master began with the performance of primitive works. A shayrid who was accepted into a profession was first taught general rules of order and discipline. Each shayrid, first of all, had to act in accordance with the rules of time, that is, the times of starting work, breaks, worship, meals and conversation during the day. The life of an apprentice was determined by religious and social principles. This was followed by teaching the functions of the profession. Each shayrid was under the supervision of a galfan. The galfan was responsible for teaching him the rules of behavior as well as his labor activity. That is, the shayridik went through two training stages: formal (official) and informal (traditional) (Güllülü S. 1989, p. 8).

- In the late medieval organizations, the apprenticeship period was generally stated as 1001 days. Some sources estimate this period as 3 years. In fact, apprenticeship was the second stage of a child's training life. Before the child began the apprenticeship, he went through a stage called the yamaqlik. The yamaqlik stage lasted 2 years, and during this period the child and his family were not paid a salary for their work. After the child completed this stage, he was accepted into the apprenticeship. The sooner the apprentices mastered the intricacies of a profession, the sooner they were thrown into independent commercial life. If an apprentice opened his own shop or workplace, he was already considered a master (Güllülü. p. 129; p. 27).

• -    Those who successfully completed the apprenticeship were accepted as members of the trade organization to which the type of art was related. This membership system created broad economic and cultural opportunities for the

apprentice to open and operate his own workplace. Thus, guild members would direct some of their clients to new jobs opened by these people, whom they considered “brothers,” and support them in acquiring their professional profiles. -

• -        The role of apprenticeship in production

  -

• -      The number of apprenticeships depended

on the work opportunities of the master who accepted him. The greater the demand for an art field or craft workshop, the greater the number of apprentices working in that place. For example, in the Middle Ages, the industry with the largest number of apprentices in Azerbaijan was the mining industry. In the 9th-10th centuries, all the children of the village called Zirahkaran, located near Derbent, were apprentices. Since there was a great need for mercury for gold production in Shiz, hundreds of people worked in mercury mines (Zakariyya al-Qazvini, p. 399).

• -        The same situation was also observed in

the silver mines in the Zanjan and al-Jibal regions (Qazvini, p. 383).

• -        Azerbaijan has had a say in the arms

  industry throughout the Middle Ages, starting from the Caliphate and the Sajid period. Since the Sajid period, Azerbaijan had its own arms manufacturing centers. Caucasian swords were very famous in Islamic geography. The Lakzan region was known as an industrial center where all kinds of weapons were manufactured (Bakır A. 2006, p. 579). The 10th century author Masudi mentions a village called Zirehgeran in the Shirvan region that produced weapons and armor. The name of the village meant “masters who make armor”. The Turks called that village Kubachi. According to Mahmud of Kashgar, in Turkish “zireh” meant “armor, weapon” (Minorsky V. 1963, p. 203). The 11th-century geographer Abu Hamid al-Andalusi speaks of a Turkic tribe called the Kubajils who settled between Derbent and Baku (Togan A.Z.V. 1981, p. 53). Abu Hamid al-Granati describes the place as follows: “Near Derbent there is a large mountain. On its slope are two settlements. In one of them lives a people called Zirehgaran, which means “armor makers”. They make armor for

  battle, helmets (headgear), swords, spears, bows for arrows, arrows, daggers and various tools from copper. Their women, children, daughters, slaves, concubines, in a word, all are engaged in this craft. They have neither crops, nor harvests, nor gardens. People from all over the world come to these people, many of whom are wealthy, with their blessings. They have no religion and do not pay jizya” (Ebu Hamid Muhammed el-Gırnati`nin Seyahatnamesi. 2010, p.94).

• -        It is very important that Abu Hamid al-

• Gırnati specifically mentions the names of children among those working in the arms industry in Zirehgaran. Considering that throughout the Middle Ages, Azerbaijan was the center of great states such as Atabeys, Elkhanids, Jalayirs, Garagoyunlu, Aggoyunlu and Safavids, it turns out that at that time the mine, especially the arms industry, was under state control and this sector felt the need for a large number of workers.

• -        It is important to carry out certain

  processes in order to obtain a perfect battle sword. Because the battle sword did not consist simply of hammering iron and giving it a shape. A large number of materials were used in the manufacture of the sword, as mentioned below: (Muhsin Muhammad Hussein. 1986; 1990, p. 396-397)

• -        - The black khalila, also known as

terminalia chebula (there were five species: ablach, meblich, kabili, al-asfar, and hindi), was a plant from the olive family, popularly known as khalila. This plant was specially grown in Afghanistan and India and imported to Azerbaijan.

• -    Belilej

• -    Magnesium – white soil

• -    Shaburgan

• -    Zararix – deadly poison

• -    Sekamunya – glue was made from mahmuda grass

• -    Sunbed

• -    Tunkar

• -    Sour pomegranate peel

• -    Uzerlik

• -    Cactus plant

• -    Lycium europaeum – a plant called goat's thorn.

• -    Wine oil

• -    Nishadir

• -    Sea oil

• -    Usaras of a fresh ban tree

The following process was followed in the weapons workshops to prepare all these solutions and make a sword: (Muhsin Muhammad Hussein. p. 270; p. 577)

• -    Buying iron called Narmahan

• -    Preparing 17 dirhams of black khalila and 17 dirhams of belilaj

• -    Putting the iron in a bowl and washing it with a substance made from a mixture of water and salt - Rubbing the black khalila and belilaj on it

• -    Pouring the iron into a mold and adding 1.5 dirhams of magnesium on top

• -    Pouring the white part of an egg on the iron that took the shape of a sword

• -    Waiting for 2 days for it to cool

• -    Preparing the handles (the handles of some swords were made of crocodile skin).

Since it was not possible to carry out all these works in one blacksmith's workshop, weapons were made in weapons factories where many craftsmen and workers worked. It should be borne in mind that medical laboratories were needed to prepare the mentioned substances. Therefore, in order to become a swordsmith, it was necessary to start working as a child. So, in the Middle Ages, there was a great demand for apprentices in the weapons industry in Azerbaijan. On the other hand, when state quarries began to operate in the capital, Tabriz, during the Elkhanid period, talented master blacksmiths were taken under control by the state. Because no state wanted the secrets of its weapons to be learned by other political powers. Therefore, weapon masters were kept under constant control. This, in turn, led to great interest in that field (Onullahi S.M. 1982, p. 48).

In addition to weapons, many apprentices also worked in the fields of cloth, weaving, silk, and leather. During the Elkhanids, Jalayirs, Garagoyunlu, Aggoyunlu and Safavids, their number was so large that sometimes thousands of artisans were active in one field of production. The reason for this was that since the center of the mentioned states was Azerbaijan, meeting the needs of the army kept those production fields alive. In order to compare the size of the trade volume in these fields, it is enough to look at the content of the letter written by Fazlullah Rashid al-Din, the vizier of the Elkhanid state, to Majd al-Din. In his letter, Rashid al-Din "requested from Tabriz craftsmen to purchase and send 200 balls of cloth woven from ghazil, 200 balls of woolen parkas for clothing, 300 belts made of goat hair, 200 headscarves, 2000 arshins of parkas of various colors, 1000 arshins of ordinary cloth, 1000 woolen coats, 2000 pairs of moccasins, 2000 collars made of sable skin, 100 balls of fur for fur lining, 100 balls of lynx skins, 2000 balls of squirrel skins, 200 balls of red fox skins, and 1000 sets of clothes" (Onullahi, p. 47).

Apprenticeship was considered the main way of learning not only for boys but also for girls. Just as there were professions for boys to learn, there were professions that girls were required to know from childhood. Such professions were mainly weaving, weaving, wool weaving, carpet weaving, etc. Girls were mainly apprenticed in domestic professional activities. They learned the intricacies of weaving, weaving, weaving, satin, silk, velvet, etc. from master women. Learning such crafts was considered vital for girls to establish and maintain their family lives. Considering that in the 19th century, there were 650 sherbaf looms in the city of Shamakhi alone, and 50 weaving looms in the villages of Shirvan (Mustafayev A. 1991, p. 63), it becomes clear that a large number of girl apprentices worked in those quarries at that time.

Conclusion

In the classical Azerbaijani social system, apprenticeship was a professional identity status. Even from the 12th century, when futuwwat and akhii organizations began to form, apprenticeship began to be considered a key stage in the creation and development of socio-social identity. In order to form a society on moral, professional and educational foundations, special attention was paid to the upbringing of children in Azerbaijan in the Middle Ages, and for this purpose, labor activities were given a wide place. Since labor activities are the basis of the main rules of education and upbringing that shape a person, apprenticeship was considered the foundation in the development of social identity in such social systems.