Aga Musa Nagiyev was known as a big entrepreneur in the socio-economic life of Azerbaijan at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. Aga Musa Nagiyev was born in Bilajari village of Baku province in 1842. She lived her life in Baladjary settlement of Baku together with Haji Alinaghi Mammad. In 1871, Agha Musa married the daughter of Ummaselma Karbalayi Jafar. Their son Ismayil was born in 1879, and their daughter Ummulbanu was born in 1881. In 1900, a tragedy happened to Nagiyev's family - his daughter Ummulbanu died while giving birth to her fourth child. Umbulbanu was the wife of Mirza Asadullayev, the eldest son of millionaire Shamsi Asadullayev. Their 4th child Ummulbanu, who was born from their marriage, later lived in Paris and became known throughout the world as the writer Banin.  According to contemporaries, Ismail, the favorite of the family, was a very intelligent, generous and kind person. As he loved art, he interacted with with actors, poets and artist .  This love was also passed on to his nephew Faradj whom he adopted later. Ismail died on March 26, 1902 after a long illness.

Within a short time, the worker Musa became one of the oil tycoons. As his income increased, Agha Musa was buying fields in Baku villages and dug new wells. As he got rich, he built an oil refinery in "Black City", and his first tanker started sailing in the Caspian Sea. According to the indicators of the State Bank of Russia, in 1879, Agha Musa‘s property was valued at 30,000 rubles. In the middle of the 80s of the XIX century, Aga Musa Nagiyev's trade turnover reached 700,000 rubles. Agha Musa Nagiyev was granted the right to trade in the II guild. In 1887, he founded the oil refining company "Musa Nagiyev". In 1890, Sh. Asadullayev gave 6 dessiatin (acres) of oil-rich land in Ramana to Agha Musa with an equal share. Agha Musa later bought the neighboring field and attached  it to this field. In 1891, he obtained 31 thousand pounds of oil from a single well drilled in this area. In order to increase oil extraction areas, Agha Musa bought new lands rich in oil. In the last years of the 19th century, he rented such areas in Balakhani, Sabunchu, Amirjan and Ramana. The number of drilling holes reaches 8. Aga Musa Nagiyev, who previously used warehouses of other oil entrepreneurs to store oil, installed another oil refinery in 1898-1899. The number of workers and emploees here was 226 people.

In 1907, on the basis of the enterprises owned by him, the joint-stock trading company "Musa Nagiyev" was established with a fixed capital of 10 million rubles. In 1898, the value of Aga Musa Nagiyev's property was 334,560 rubles. From Faraj Nagiyev's memoirs, it was clear that the total amount of Agha Musa Nagiyev's wealth was 413 million by 1918. amounted to rubles.

In 1906, Aga Musa Nagiyev played a great role in the development of the fish industry in Baku. By investing a large amount of capital in the auction of fish stocks, he acquired a significant part of it.. He owned 48 fishing camps, which made up the majority in the caviar-fishing industry. In 1909, he was the founder of the Transcaucasian Fish Industry Society.

At the age of 49, Aga Musa Nagiyev became a famous millionaire of oil Baku.. Agha Musa Nagiyev performed the tasks that the state would have performed at a time when there was no statehood.  He spent a large part of his income from oil on the progress of his nation. He built the Gothic-style "Ismailiyya" building (1908-1913) in memory of his son Ismail. Magnificent residential buildings on Nigar Rafibeyli Street, next to the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater on Nizami Street, the old Central Post Office building on Azerbaijan Avenue, the winter club on Samad Vurgun Street (now the Officers' House), "Astoria" and "Yeni Europe" hotels and other beautiful buildings of Baku. and its magnificent buildings were built ( on) by Musa Nagiyev's money. He built several hospitals (City Clinical Hospital No. 1 - Semashko, Scientific-Research Pediatric Institute named after K. Farajova - OMD) and invested a lot of money in bringing Shollar water to Baku. The building of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies, which gives a special beauty to the city with its architectural style, is his legacy to the communicators.

Agha Musa Nagiyev spent his capital not only on building construction, but also on educating the people drowning in the maelstrom of ignorance and raising their cultural level. The oil millionaire was chosen among the millionaires of Baku due to his capital and the number of buildings he built. For these qualities Tsar Nikolai II named him “King of Oil”.

Agha Musa, who paid special attention to the education of young people in a period of illiteracy, completed the construction of the Realny school (now the building of the State University of Economics), which had been unfinished for a long time, and and also founded a preschool class her). Agha Musa Nagiyev, patronizing this institution, also undertook to pay the education fees of 25 Muslim girls. For this activity Agha Musa Nagiyev was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus III degree, and in 1910, Tsar Nicholas II awarded him the medal "Zolotaya sheynaya medal na Andreyevskoy lente" (a gold medal hanging from the throat with an Andreyev ribbon).

Musa Nagiyev died in March 1919 at the age of 67. According to his will, he bequeathed to be buried in Karbala, next to his son Ismayil, who died when he was young, but because of the tense situation, he was buried in Chambarekand. In 1931, the grave was moved to Bilajari cemetery because of the destruction of the cemetery. For the same reason  in 1938, he was buried again at the top of the mountain in Bilajari.

Recommended literature:

1. Nağıyeva-Muxtarova, Dilarə Ağamusa. Zamanın sorağında: milyonçu Ağa Musa Nağıyevin fəaliyyəti və xeyriyyəçiliyi haqda / D. A. Nağıyeva-Muxtarova ; elmi red. A. M. Həşimov ; red. K. Muxtarqızı. - Bakı : Elm, 2011. - 264 s.
2. Nağıyeva-Muxtarova, Dilarə Ağamusa. Hər tamaşa isə bir ömür... / D. A. Nağıyeva-Muxtarova ; red. B. Qasımova. - Bakı : Elm, 2021. - 528 s.
3. Рустамова, Джамиля Яшар кызы. Национальная буржуазия в период Азербайджанской Демократической Республики : монография / Д. Я. Рустамова ; науч. ред. Э. Б. Мурадалиева ; Бакинский Государственный Университет. - Баку : Мутарджим, 2007. - 240 с.