Müsavat

The Müsavat Party (Müsavat Partiyası, from مساواة musāwāt, equality) is the oldest existing political party in Azerbaijan. Its history can be divided into three periods: Early Musavat, Musavat-in-exile and New Musavat. Musavat was founded in 1911 in Baku as a secret organization by Mammed Amin Rasulzade, Mammed Ali Rasulzade (his cousin), Abbasgulu Kazimzade, and Taghi Nagioglu. Its initial name was the Muslim Democratic Musavat Party. The first members were Veli Mikayiloghlu, Seyid Huseyn Sadig, Abdurrahim bey, Yusif Ziya bey and Seyid Musavi bey. Early Musavat members also included future Communist leader of Azerbaijan SSR Nariman Narimanov. This initiative was coming from Mammed Amin Rasulzade, who was then living in exile in Istanbul. In its early years before the first world war, Musavat was a relatively small, secret underground organization, much like its counterparts throughout the Middle East, working for the prosperity and political unity of the Muslim and Turkic-speaking world. Although Musavat espoused pan-Islamic ideology and its founder was sympathetic to the pan-Turkic movement, the party supported the tsarist regime during the First World War. Russia's social democrats received the foundation of Musavat in what they considered "imperial, orientalist terms, governed by the long-standing ideological categories of Muslim backwardness, treachery and religious fanaticism", as a betrayal of historic proportions. The Musavat's programme, which appealed to the Azerbaijani masses and assured the party of the sympathy of the Muslims abroad, announced the following aims: The unity of all Muslim peoples without regard to nationality or sect. Restoration of the independence of all Muslim nations. Extension of material and moral aid to all Muslim nations which fight for their independence. Help to all Muslim peoples and states in offense and in defence. The destruction of the barriers which prevent the spread of the above-mentioned ideas. The establishment of contact with parties striving for the progress of the Muslims.