By Vasif Huseynov
Over the past month, Azerbaijan has been tested on a front that draws far less attention in Western capitals than its energy diplomacy or its peace process with Armenia. On September 21, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 309, which prohibits clothing items in state schools that conflict with the uniform dress code and the principle of secular education, and on October 6 the government approved parallel dress requirements for teachers. The measures drew limited protests at home and a louder reaction abroad, including a demonstration outside the Azerbaijani consulate in Istanbul on October 3.
President Ilham Aliyev had already framed the issue in strategic terms. Addressing the 8th Congress of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party on October 2, he described ideological security as vital as physical security, noting the country must protect itself from subversive provocations first and foremost through education, and insisted that Azerbaijan must shape its foreign policy so that no one interferes in its internal affairs. This reflects the essence of what is emerging as the Aliyev doctrine: whereby a state is truly independent only when it relies on its own resources, engages every center of power without subordinating itself to any, and neither practices nor tolerates interference in the internal affairs of others. Applied to religion, the doctrine means that the state guarantees freedom of belief, but it will not allow faith to become a vehicle for foreign political projects or a tool for dismantling the constitutional order.
Secularism as a Foundation of Statehood
Secularism is not an administrative preference in Azerbaijan. It is one of the foundations of its statehood. The Constitution defines the republic as a secular state, separates religion from the state, and establishes that the country’s education system is secular. These principles were not imposed from the outside. In 1918, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic became the first democracy in the Muslim world and the first country in the Muslim world to grant women the right to vote, an important milestone in gender equality and women’s participation in public life. That heritage is visible in Baku’s public spaces, including the Statue of a Liberated Woman, which depicts a woman removing her headscarf.
Secularism is also a practical necessity. About 96 percent of Azerbaijanis identify as Muslim, divided between Shia and Sunni communities, alongside long-established Jewish and Christian minorities. In such a society, a neutral state keeps confessional differences from becoming political fault lines. Iraq, Lebanon and Syria show what happens when sect becomes the organizing principle of politics: the state is hollowed out and foreign patrons move in.
The School Uniform Debate
Developments with school uniform amendments in Azerbaijan should be read in this light. These restrictions are not directed at any specific religion. They reflect Azerbaijan’s long-standing secular traditions and aim to uphold a unified dress code and the secular foundations of education. They are also consistent with the country’s multicultural traditions, maintaining a neutral educational environment in which pupils of different religious and ethnic backgrounds are treated equally.
While some protests have occurred, they mostly represent a relatively small minority, and some demonstrators may have received external support. More surprising than the domestic response was the reaction abroad, where the Istanbul demonstration was accompanied by a campaign on Turkish social media. Yet Türkiye’s ruling AK party quickly stated that the groups opposing Azerbaijan had no ties to the party or the government. Azerbaijan and Türkiye remain close allies bound by strong historical, cultural and fraternal ties, and it is not expected that this issue may affect allied bilateral relations. Teachers and pupils have already begun complying with the new regulations, and the situation remains stable. This leaves therefore no compelling reason for the government to revise the amendments at this stage.
Iranian Interference Inside Azerbaijan
Baku’s firm stance on this issue is rooted in experience. Since independence, some external actors, primarily Iran, have sought to extend its religious-political model northward, not only by funding mosques and seminaries, but by cultivating loyalty to Iran’s Supreme Leader among Azerbaijani believers. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei maintained a personal representative in Baku from 1996, with an office housed inside a city mosque, until the authorities sealed the premises in 2021. By 2017, official data cited in the local press showed that 22 of the country’s 150 Shia madrassas were under Iranian control, and government-linked media accused Iranian intelligence of recruiting Azerbaijani pilgrims in Karbala for anti-government propaganda.
Meanwhile, Iranian clerical and military voices have repeatedly inserted themselves into Azerbaijan’s domestic debates. When an earlier attempt to regulate school dress prompted a protest outside the Education Ministry in December 2010, Grand Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani wrote from Qom to President Aliyev demanding that the measure be revoked. In 2011, leaders of the banned Islamic Party of Azerbaijan stood trial for calling for the overthrow of the secular government, while associates were accused of running an unregistered religious group funded through the Iranian cultural center in Baku. That same week, Azerbaijan summoned Iran’s ambassador after the chief of Iran’s armed forces general staff publicly accused the Azerbaijani government of acting against Islamic principles.
The seminaries of Qom have also served as a recruiting ground. The Iran-backed militia Husseiniyon was founded in Qom in 2016 by a cleric from Azerbaijan among Azerbaijani seminary students, who were given military training and sent to fight in Syria. Its name, “Islamic Resistance in Azerbaijan,” was reportedly chosen by Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Force (IRGC) Quds Force, based on the model of Hezbollah, and its leader was received by Ayatollah Khamenei in 2017. The group openly rejects Azerbaijan’s secular government.
*A woman in a Chador walks past a Shia mosque in Nardaran, near Baku. Source: Eurasianet.
Indoctrination has repeatedly turned into violence. In November 2015, a security operation in the Baku suburb of Nardaran against the Muslim Unity Movement ended in deadly clashes when the radical group attacked police officers. According to the authorities, the movement had armed its supporters and sought to overthrow the constitutional order and establish “a religious state under Shari’a law,” while officials said its leader tried to import the values of a foreign state. Moreover, in July 2018, an attack by a radical on the mayor of Ganja was followed by the killing of two police officers. The government said the suspect had spent eight months in Iran and fought in Syria, seeking to establish an Islamic state under Sharia law. In early 2023, after a gunman stormed the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, dozens of people were detained inside Azerbaijan after being accused of spying for Iran in a network suspected of using religion to spread pro-Iranian propaganda. Weeks later, authorities linked the shooting of parliamentarian Fazil Mustafa, a vocal critic of Iran, to an Iran-directed network that allegedly planned to establish a religious state and financed its activities through drug trafficking.
The threat is not limited to one sect. In January 2026, for example, the State Security Service arrested three people linked to the Islamic State’s Khorasan branch over a planned attack on the Israeli embassy in Baku. Whether Shia or Sunni in orientation, movements that seek to politicize religion treat Azerbaijan’s secular model as an obstacle to be removed.
Iranian Networks Test Azerbaijan
These debates unfold against the most volatile regional backdrop in decades. During the recent Gulf War III in and around Iran, drones launched from Iranian territory struck the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan on March 5, an attack President Aliyev called an act of terrorism, in reference to the 2023 assault on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran.
A weakened Iran has fewer conventional options, which makes its low-cost instruments more valuable: seminaries that train Azerbaijani students, informal funding channels, clerical networks able to turn a local grievance into a cause and, above all, Azerbaijani-language media frequently directed northward. President Aliyev placed this threat at the center of his October 2 speech. “Why is a resource created in the Azerbaijani language in a foreign country? Is it to help us?” he asked. “No, it is to carry out provocations against us, mislead our people, and poison the minds of our youth.” Without naming any country, he warned that “right beside us, provocations are rained down on us day and night in Azerbaijani,” and concluded that the protection of the ideological space “is as vital as physical security.”
The school uniform debate showed precisely what President Aliyev meant. On October 14, Azerbaijan’s Media and Broadcasting Council announced that Iran’s Sahar TV had aired footage of an event in Diyarbakır, in Türkiye, and presented it as a campaign in Azerbaijan in support of women wearing the hijab. The Council described this as deliberate disinformation and confirmed that the channel had been blacklisted for its systematically biased coverage of Azerbaijan. Baku’s patience with such outlets has long been exhausted. As early as 2012, Azerbaijani officials asked Tehran to halt Sahar’s broadcasts, and in July of this year Azerbaijan’s Media Development Agency banned the activities of Sahar TV and the Mehr news agency in the country, citing activities contrary to its sovereignty, constitutional order and national security.
Yet the doctrine is not a recipe for confrontation. Aliyev has continued to keep channels open with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, including a phone call in January, and he thanked Azerbaijan for the humanitarian assistance delivered during the war. Pragmatic diplomacy abroad and firm protection of the ideological space at home are two sides of the same policy.
Outlook
Given these developments, why does all this matter? Azerbaijan is a Shia-majority, secular state on Iran’s northern border. Its success refutes the claim that Shia identity and theocratic governance are inseparable, which is precisely why it attracts so much hostile attention from Tehran. A stable, secular Azerbaijan is also the anchor of the Middle Corridor, and these connectivity projects are now unfolding at a rapid pace across the South Caucasus, while some Iranian officials are uncomfortable about this.
Finally, the Aliyev doctrine rests on a simple proposition: Azerbaijan’s religious tolerance is a product of its secularism, not a contradiction of it. Defending this secular order against external interference is not a departure from the country’s traditions; it is their continuation.
Author’s Bio:
Dr. Vasif Huseynov is the head of the Western Studies department at the Center for Analysis of International Relations and Multiculturalism (AIR Center) in Baku, Azerbaijan.