Mir-Fatah-Agha

Entrance of the Mushthaid Garden, 1890s

Mir-Fatah-Agha commonly known as Mushthaid (died 24 October 1892) was a high-ranking Twelver Shi'a Muslim cleric (specifically, he was a mujtahid) from Tabriz (Iranian Azarbaijan, Persian Empire), whom the Russian government credited with keeping the population of Iranian Azerbaijan loyal to the brief Russian occupation of the territory during the second Russian-Persian war of 1827 to 1828. When Mir-Fatah asked to accompany Russian forces on their withdrawal, the Russian authorities sought to use his influence and, in June 1828, he was appointed to a newly formed Caucasus Committee that was to gather information on the Muslim inhabitants of the Caucasus and make recommendations on how to incorporate them into the Russian polity. As an advisor to the Russian governor general Ivan Paskevich, he lived in Tiflis, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire) where he established a famous garden on the left bank of the Kura River (Mtkvari). Paskevich’s departure to Warsaw and bad relations with subsequent governor generals forced him to return to Tabriz in 1845.

References

• Caucasus and Central Asia Newsletter

• Muslim heterodoxy and imperial power