It has been generally accepted that in Ottoman society Muslim girls were not excluded from elementary education in the traditional schools (mekteb). However, there is no study that addresses the issue of to what extent girls' education was widespread before the Tanzimat reforms. Although some studies have mentioned the existence of female teachers for girls, they only gave a general description without references or drew on a limited number of examples, and no further investigation has been conducted.
This article presents some findings on girls' schools and female teachers in Ottoman society based on two documents, dating from the 1780s and 1811, which provide lists of mektebs located in Istanbul. These documents show that there were a fairly large number of girls' schools: about one-sixth of the schools listed in the first document and about one-third of those in the second document were for girls. Noticeably, most of them were taught by female teachers.
Many of the girls' schools with female teachers were probably schools of modest size without an independent school building where the students gathered in the teachers' houses for instruction. However, since mixed schools for boys and girls are known to have been common, one can safely assume that the opportunity for elementary education for girls was significantly richer than is generally supposed for a "traditional" Muslim society. The existence of a large number of female teachers suggests that some women could acquire an education sufficient for teaching children. Their appearance in the official documents also shows that their occupation was socially recognized.
