15 March] 1863[a] – 18 August 1943) was an Azerbaijani lieutenant-general of the Russian imperial army, Deputy Minister of Defense and General of the Artillery of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and a Soviet military officer.

[1] He wrote that his father, Ismayil Agha, was a member of the Shikhlinski Dynasty, a noble family dating back to as early as 1537.

[2] Shikhlinski wrote at the "Officer's Notebook" (Azerbaijani: Zabitin dəftəri), a journal he has been working on since 1904, that his mother, Shah Yemen Khanum was the grandchild of Molla Vali Vidadi, an 18th-century poet.

Upon graduation from the first grade school, on August 11, 1886, Ali Agha Shikhlinski was promoted to podporuchik and was assigned to the 39th Artillery Brigade stationed in the city of Alexandropol (now Gyumri).

After the February Revolution in Russia, Ali Agha Shikhlinski was appointed the commander of the 10th Russian army in September 1917.

After the October Revolution, he resigned from his position and moved to Tiflis, where he was charged with formation of the Muslim (Azerbaijani) corps.

By the decision of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR dated July 28, 1990, the sixth cotton collective farm in Sabirabad District and 135th secondary school, located in the seventh Micro-District of Baku, was named after him.

On July 23, 1990, under the decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, "General Ali Agha Shikhlinski" scholarship was established for the students of higher education.

In 2014, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed an order on commemorating the 150th anniversary of General Ali Agha Shikhlinski.

A well-known Russian and Soviet military specialist, Doctor of Military Sciences Evgeny Barsukov wrote about him: Ali Agha Shikhlinsky was one of the few Russian gunners who possessed deep theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of tactics and had a rare talent in the art of applying this knowledge in practice, especially in combat.

We were in many respects in solidarity with him, I think I will not be mistaken if I say that the main idea of civic duty was with Ali Agha, who, like me, guided, recognizing the Soviet power, was convinced: "I always served honestly and will serve my people, from which he left, and to the government, which my people put above themselves"[5]Ali Agha Shikhlinski was one of the characters of Russian-Soviet writer Alexander Nikolaevich Stepanov's "Port-Arthur" and "Zvonaryov Family" novels.

Although General Shikhlinski did not finish his military academy, his natural intelligence and practical perception led him to a great influence in artillery science.