Editing Abai Qunanbaiuly (section)

== Early life and education ==
Abai was born in Karauyl village in Chingiz volost of [[Semey|Semipalatinsk]] uyezd of the Russian Empire (this is now in [[Abay District, East Kazakhstan|Abay District]] of [[Abai Region]], Kazakhstan). He was the son of Qunanbai and Uljan, his father's second wife. They named him Ibrahim, as the family was Muslim, and he stuck with the name for the first few years of his life.

Ibrahim first studied at a local [[madrasah]] under [[Mullah]] Ahmed Ryza. During his early childhood years in Ryza's tutelage, he received the nickname "Abai" (which means "careful"), a nickname that stayed with him for the rest of his life.  His father was wealthy enough to send Abai to a Russian secondary school in [[Semey|Semipalatinsk]]. There he read the writings of [[Mikhail Lermontov]] and [[Alexander Pushkin]], which were influential to his own development as a writer. Moreover, he was fond of reading eastern poetry, including the ''[[Shahnameh]]'' and ''[[One Thousand and One Nights]]''.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}