Murtuza Mukhtarov

Murtuza Mukhtarov (1857–1920 by the reading this record follows; the Russian article and Wikidata give 1855) was an Azerbaijani oil industrialist and millionaire, a self-taught drilling engineer whose inventions were exported worldwide, and the builder of Baku's Mukhtarov Palace and of mosques at Amirjan and Vladikavkaz. ^{1 2 3}

He was born into a poor family at Amirjan village near Baku — the Azerbaijani article says a cart-driver's family — and as a boy carried cargoes between Baku and Tiflis with his brother. ^{1 4} In 1874 he began work at the mines around Zabrat and Balakhani, where a contractor recognised his ability, taught him drilling equipment and eventually sold him the workshop rig; the villagers of Amirjan collected money to help him, and he taught himself technical drawing and engineering. ¹ In 1890 he founded his own drilling company, which grew to two divisions and 2,500 workers manufacturing derrick machinery and boring wells across the Baku fields and at Maykop and Grozny. ¹ His "Podrat" drilling rig served the Balakhani, Surakhani, Ramana and Sabunchu districts; in 1895 he built the first drilling rig with metal rods — his patented "Baku Drilling System" — and his drilling tool, known simply as the "Mukhtarov", was exported to many countries; he also opened a drilling-equipment plant at Bibiheybat, the first oil-equipment enterprise of its kind, with three-storey housing for its workers. ¹

Mukhtarov funded a mosque and school at Amirjan (1910) — its twin minarets rise 46 metres, and the mosque still serves as a place of worship — seventeen buildings across Absheron, a dome over the grave of Akhund Mirza Abu Turab at Pirhasan, and the mosque on the Terek at Vladikavkaz. ¹ He was patron of the Baku Real College and the Temirkhan-Shura girls' gymnasium, a member of the St Petersburg Muslim Charitable Society, and founder of forty scholarships; with his wife Liza-Khanum he sponsored the singer Fatma Mukhtarova and ran a boarding school for poor and orphan girls in their palace, seat from 1914 of the first Female Muslim Philanthropic Society, which Liza-Khanum founded. ¹ In 1911–1912 he had Józef Plośko build the Gothic Revival palace in central Baku as a gift for his wife; it is now the Palace of Marriage Registrations. ¹

The English article tells the Vladikavkaz mosque's story as a courtship: visiting the city, Mukhtarov fell in love with the Ossetian noblewoman Liza-Khanum, whose parents refused a suitor not born to nobility — whereupon he built the magnificent mosque on the bank of the Terek, after which refusal was impossible. ¹ The couple had no children and devoted themselves to philanthropy. ¹

On 28 April 1920, as the Bolshevik takeover of Azerbaijan unfolded, Red Army soldiers entered his palace; Mukhtarov shot several of them and then killed himself in the residence. ^{1 3}

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum.

His confession. No consulted article states Mukhtarov's own religious affiliation. ^{1 4 2} Two pieces of evidence might look like attestations and are recorded here so the reader can see why neither is used. Wikidata's only religion value for him is the Bahá'í Faith — but its sole reference is an import from a Wikimedia project, and no article in English, Azerbaijani or Russian supports it; a lone imported structured value cannot carry a faith segment under the museum's rules. ³ And the Russian article describes the Vladikavkaz mosque he financed as a Sunni mosque, quoting a decision of that mosque's Sunni parish — the affiliation of an institution he patronised, not of the man himself. ² His faith is therefore recorded unknown, with both items preserved in his data record.