Both the date and the place of Musa Bigievs birth are disputed. Opinions for the date include 1870, 1875 or 1873. The place is either the village of Mishar or the city of Novocherkassk. He was born into a middle-class family as the younger of two brothers. After his father was appointed as Akhoond, the family moved to Rostov-on-Don. After the father's early death in 1881, Bigiev's mother, Fatima Hanim Bigiyeva, provided for the education of him and his elder brother Muhammad Zahir Bigiev.