Jalil Mammadguluzadeh

Jalil Mammadguluzadeh (1869–1932; his birth year is disputed) was an Azerbaijani satirist, writer and teacher, founder and editor of the satirical magazine Molla Nasreddin (1906). ^{1 2} Written in the language of ordinary people and carried by political cartoons, the magazine attacked ignorance, corruption and religious fanaticism and became the most widely read Muslim periodical of its era. ¹ He is known as Mirza Jalil, and in Persian as Jalil Mohammadqolizadeh. ¹

He was born at Nakhchivan, and the sources divide on the year: the English article and the Azerbaijani article's main text give 22 February 1869 (10 February Old Style), with the Azerbaijani article stating that recent research has established 1869, while the Russian article gives 1866, the Azerbaijani article preserves 1866 as a reading of some sources, and his 1887 seminary certificate describes him as aged 21, which also points to 1866; his data record follows 1869 at debated status and discloses the dispute. ^{1 2 3 4} His grandfather was a stonemason from Khoy in Iranian Azerbaijan who settled in Nakhchivan, and his father is described in the Azerbaijani article as a devout man of modest means. ² After schooling in Nakhchivan's maktabs he entered the Transcaucasian Teachers Seminary at Gori and graduated in 1887. ² From 1887 to 1897 he taught in villages of the Erivan Governorate and the Nakhchivan district — Ulukhanli, Bash Norashen and Nehram. ²

In 1906 he founded the satirical magazine Molla Nasreddin in Tiflis and edited it, with interruptions and changes of city — including a period in Tabriz — for the rest of his working life, settling in Baku in the Soviet years. ^{1 5} In 1907 he married the philanthropist and feminist activist Hamida Javanshir. ¹ He died at Baku on 4 January 1932; the English article's statement that he died "aged 65" fits the rival 1866 birth year rather than its own 1869, an inconsistency disclosed in his data record. ^{1 2 3}

His first significant short story, "The Disappearance of the Donkey" (1894), part of the Stories from the Village of Danabash cycle published in full only in 1934, treated social inequality. ¹ In later stories such as "The Postbox", "The Iranian Constitution", "Gurban Ali bey" and "The Lamb", and in the comedies The Dead (Ölülər) and The Madmen Gathering, he ridiculed corruption, snobbery, ignorance and religious fanaticism. ¹ The magazine Molla Nasreddin (1906), with Sabir among its leading writers, was his largest work: the English article on Sabir records that it had the largest audience of all Muslim publications of the 1905 Russian Revolution era, with readership from the Volga to South Asia. ⁵

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

The certificate and the dispute. Exactly one attestation of an affiliation exists for Mammadguluzadeh: his 1887 graduation certificate from the Gori seminary, quoted verbatim in the Azerbaijani article, describes the graduate as "belonging to the Shia madhhab of Islam". ² The English article's "Religious views" section calls his views disputed: the Azerbaijani philosopher Agalar Mammedov claimed he was an atheist, others view him as a modernist and an advocate of Islamic democracy, and the article concludes that no definitive evidence exists supporting the claim that he was either an atheist or a religious liberal or moderate. ¹ One contemporary document quoted in one article cannot carry a shia-twelver value under the Shia-mapping rule, and the atheist claim is likewise a single scholar's claim against an article that finds no definitive evidence; his faith is therefore recorded as unknown, with both readings preserved here and in his data record. ^{2 1}

Satire and reform. His criticism of religious orthodoxy and conservatism made him many enemies in the religious conservative community, as the English article records. ¹ The Arabic article credits him with founding the first movement for women's equality in Azerbaijan and the East. ⁶ The museum records the satire as a position he argued in print; satire of clerics is not, in itself, an attestation of unbelief or of any affiliation. ¹

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.