Today marks the 103rd anniversary of the birth of prominent Azerbaijani scientist, Honored Scientist, Doctor of Medical Sciences, professor, and full member of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Zarifa Aliyeva.

Axar.az reports that she was born on April 28, 1923, in the Sharur district of Nakhchivan.

In 1947, she graduated from the Azerbaijan State Medical Institute named after N. Narimanov. She went on to work as a researcher at the Azerbaijan Research Institute of Ophthalmology, and from 1969 held senior academic posts at the Azerbaijan Institute for Advanced Medical Studies named after A. Aliyev, including associate professor and professor of the Department of Eye Diseases, head of the Laboratory of Occupational Pathology of the Visual Organs, and head of the Department of Ophthalmology (1982–1985).

Zarifa Aliyeva was also a member of the Presidium of the All-Union Society of Ophthalmologists, the Soviet Peace Committee, the Board of the Azerbaijan Ophthalmological Society, and the editorial board of the Moscow-based journal “Vestnik Oftalmologii.”

In recognition of her scientific work, she was awarded the M.I. Averbakh Prize of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in 1981.

In 1954, she married Azerbaijan’s future president Heydar Aliyev. They had two children, Sevil Aliyeva (born 1955) and Ilham Aliyev (born 1961).

Zarifa Aliyeva passed away in Moscow on April 15, 1985. In 1994, her remains were reburied in Baku’s Alley of Honor, next to her father.