Hamida Javanshir was born in January 19, 1873 in Kahrizli, Azerbaijan to family members of Ibrahim Khalil Khan, the last ruling khan of Karabakh, a semi autonomous area covering parts of modern day Armenia and Azerbaijan. She was educated at home, alongside her brother, and became fluent in Russian and French and familiar with both Islamic & European literature. At 26, she married a lieutenant colonel with whom she had two children but just two years after their marriage, her husband passed away leaving her a widow with two children at just 28 years old. When her father passed away she took on the running of his business & while she was fulfilling her father’s wish to have his manuscript published, she met Jalil Mammadguluzadeh, who she would go on to marry and have two children with. In 1907, she would act as a mediator between Armenians and Azeris after two years of ongoing conflict. In the following years, she founded the first Azeri coed school & the Muslim Women Caucasian’s Benevolent Society. Her humanitarian efforts also saw her purchase small pox vaccines and give them out to the people of her hometown during the small pox pandemic & hand out flour and wheat during the 1907 Karabakh famine. Hamida passed away in 1955 in Baku, Azerbaijan.