page_title: Arab rule in Georgia
section_title: The Emirate of Tbilisi (736–853)
hierarchical_section_title: Arab rule in Georgia / The Emirate of Tbilisi (736–853)
caption_attribution_description: English: A Georgian asomtavruli inscription from the Ateni Sioni church, mentioning the Abbasid sack of Tbilisi and capture of the noble Kakhay. 853 Modern rendition: † თ~სა აგუსტოსსა ე~სა დღ~სა შბთ[ს]ა ქრონიკონსა ო~გსა ისმაიტელთა წელსა ს~ლთსა ქალაქი ტფილისი დაწუა ბუღა და შეიპყრა ამირაჲ საჰაკ და მოკლა და მასვე თ~სა [აგუ]სტოსსა კ~ვსა დღ~სა შბ~თსავე ზირაქ შეიპყრა კახაჲ და ძჱ მისი თარჴუჯი
context_page_description: Arab rule in Georgia refers to the period in the History of Georgia when all or part of the country was under political domination of Muslim Arab rulers, from the first Arab incursions in the mid-7th century until the final defeat of the Emirate of Tbilisi at the hands of King David IV in 1122. This period is called Araboba in Georgian. Compared with other regions which endured Muslim conquests, Georgia's culture, and even political structure was not much affected by the Arab presence, as the people kept their faith, the nobles their fiefdoms, and the foreign rulers mostly insisted on the payment of tribute, which they could not always enforce. Still, repeated invasions and military campaigns by the Arabs devastated Georgia on many occasions, and the Caliphs retained suzerainty over large parts of the country and exerted influence over the internal power dynamics during most of the period.
  The history of Arab rule in Georgia can be divided into 3 main periods:
  1. from the first appearance of Arab armies around 645 until the establishment of the Emirate of Tbilisi in 736.
context_section_description: Around 730, two factors led to a change in Umayyad policy towards Georgia. First, in that year, the Khazars managed to invade Northwestern Iran and went all the way to Mosul before being defeated. The tributary buffer states of the Caucasus had not been able to prevent that invasion. Furthermore, local Christian rulers, such as Guaram III of Iberia still kept contact with Byzantium and hoped for its intervention. The Empire however was weak and Arab raids could reach Constantinople, making the Byzantines less of a menace than the Khazars. In 732–733, caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik appointed Marwan ibn Muhammad governor of Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the task of waging war against the Khazars and subduing Georgia.
  The campaign that followed was devastating for Georgia. Marwan did not only invade Kartli as his predecessors had done, but he also led his armies after the retreating Georgian princes into the western half of the country, from Samtskhe to Abkhazia, where they were eventually stopped. According to Cyril Toumanoff, Western Georgia, as a dependency of the Byzantine Empire, was actually the primary goal of the campaign, and the Prince of Iberia would have sided with the Arab forces to help repel the Khazars, who had just devastated his lands. Anyway, retreating from Western Georgia, Marwan established an emir in Tbilisi to rule over Iberia while he turned his armies against the Khazars (737). This invasion, and its horrors, left a strong mark in the Georgian collective memory, who nicknamed the Arab general Marwan the Deaf.
  However, the new emirate had to contend with the remaining Georgian nobility and the principate, which had not been fully abolished. Furthermore, Marwan became the last Umayyad caliph and after his death, civil war engulfed the Muslim state. This allowed once again the Christian Caucasians to turn to Byzantium for help and restore large autonomy. But those hopes were soon quashed after the Abbasids restored the caliphate in Baghdad in 762: the new Muslim state was better organized and more able to claim tribute and impose its authority over border regions. This was demonstrated to Georgia in 786, when the wali of the Caucasus, Khuzayma ibn Khazim, bloodily suppressed rebellious sentiments among Georgian aristocracy. Prince Archil of Kakheti among others was killed after refusing to convert to Islam.
  From that moment, the local balance of power between the Arabs and the Georgian nobility became more favourable to the former. Both the ancient princely dynasties of the Guaramids and Chosroids became extinct, giving the emirs of Tbilisi more power over the land. The rural economy had been ruined by the repeated invasions, and many regions were denuded of their population, who had been killed or had fled towards the Byzantine lands. The cities, however, notably Tbilisi, prospered, as the Abbasids encouraged trade between their provinces and the use of currency (the dirham) for tribute, introducing a more open economy.
  Some regions, removed from the main cities and trade routes, maintained a large degree of autonomy from the Arab rulers, notably in the west of Georgia. There, in Klarjeti and Samtskhe, a noble family came to prominence during the second half of the 8th century: the Bagrationi, or Georgian Bagratids. Their origin is disputed, but it is now generally admitted that they were a branch of the Armenian Bagratuni dynasty, whose ancestor Vasak migrated to Klarjeti and was given lands there after 772, before receiving most of the former Guaramid lands after the extinction of the latter line around 786. The Bagrationi established their power in Tao-Klarjeti, but soon became rivals of the emirate for the control over Georgian lands. To assert their authority, they could rely both on Byzantine intervention and on the dissensions among the Arabs. In 809, the emir of Tbilisi, Isma'il ibn Shuab, proclaimed independence from the caliphate, which sought the help of Georgian princes against the rebellion, and enrolled the Bagrationi against Ibn Shuab. In 813, the head of the dynasty, Ashot I restored t
caption: This contemporary inscription at Ateni Sioni Church mentions the sack of Tbilisi and the downfall of Ishaq ibn Isma'il.
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