Ahmed bey Aghayev §

Azerbaijani Turkic intellectual, journalist and lawyer; one of the principal organisers of early-20th-century Azerbaijani national-defence politics. Founded the Difai self-defence organisation at Ganja in 1906 in direct response to the 1905-06 Armenian-Tatar violence (including the August 1905 Shusha disturbances). Difai was conceived as a Muslim parallel to ARF armed structures, oriented toward inter-communal mutual aid and armed protection of mixed-population districts; banned by Russian Imperial authorities by 1909. Aghayev later moved to the Ottoman Empire, where he became a deputy in the Ottoman parliament, an associate of the CUP, and a co-founder of the Türk Ocakları (Turkish Hearths) movement. After 1923 he served in the Turkish Grand National Assembly under Atatürk and is one of the principal figures of the broader transition from imperial Caucasian Muslim politics to Turkish republican nationalism.