Identity, Culture and Religion on Medieval Islam's Caucasian Frontier

A. C. S. Peacock

IDENTITY, CULTURE AND RELIGION ONMEDIEVAL ISLAM’S CAUCASIAN FRONTIER

This article considers the relationship between Christians and Muslims in Cau -casia in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, with special reference to the King -dom of Georgia, the most powerful non-Muslim state in the region. Georgiaalready had a Muslim population of its ownŒTbilisi was a Muslim city up tothe twelfth centuryŒbut with the invasion of Turks and Mongols, Muslim cul -ture and institutions came to exert a profound influence on the Christian king -dom, a phenomenon examined in the first part of this paper. Conversely,however, interest in Georgian culture on the part of Georgia’s Muslim inhabi -tants and vassals was more limited, although not entirely absent. The essay con -cludes by studying conversion in Caucasia, both Christian conversions to Islamand vice versa, arguing that on both sides, changes of religion among the élitewere generally prompted by political necessity, such as the desire to concludeadvantageous marriage alliances.

THE CONTRASTING PATTERNS OF CONFLICT and symbiosis that have charac-terized relations between the Christian and Muslim worlds have longattracted the attention of scholars and a broader public. The Crusadersin the Levant, the Arabs in Spain and Italy, and the Ottomans in Europehave been subjects of research since the nineteenth century, and recentyears have seen ever more sophisticated contributions to our under-standing of the complex relations between these worlds. The borderbetween Byzantium and Islam in southern Anatolia, a crucial frontier forboth the Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire, has been the inspirationfor some particularly insightful scholarship.1

In the popular imagination, and in Islamic legal theory, frontiers wereplaces of holy war, j i h § d, between unremittingly hostile and alien oppo-n e n t s .2 In stark contrast to this idea of frontiers as zones of conflictstands the view of many historians that “groups facing each other acrossa border tend to resemble each other more strongly than they do the

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hinterland societies of which they are the extensions.”3 This is exempli-fied by the warrior society of the Byzantine-Arab border, with figuressuch as the epic hero Digenes Akrites, son of an Arab a m • r and a Byzan-tine general’s daughter, who embraces nomadic habits and fights theMuslim raiders on the frontier. Legendary though Digenes may be, inreality society on both sides of the border shared many features and atti-t u d e s .4 Likewise, Christians and Muslims on the Ottoman-Hapsburgfrontier certainly had more in common with each other than they didwith the society of Vienna and Istanbul, respectively, for all the constantcross-border raidingŒor rather, perhaps because of it, for such raidsgave frontier society its distinctive characteristics.5 Elsewhere, Muslimsand Christians often lived in peaceful symbiosis. In the Seljuk Sultanateof Anatolia, itself a quintessential frontier society, Christians wereamong the devotees of the Muslim mystic, Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, whileRumi himself would often retreat to a Greek monastery for meditation.6

Christians served in the Seljuk army,7 while Turks were frequentlyemployed as mercenaries by Byzantium.8

The ways in which identity, culture and religion intersected in fron-tier societies were thus much more complex than the rhetoric and theoryof holy war would indicate. However, research on this has been patchy,and many regions have not been studied in detail. One frontier that hasas yet been almost entirely neglected by scholarship is Caucasia, eventhough this was one of the principal areas where the Muslim and Chris-tian worlds metŒas it still is today. As a contribution to a more nuancedunderstanding of the relationship between these worlds, this paperexamines the encounter of the Kingdom of Georgia with the Muslimsbetween the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. This period witnessedprofound changes in the demography, culture and politics of Caucasiaas it was invaded by two great waves of Turkish nomads from CentralAsia, firstly during the Seljuk invasions of the eleventh century, then aspart of the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century. Yet this was alsothe apogee of Georgia’s political strength, with the country finally uni-fied in the eleventh century and briefly becoming a major power in theMiddle East on the eve of the Mongol conquests. I explore how the Geor-gian élite (the only sector of society about which we are adequatelyinformed) adopted elements of the Turko-Islamic culture of theinvaders, and the Muslims’ reaction to their encounter with Georgia. Isuggest that neither the theories of close resemblances between frontiersocieties nor of jih§d explain the case of Caucasia in this period, whereultimately Christian and Muslim communities remained apart, withonly converts ever truly crossing the boundaries between societies. First,however, it is necessary to understand why Caucasia was such animportant frontier and why it was so attractive to the nomadic invaders.

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IDENTITY, CULTURE AND RELIGION

Caucasia and the Islamic WorldCaucasia was an area of vital commercial and strategic significance,being one of the principal routes for the transport of the valuable northEuropean exports, especially furs, for which the medieval Islamic worldproved to have an insatiable appetite.9 The Mongol conquests and theresulting increase in international commerce further enhanced theimportance of the region, and Western travellers to the Mongol Empire,missionaries or traders such as William of Rubruck and Marco Polo, hadto pass through Caucasia on their way between east and west. Caucasiawas also crucial from a military perspective, for it represented the north-ern border of the central Islamic lands. In the early Middle Ages, up tothe tenth century AD, Caucasia formed the frontier between theCaliphate and the rival empire of the Khazars of the south Russiansteppe.10 Later, it was constantly disputed by the two great Mongolempires of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Ilkhanate of Iranand the Golden Horde in southern Russia.11

Yet Caucasia was not merely a contested borderland and a traderoute, and it forged strong links with the Islamic world to its south, boththrough the export of its own peoples and the settlement of Muslims inthe region. The non-Muslim indigenous peoples of the Caucasus formeda reservoir of manpower for the slave armies of numerous pre-modernMuslim states, notably the Fatimids of Egypt and Syria12 and theOttoman13 and Safavid empires.14 Conversely, Muslims settled in theCaucasus, starting with the Arab tribes who moved to Armenia, Dagh-estan and the Caspian coast under the Umayyads in the seventh andeighth centuries.15 However, the Muslim population of Caucasia proba-bly remained fairly small until the eleventh century, when much of theregion, especially the pastures of Georgia and contiguous territories ineastern Anatolia, was settled by the nomadic Turks who migrated westwith the Seljuks. Such were their numbers that one Georgian chroniclercommented, “So great was their strength and multitude that you couldsay: ‘All the Turks of the world are here.’”16 Later, these were reinforcedby further Turkish migrations under the Mongols in the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries.17 A nomadic existence required summer and win-ter pastures, and Caucasia was rich in these. This also gave it great mil-itary importance, for the Mongol armies required such pastureland fortheir vast numbers of horses, which was hard to find elsewhere in theregion.18

In many places, these migrations resulted in Turkicization or at leastIslamization, as occurred in Anatolia, although a substantial Christianresidue persisted there until the population exchanges of the twentiethcentury.19 This was above all a result of the gradual assimilation of thelocal population. The latter always outnumbered the nomads, although

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perhaps only marginally in Mongol times in much of Caucasia andIran.20 The invaders were probably not interested in forcible conversions.The Turks who arrived in Seljuk times had only just converted to Islamthemselves, and wore their religion lightly, while the Mongols were ini-tially not Muslim at all, only converting in the second half of the thir-teenth century.21 However, both Seljuks and Mongols were heirs to theIranian and Islamic traditions of government of Iran as well as thesteppe, and it is not always possible to distinguish between nomadic andIslamic elements in their own culture and hence their influences on thepeoples with whom they came in contact (see the discussion of the insti-tution of atabeg below for an example).

In Caucasia, however, independent Christian kingdoms managed tosurvive Turkish conquest and settlement.22 Many of these were obscureand petty principalities, such as Siunik in Armenia, whose survival mayperhaps be attributed to their remoteness and poverty, making themunattractive targets for the ambitions of neighbouring states. However,this was by no means always the case, as Georgia under the Bagratiddynasty showed from the eleventh century onwards.23 In the hundredand fifty years before the Kingdom’s conquest by the Mongols, Georgiaexpanded to control directly or indirectly most of the south Caucasus,including many Muslim areas, and posed a major threat to the interestsof the key Muslim states of the day, the Ayyubids of the Levant and the

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Caucasia and its neighbours, eleventh to fourteenth centuries.



Great Seljuks and their successors in Iran.24 Even after Georgia’s con-quest by the Mongols in the 1230s and its subsequent division into twokingdoms in accordance with the Mongols’ policy of divide and rule, itmaintained a special importance. Its location between the competingMongol states of the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate enhanced itsstrategic value, and Georgian soldiers were valued allies of the Ilkhans,accompanying them on campaigns throughout the Middle East, fromthe siege of the Isma†ili stronghold of Alamut in Iran to Syria.25 Thisalliance with the Mongols, which continued after the latter’s conversionto Islam, gave Georgia a political importance that was recognized acrossthe Middle East and declined only with the eclipse of the Ilkhanate.26

Georgia was profoundly influenced by its encounter with the Muslimworld. Its very power was based on structures and institutions borrowedfrom its Muslim neighbours. In the administration were offices of Islamicorigin, their names merely transliterated from Arabic into Georgian, suchas v a z i r i (Arabic w a z • r, minister), amir-ejibi (Arabic a m • r - ¡ § j i b, or ¡§jib al-¡ u j j § b, grand chamberlain), and a m i r t - a m i r a n i (Arabic am•r al-umar§¥, chiefa m • r) .2 7 Its army contained substantial “Arab” contingents, and, like Mus-lim ones, was based on a royal guard of slave soldiers.2 8 Arabic was usedas a diplomatic language by the Georgian court2 9 and Persian may havebeen current there too, for we find verses in Persian by a Muslim poet inpraise of a Georgian king.3 0 This situation was by no means unique; per-haps it is most reminiscent of Sicily, where Islamic institutions continuedto play a central role under Norman rule, in particular the administrativemachinery, the royal d • w § n, which was modelled on that of theF a t i m i d s .3 1 However, this merely represents continuity of administrativepractice, whereas in Georgia, such Islamic institutions had probablynever existed even when the country was under Arab rule, for most ofGeorgia had been a remote and backward part of the †Abbasid provinceof Arminiya. Rather, these institutions were consciously imported toGeorgia by its rulers, a process that seems to have started in the reign ofKing David Aghmashenebeli (“the Builder,” 1089-1125), otherwise bestknown for his victories over the Turks. However, the influence of theIslamic world reached into Georgian life far beyond the institutions ofwar and government.3 2

Islamic culture and the Georgian éliteOur knowledge of Caucasian frontier society rests largely on literary evi-dence, especially the information contained within the corpus of Geor-gian chronicles known as K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba (The Life of Georgia). Suchworks concentrate very much on the lives of the éliteŒthe rulers and thenobles. Therefore, it must be recognized at the outset that this discussionis based on the study of a narrow if influential section of society, and it

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may well not be of universal application. However, nobles had alwaysplayed a pivotal role in Caucasian society, often proving to be strongerthan the monarchies established in the region. This was not a conse-quence of any weakening of central authority as a result of the Arab inva-sions. The strong, united Georgia that developed in the eleventh centurywas the exception rather than the rule in a region that since antiquity hadbeen made up of a patchwork of competing Armenian and Georgiankingdoms. In such circumstances, it was inevitable that royal authoritywould always meet with resistance from the lords who controlled theperipheries of the Georgian state.3 3

The attitude of this élite to the invaders was thus crucial, and it wasby no means unambiguously hostile, despite the efforts of Georgiansources to portray the Turkish and Mongol invasions as an unmitigatedcalamity for Georgia.34 Some nobles, like the Orbeliani family, becameclose allies of the Seljuks.35 Indeed, it seems that in Mongol times, the tax-ation arrangements for Georgia were particularly favourable comparedwith other Ilkhanid provinces,36 perhaps to help gain the allegiance ofthe Georgian nobility. However, the élite did not merely come to termswith the political consequences of the invasions, but also exhibited anenthusiasm for the invaders’ culture, both Islamic and nomadic.

This openness to Islamic influences is most obvious in the Arabicnames that the nobility started to adopt. To mention but a few, namessuch as Abu Layth,3 7 Fakhr al-Dawla,3 8 Hasan and Jalal,3 9 became current.Admittedly, this was not a new phenomenon of the eleventh century, forArab names were common in the Armenian principalities that hadexisted alongside the Muslim emirates of eastern Anatolia since the Arabc o n q u e s t s .4 0 Nonetheless, the political situation was now very different.The Armenian princes had owed their positions to the Arabs and weresubservient to the Caliphate (albeit with frequent rebellions), while in theperiod under discussion, we find these Islamic names among familiesserving a revivified Georgian monarchy that was encroaching on itsMuslim neighbours’ lands, and when Georgian culture was entering intoa Golden Age.4 1 In contrast, such names are rarely to be encounteredamong the Georgians in earlier periods, when Islam was politically dom-inant and Tbilisi was still a Muslim city. In addition, and more surpris-ingly, it was not just Arabic names, synonymous with the prestigiousIslamic culture of the Middle East, that were adopted. Among noble fam-ilies such as the Jaqelis, Mankaberdelis and Mkhargrdzelis, for instance,we find Turko-Mongol names such as Aghbugha and Kutlubugha.4 2

Intermarriage is another important aspect by which the readiness ofthe Georgian élite to forge links with surrounding Muslim societies isdemonstrated. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Georgianmonarchy married into the families of the Seljuks of Anatolia,43 the

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Ildegüzids of Iran44 and even the Ilkhanid family.45 The Georgian élitefollowed suit: the Mkhargrdzelis, for example, married into the power-ful Muslim Juwayni family who served the Ilkhans.46 Indeed, whetherout of political expediency or simply a preference for the convenience ofnon-Christian habits, polygamy started to be practiced among the Geor-gian élite. In the late thirteenth century, under Mongol influence, SadunMankaberdeli, a prominent lord, had three wives, as did King Dimitri II(1269-1288), despite the vehement hostility of the Georgian patriarch tothis practice.47

The introduction of the office of atabeg further illustrates the prestigeof Turko-Islamic culture in Georgia. This institution, in which a seniorsoldier would be appointed as a tutor for a prince while the latter was aminor, seems to have originated with the Seljuks of Iran, althoughwhether its roots actually lay in nomadic steppe tradition is open todebate.48 Atabegs became powerful figures in much of the Islamic MiddleEast, often able to seize power for themselves and establish their owndynasties, while basing their legitimacy on their nominal role as protec-tors of the prince. The Georgian Chronicles explain the atabegate’s intro-duction into Georgia as follows: Queen Tamar (1184-1212) wanted toraise Ivane Mkhargrdzeli to the office of amirspalari (army commander).However, he demanded the office of atabeg instead, saying:

“If your majesty esteems me worthy of new honour, I would beg you togrant me the office of atabeg. In Georgia it is not the rule or practice withyour kings to grant this office. Therefore increase your favour to me bydoing me a greater, in granting me the atabegate. It is a post customaryto a sultanate. It implies one who is father and tutor to kings and sultans.By granting me this you will increase your favour to me compared withmy forbears.” The Queen acceded to this request and granted theatabegate to Ivane, an office which had never before existed in the Geor-gian monarchy and so had never been conferred on anyone.49

Thus, if the chronicler is to be believed, the atabegate was introduced toGeorgia not because of practical necessity, but rather to satisfy theMkhargrdzelis’ taste for Islamic culture; Ivane demanded the appoint-ment precisely because of its high status in the Muslim world. Yet Geor-gia was then at its most powerful and a substantial threat to its Muslimneighbours, with the Mkhargrdzelis themselves leading expeditionaryforces deep into Iran and Anatolia.

Once established, the atabegate continued in existence regardless ofnecessity, the title being held in later times by the Jaqelis of Samts‘khe.Only rarely, as with the case of King Giorgi Brtsqinvale in the earlyfourteenth century, does it seem that the a t a b e gs performed their theo-retical function of guardianship.5 0 Just as Muslim a t a b e gs throughout the

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Middle East were able to establish themselves as independent dynas-ties, so too did the Christian Jaqelis in Samts‘khe by the late thirteenthc e n t u r y .5 1 Later, that region became known after them as Saatabago, theLand of the Atabeg, and they remained in control into Ottoman times,when they converted to Islam and received the title p a s h a.5 2 A l t h o u g hoften obliged to fight off the invasions of nomadic Türkmen, whoincreasingly disrupted life in eastern Anatolia from the beginning of thefourteenth century,5 3 they successfully forged alliances with more estab-lished Turko-Mongol overlords that allowed them to resist attempts atcentralization by the declining Georgian monarchy.5 4

Islamic influences could also be found on that most public expressionof a pre-modern state’s identity, its coinage. Numerous coins were struckin Arabic by the Georgian monarchs,5 5 although this may be simply areflection of the fact that Arabic was the principal diplomatic language ofthe Middle East. Nonetheless, it is indicative of the country’s orientationtowards the Islamic world that Arabic, rather than Greek, was chosen forso many of their coins despite Georgia’s proximity and traditional links tothe empires of Trebizond and Byzantium. While these coins give theGeorgian rulers suitably Christian titles in Arabic, such as ⁄us§m al-Mas•¡(Shield of the Messiah),5 6 elsewhere Georgian monarchs delighted inadopting titles traditionally reserved for Muslim rulers. The most famousexample of this are the titles adopted by Queen Tamar, who styled herselfShirvanshah, the title of the Muslim ruler of the region of Shirvan, towhich she laid claim, as well as using the Iranian title, Shahanshah.5 7

Thus, Islamic influences in medieval Georgia reached far beyond liter-ature, where a taste for Persianate themes and styles predominated, as haslong been recognized. The élite had a seemingly insatiable appetite fortales that were based onŒor if not, purported to be based onŒMuslimsources, such as the popular romance, the A m i r a n d a r e j a n i a n i , and theGeorgian national epic, Rust‘aveli’s V e p ‘ k h i s t q a o s a n i, alongside Georgiantranslations of Persian literary classics, such as the Shahnama and the V i sand Ramin r o m a n c e .5 8

It might be tempting to attribute this enthusiasm for Islamic culture atleast in part to the personal connections of the élite, some of whom hadmarried into Muslim families; others, such as the Mankaberdelis, mayhave been of Turkish stock,5 9 and the Mkhargrdzelis were almost certainlyMuslim before they came to prominence in the early eleventh century andconverted to Christianity.6 0 Yet comparable Islamic influences are to befound in other medieval Christian societies that had close contacts withthe Muslim world, most obviously in the fields of art and architecture. Forinstance, in twelfth century Sicily, the culture of the Norman court wasstrongly arabized, and indeed, Muslim craftsmen were employed to dec-orate the Palatine chapel in Palermo.6 1

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Such cultural influences were probably not viewed as connected withIslam as a religion. Rather, their attraction, in both Georgia and Sicily,may have derived from the fact that they represented the most presti-gious courtly culture of the region, with which rulers and nobles desiredto associate themselves to display their sophistication. It seems that suchopenness to Islamic influences was, however, a luxury that could onlybe afforded from a position of political strength, just as Oleg Grabar hasargued was the case in Byzantium.62 Likewise, it was Georgia’s very abil-ity to expand and threaten its Muslim neighbours that gave it the confi-dence to adopt so many elements of their culture, a confidence it hadlacked in earlier times, when Georgian princes ruled over remote andimpoverished territories while the Muslims held the major cities.Nonetheless, it is intriguing that it was not just the Persianate, Islamicculture of the prestigious courts of the Middle East that attracted theCaucasian élite, but also that of the Turko-Mongol nomadsŒso reviledin the sourcesŒas is shown by the adoption of Turkic names and mar-riage customs. A full study of this must await another occasion, but itsuffices to note that there are parallels with other cultures. In bothmedieval Hungary and the Mamluk state in Egypt, nomadic fashionswere adopted by a sedentary population.63

Muslims and Georgian cultureSo far, our discussion has concentrated on the reception of Islamic cultureby Georgian Christians. Yet Georgia contained a substantial Muslim pop-ulation of its own, about which disappointingly little information sur-vives. Georgia also dominated the Muslim states of Erzurum andShirvan, which were its vassals, and its influence spread far into MuslimAnatolia. In this section, I examine the relationship of these Muslims withGeorgia, to assess both the position of Georgia’s own Muslim populationand the nature of Georgia’s influence internationally.

Georgia absorbed a large Muslim population when King David Agh-manshenebeli occupied Tbilisi in 1121. Tbilisi had been a Muslim city forfour hundred years at this point. Although both Muslim and Georgiansources indicate that Muslims resented being under Georgian rule, andwhere possible appealed to neighbouring Muslim rulers for aid againstthe Georgians,64 it does seem that David did everything possible to reachan accommodation with the Muslims of Tbilisi, as is recounted by a con-temporary Muslim source, the History of Ibn Azraq al-Fariqi:

[David] granted am§n [safe-conduct] to its people and soothed theirhearts and left them alone, in all goodness. For that year he abrogatedtheir taxes, services, payments by installments and the khar§j. He guar-anteed to the Muslims everything they wished, according to the pact

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which is valid even today. In it (it is stipulated) that pigs should not bebrought over to the Muslim side nor to the town, and that they shouldnot be slaughtered there or in the market. He struck dirhams for them,on one side of which stood the names of the sultan and the caliph, andon the other side stood the names of God and the Prophet, on him bepeace, (whereas) the king’s name stood on a side of a dirham. It wascried in the town that (the king) permitted to shed the blood of him whoharmed a Muslim. He granted them the call to prayer, the prayers andthe reading (of the Qur¥an) in public, and also guaranteed that on Fri-days sermons and public prayers be said from the pulpit for the caliphand the sultan, and for no one else. He also guaranteed that no Georgianor Armenian, or Jew should enter the baths of Isma†il in Tbilisi. He taxassessed a Georgian at a rate of 5 dinars per annum, a Jew at 4 dinars,and a Muslim at 3 dinars. He honoured the scholars and Sufis byrespecting their rank and (granting them) what they do not enjoy evenamong Muslims.65

Self-interest was doubtless a major motivation for this policy, for Mus-lims controlled much of the region’s trade and their exodus might haveprecipitated economic disaster. Information over the fate of Tbilisi’sMuslims in later years is scanty, but it is clear that they maintained theirprivileged position for some time. Al-Fariqi, the author of the above pas-sage, who served as Arabic secretary to King Dimitri, records that in1153 he saw Dimitri go to Friday prayers after which he dispersed largesums of money to the mosque, preachers, scholars and Sufis. “He dis-played unprecedented confidence in [the Muslims]. And I witnessed onhis part such esteem towards the Muslims as they would not enjoy evenif they were in Baghdad.”66 It seems that the Muslims remained a dis-tinctive community. Al-Fariqi records the survival of Arabic into theeleventh century among Muslims who had moved to Caucasia with thefirst wave of Arab invasions,67 and the evidence cited above clearly indi-cates that the Georgian kings were not interested in imposing their faithor traditions on their new Muslim subjects. Indeed, it is possible thatMuslims continued to hold prominent positions among the Georgianélite into Mongol times, when we find mention of a certain Ahmad, lordof the important frontier fortress of Surmeli.68 Such a purely Muslimname, a variation on Muhammad itself, is perhaps unlikely to have beenadopted by a Christian, unlike the Arabic names discussed earlier suchas Abu Layth and Jalal which do not have such immediate confessionalties. It has been suggested that some Georgian royal art was influencedby the monarchy’s desire to ingratiate itself with its Muslim popula-tion.69 However, it should not be imagined that the Georgians were uni-versally tolerant of other faiths. One of David Agmashenebeli’s mainweapons in gaining control of much Seljuk occupied territory was his

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use of Kıpçak Turks as mercenaries. The pagan Kıpçaks, who originatedin the south Russian steppe, were obliged to convert to Christianity andmany were gradually Georgianized, although they remained influentialin the élite for a long time, holding senior positions at court.70

If Muslims in Georgia itself had a high position and kept their privi-leges intact, this was not necessarily replicated in Georgia’s Muslim vas-sals, Shirvan and Erzurum. Erzurum, ruled by the Turkish Saltukiddynasty, was a weak buffer state. Ibn al-Athir records the position of theErzurum emirate at the end of the twelfth century:

No one could resist [the Georgians]; this was the case with Erzurum,to the extent that its lord wore the Georgian monarch’s khil†a [robe ofhonour given to a vassal] and raised a standard with a cross at the top.His son converted to Christianity desiring to marry the queen o f Geor-gia, and out of fear of them, in order to ward off the evil [they threat-ened to him].7 1

This sort of abasement of a Muslim ruler to a Christian power wasunusual in the Middle Ages, and must have been humiliating indeed forthe Saltukids. Yet the tombs attributed to the Saltukid rulers showstrong Georgian influence in their architecture.72 As Erzurum is veryclose to the traditional Georgian heartland of Tao, such artistic influencemay be ascribed to local artistic currents rather than Georgian politicalpower. It is also unknown what proportion of the population of Erzu-rum was Christian in this period. It may be that outside of the élite, onwhom this study is based, there were much greater similarities betweenthe culture and societies of Christians and Muslims, as was the case onthe Ottoman-Hapsburg border in a much later period. The Caucasianelements in the architecture of Erzurum may thus reflect the principal-ity’s remote and provincial status, but they more certainly represent theshared artistic culture common to much of east Anatolia and the Cauca-sus, both Muslim and Christian (a topic studied with regard to Trebi-zond by Antony Eastmond in his Art and Identity in Thirteenth CenturyByzantium).

One further fragment of evidence illustrates the strength of Georgianinfluence on its Muslim neighbours in north eastern Anatolia. The half-Kurdish, half-Turkish writer Burhan al-Din Anawi, who completed along didactic poem in Persian around 1210 entitled the An•s al-Qul¶b,recounts in his preface to the work his upbringing in the city of Aniwhere he was born. He claims that he studied the Old and New Testa-ments, although he was a Muslim, and learned the Christians’ language.Presumably this was Georgian, despite the traditional Armenian domi-nance of Ani, for he recounts that after the Georgian capture of the city

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in 1161, he fell into the hands of a Georgian, but his knowledge of hiscaptor’s language allowed him to make his escape.73

Shirvan on the Caspian coast was another Georgian vassal state. Weare inadequately informed about much of its history after the eleventhcentury, but we do know that the Muslim ruling dynasty, theShirvanshahsŒwhose title was usurped by TamarŒintermarried withthe Georgian Bagratids,74 and it has been suggested that Georgianbecame the principal everyday language of their court, despite theirother attempts to connect themselves through forged genealogies withheroes of the Iranian past, such as Bahram Chubin.75

There were further opportunities for Georgian influence to be spreadfurther into the Muslim world even beyond its vassals. Georgians oftenplayed an important part in the affairs of neighbouring countries. In theSeljuk Sultanate of Rum, for instance, Georgians were often employed assoldiers, and as close ties between Georgia and Rum developed in thethirteenth century with marriages between the Bagratid and Seljuk fam-ilies, Georgian magnates were granted estates (iq™§†§t) in Anatolia.76

However, in practice, such migrant Georgians probably had little lastinginfluence on these neighbouring Muslim societies at this point, for theydisappear without trace; most likely, they eventually either returned toGeorgia or were assimilated and converted to Islam. It is only muchlater, in early modern times, that we find Georgians playing a major partin the internal politics of their Muslim neighbours, with the dominationof Georgian soldiers at the Safavid court in Iran, and in eighteenth cen-tury Egypt,77 to note just two examples.

Despite acknowledgement of the Georgians’ military abilities in theMiddle Ages, they were widely disliked by the Muslims. The fact thatmany of the Georgians’ conquests from the Muslims had been achievedunder the reigns of women seems to have particularly disgusted Muslimchroniclers, who set about defaming Georgian queens such as Tamarand Rusudan with alacrity.78 The Georgians’ enthusiastic assistance tothe Mongols in sacking Baghdad in 1258 also doubtless did not endearthem to many Muslims.79 Georgian political power thus only rarelytranslated into wider cultural influence.

So Georgian enthusiasm for Islamic culture was not reciprocated byGeorgia’s Muslim subjects and neighbours, with a few exceptions such asErzurum and Shirvan where political necessity may have resulted in adegree of ‘Georgianization’ of these Muslim frontier principalities. In con-trast, Muslims in Georgia maintained their faith and status. In general,there seems to have been very little assimilation between the Muslim andChristian populations who maintained their separate ways of life even inTbilisi, as David’s guarantee of Muslim privileges makes clear, and fig-ures like Anawi were probably rare. Assimilation to different cultures

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occurred not through the coexistence of members of different faiths andraces, but through conversion.

Conversion in CaucasiaIn Middle Eastern history, discussion of conversion usually revolvesaround how quickly and under what circumstances Christians and Jewsconverted to Islam.80 In the Caucasus, Islam never became the sole dom-inant religion, so the question is more complex; we have not just the phe-nomenon of Christian conversions to Islam, but also well documentedinstances of Muslims going over to Christianity. Although sometimesconversions may have been inspired by a genuine change in beliefs,most conversions about which details survive seem to have beenprompted by political necessity. In particular, marriage alliances oftenrequired one party to change religion.

Christian conversions to Islam had doubtless occurred since the Araboccupation of Georgia and Armenia in Umayyad times, although theextant evidence is fairly slight. An example is given in a ninth centuryGeorgian hagiography, recording the martyrdom of Constantine ofKakheti (d. 853). This mentions that when Constantine was taken to“Babylon” (Baghdad), two converts to Islam from the Georgian provinceof Somkhiti, both nobles (eristavi) who had been taken prisoner, weresent to try to persuade him of the advantages of Islam.81 There must havebeen plenty of such converts whose existence is unknown to us. It is notclear whether the Georgian slave guard that served the Marwanids ofMayyafariqin in the eleventh century had embraced Islam,82 but someconversions certainly resulted from the Seljuk conquests. Aghsartan,ruler of the east Georgian principality of Kakheti-Hereti at the time ofthe Seljuk invasions in the eleventh century, converted to Islam in orderto retain control of his territories.83 Some but by no means all of the pris-oners made by the Seljuks during their conquests accepted Islam. OneGeorgian who did, and who decided to remain in Seljuk lands after hisrelease, founded a minor dynasty that ruled the area around Ahar inIranian Azerbaijan between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries.84

In the twelfth century, Georgian converts assisted the Anatolian Turksin their campaigns against Georgia, although the circumstances of theirconversion are unknown.85

However, over the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, most recordedconversions seem to have been restricted to circumstances of politicalexpedience, above all the formation of marriage alliances. The Turkishstrongman in twelfth century Iran, Ildegüz, who protected and assistedthe magnate Elikum Orbeliani when the latter was forced into exile fromGeorgia, insisted Elikum became a Muslim. He tempted him with theprospect of marriage to his daughter, although such was Elikum’s

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importance he was later allowed to apostatize and return to Christian-i t y .8 6 Even though Islamic law did not require the conversion of a Christ-ian princess marrying into a Muslim family, it seems that it was expected.Thus when Tamar, daughter of queen Rusudan, was married to the RumSeljuk Ghiyath al-Din Kaykhusraw II, she accepted Islam, later becominga disciple of the mystic Rumi. Nonetheless, she maintained some linkswith her old religion, endowing a church in Cappadocia.8 7

The need to cement alliances with other Muslim powers may on occa-sion have led to conversions. It was probably as part of an attempt byGeorgia to form an alliance with the Mamluks that we find a Georgianprince in Cairo in the late fourteenth century. He converted to Islam inthe Mamluk sultan’s presence, was granted the convert’s name of†Abdullah, and was appointed to the rank of am•r †ashara in the Mamlukarmy.88 Large scale conversions of Georgians to Islam seem to havestarted only with the invasions of Timur at the end of the fourteenth cen-tury. Timur’s campaigns in Georgia, at least in part, were motivated bya desire to gain glory through jih§d against the infidel. He was not thefirst Muslim ruler to justify his attacks on Georgia as jih§d; most notablythis had been done by Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah, who set up a tran-sient empire based in Tbilisi in the early thirteenth century. However,Timur seems to have been the first to take seriously the cause of con-verting the Georgians. Capturing King Bagrat, he eventually persuadedhim to embrace Islam (albeit reluctantly), and many Georgians followedtheir monarch.89 It is unknown how many of these remained Muslimwhen Bagrat escaped and apostatized. With the Ottoman and Safavidhegemony that eventually followed in Timur’s wake in the sixteenthcentury, many more Georgians started to convert to Islam, resulting inthe significant Muslim population that exists on Georgia’s Black Seacoast today.90 Thus, the extent of Georgian conversion to Islam in theMiddle Ages was limited.

The same is true of Muslim conversions to Christianity. We know of anumber of cases of individual Muslims converting to Christianity, butthere is no case comparable to Georgia’s pagan Kıpçaks, who converted e nm a s s e. The earliest and most famous example of a Muslim conversion toChristianity is Abo of Tbilisi, a martyr venerated by the Georgian church.9 1

According to the hagiography that records Abo’s martyrdom, whichoccurred in the late eighth century, he was by origin a Muslim perfumerfrom Baghdad, of pure Arab blood. He had come to Georgia to serve itsgovernor, and while living there, “he started to read and write in Geor-gian, speaking it with ease. Then he started to study eagerly the sacredscriptures of the Old and New Testament. . . .”9 2 He secretly embracedChristianity but was eventually martyred for his apostasy. As far as weknow, however, Abo was atypical in that he was not part of the élite; most

82 A. C. S. Peacock



converts were of higher status and probably did so out of political neces-sity. An example is the Mkhargrdzeli family, whose origin was probablyMuslim, and who converted to Christianity in the twelfth century, afterwhich they “gained respect,” later receiving great honours from QueenT a m a r .9 3 The name Kurd is very common among the ancestors of familiesof the period, and may mean nothing more than “Muslim.”9 4

Georgian political and military strength meant that Muslims weresometimes obliged to embrace Christianity to enable them to sealalliances with the main regional power. We have already noted the caseof the Saltukid prince of Erzurum, who converted in the hope of gain-ing the hand of Queen Tamar. In the thirteenth century, another princeof Erzurum, the son of the Seljuk Mughith al-Din Tughrilshah, con-verted to Christianity to be allowed to marry Queen Rusudan, as theappalled Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athir records:

None of the ruling family of Georgia remained but a woman; rulershipfell to her. So she took it up and ruled over them. They sought a man tomarry her and to rule over them in her place from the ruling family, butthere was no one suitable. The ruler of Erzurum at this time was Mughithal-Din Tughrilshah bin Qilij Arslan bin Mas†ud Qilij Arslan whose houseis famous among the great kings of Islam, for it is the Seljuk dynasty. Hehad an elder son, and he sent to the Georgians asking for the queen forhis son to marry. They refused, saying “We will not do this, for we can-not have a Muslim ruler”. He said to them, “My son will convert toChristianity and marry her”. They agreed to this, so he ordered his sonto convert, which he did, and married the queen and went over to her.He became ruler over the Georgians in their country and remained aChristianŒwe take refuge in God from the disgrace. . . .9 5

Even though this Seljuk prince was seized by Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-shah on his capture of Tbilisi, he steadfastly refused to go over to theMuslim side, and made his escape to join the Christian resistance to theKhwarazmian invaders.96 However, with the decline of Georgian powerin the wake of the Khwarazmian and Mongol invasions, there was lessincentive for such conversions. Nonetheless, as late as the fifteenth cen-tury, shortly after Timur’s repeated devastation of Georgia, we hear ofthe persecution and massacre of the Christian population ofAkhalts‘ikhe by the Qaraqoyunlu Türkmen Yusuf as the result of theconversion of a Muslim to Christianity.97 Clearly not all instances of con-version were motivated by self-interest.

ConclusionFrontiers have rarely been rigid and impermeable, and civilizationsnever exist in complete isolation. As I suggested at the beginning of this

83


paper, much of the cultural interaction that typified Caucasian frontiersociety may be found to some extent in similar forms in other Christian-Muslim borderlands. Yet the Georgians’ openness to Muslim influencesonly came in a period when they were politically strong. It might beargued that this is contradicted by the adoption of Turko-Mongol namesand habits under the Mongol empire in the thirteenth and fourteenthcentury, when Georgia was subservient to the Ilkhanate. Yet the use ofTurko-Mongol names had started before thisŒAghbugha, for instance,is attested among the Mkhargrdzelis before Mongol influence was estab-lished,98 and a Georgian bearing the distinctly Turkic name of Egarslanruled Georgia briefly in the immediate aftermath of the Mongol con-quest.99 Furthermore, although Georgia was politically divided by theIlkhanate, it still held a much more favoured status than most other ter-ritories; numerous Georgian lords were granted extensive lands by theMongols, and it was thanks to his friendship with the powerful Mongolam•r Chupan that King Giorgi Brtsqinvale was able to reunify the coun-try and commence a new if short-lived era of peace and prosperity in theearly fourteenth century.100 Many Georgians did not do badly out ofMongol rule, and the aristocracy in particular profited from theiralliances with the Mongols to exert their own power. Thus, Georgia’scultural confidence may not have been as damaged by the Mongol inva-sions as one might expect.

However, it is also clear that this openness to foreign cultural influ-ences was fairly one-sided, and the case of medieval Caucasia challengesthe idea that societies on the frontiers tended to resemble one anothermore than those of their respective hinterlands. There is little evidencethat the Muslim population of the Caucasus felt much admiration for orinterest in Georgian culture despite its powerful position in the region inthe twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On those few occasions, such asErzurum, where there may be Georgian influence on a Muslim society,it is probably more illustrative of Georgia’s political power than a gen-uine openness to Georgian cultural influences on the part of the Mus-lims. In general, Muslims and Georgians maintained their own distinctidentities. The few individuals who did assimilate into other societieswere converts, outcasts who were no longer welcome in their originalcommunities. The eristavni in Baghdad who try to convert Constantineof Kakheti are an example of this, as are the Georgian Muslim maliks ofAhar, and on the other side, Abo and Rusudan’s Seljuk husband. In pre-modern Middle Eastern societies, identity was above all based on con-fessional differences, at least among the élite. It was, therefore, only theconverts who sought to integrate into other societies. The frontiersbetween the Islamic and Christian worlds were never closed, but theywere by no means open in the same way to everyone.

84 A. C. S. Peacock



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Penny Copeland for the accompanying map.

NOTES

1 See, for example, M. Bonner, Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies on theJihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1996);M. Bonner, Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times (Aldershot: Ashgate Vario-rum, 2004).

2 For a convenient introduction to the study of the frontiers of the Islamic world,see M. Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006),esp. 118-156; and Ralph W. Brauer, “Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval MuslimGeography,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 85, Part 6(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1995), 1-73. For an overview of mod-ern scholarly approaches to frontiers in history and the notion of frontier society,see Nora Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and “Pagans” in MedievalHungary, c. 1000-c.1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 6-17.

3 L. T. Darling, “Contested Territory: Ottoman Holy War in Comparative Con-text,” Studia Islamica 91 (2000) : 137.

4 Digenes Akrites, edited with introduction, translation and commentary by JohnMavragordato (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956); Brauer, “Boundaries and Frontiers,”57-8.

5 Mark Stein, Guarding the Frontier: Ottoman Border Forts and Garrisons in Europe(London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 24-7.

6 Michel Balivet, Romanie Byzantine et Pays de Rûm Turc: Histoire d’un Espaced ’ I mbrication Gréco-Turque (Istanbul: Isis, 1994), 22-4; Speros Vryonis, The Decline ofMedieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the EleventhThrough the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 386-7.

7 Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism.8 Charles M. Brand, “The Turkish Element in Byzantium, Eleventh-Twelfth Cen-

turies,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 43 (1989) : 1-25; many of the Turks in this early periodwho entered Byzantine service converted to Christianity, whereas in later times thiswas not the case. For later Turkish mercenaries see, for example, Colin Imber, TheOttoman Empire 1300-1481 (Istanbul: Isis, 1990), 22-4.

9 T. Noonan, “Why Dirhams First Reached Russia,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevii4 (1984) : 155-66, 262-65, and see 273-74 for Georgia’s place in these trade routes.

10 Ibid, 172-251. For a view of the Caucasus’ importance to Iran in history, see M.Mokri, Les Frontières du nord de l’Iran: Caucase, Asie Centrale. Mythologie, Histoire etMémoires, (Paris: Geuthner, 2004).

11 See Thomas T. Allsen, “Sharing Out the Empire: Apportioned Lands Under theMongols,” in Nomads in the Sedentary World, ed. Anatoly M. Khazanov and AndréWink (Richmond: Curzon, 2001), 174-5; and —. Kamalov, Mo©olların Kafkasya Politikası(Istanbul: Kaknüs Yayınları, 2003).

1 2 S. B. Dadoyan, The Fatimid Armenians: Cultural and Political Interaction in the MiddleE a s t, (Leiden: Brill, 1997).

13 W. E. D. Allen, A History of the Georgian People (London: Kegan Paul, 1932), 282-8; R. Dankoff, trans., The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha(1588-1662) As Portrayed in Evliya Çelebi’s Book of Travels (Seyahat-name) (Albany, NewYork: State University of New York, 1991), 272-3.

1 4 S. Babaie, K. Babayan, I. Baghdiantz-McCabe, and M. Farhad, Slaves of the Shah:New Elites of Safavid Iran (London: IB Tauris, 2004), 37-8, 52-3.

15 A. Ter-Ghewondyan, The Arab Emirates in Bagratid Armenia (Lisbon: FundaçãoCalouste Gulbenkian, 1976), 29-30.

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16 On the Seljuks, see A. C. S. Peacock, “Nomadic Society and the Seljuq Campaignsin Caucasia,” Iran and the Caucasus 9 (2005) : 205-230; for the chronicler, see S.Qaukhch‘ishvili, ed., K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba (Tbilisi: Sabchot‘a Sak‘art‘velo, 1955-73), 1:332; Robert W. Thomson, trans., Rewriting Caucasian History: The Medieval ArmenianAdaptation of the Georgian Chronicles. The Original Georgian Texts and the ArmenianAdaptation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 232.

17 See M. Gül, Do©u ve Güneydo©u Anadolu’da Mo©ol Hakimiyet (Istanbul: Yeditepe,2005), 152-181; John Masson Smith, Jr., “Mongol Manpower and the Persian Popula-tion,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 18 (1975) : 295-96.

18 Timothy May, The Mongol Art of War (Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword, 2007), 54-7.19 Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism, esp. 444-63.20 Masson Smith, “Mongol Manpower,” 278, 283, 297-99.21 See S. Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism, 271-72.2 2 See R. Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times: Volume

1: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1997), 251-71.2 3 A satisfactory modern survey of medieval Georgian history does not exist. For

now, see Allen, H i s t o r y, 85-150; Ocherki Istorii Gruzii 3: Gruziya v XI-XV vekakh ( T b i l i s i :Mets‘niereba, 2002).

24 See A. C. S. Peacock, “Georgia and the Anatolian Turks in the 12th and 13th Cen-turies,” Anatolian Studies 56 (2006) : 127-146.

25 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 208-11, 235-36; translated by M. F. Brosset as Histoire de laGéorgie depuis l’antiquité jusqu’au XIX siècle. Partie 1: Histoire ancienne jusqu’en 1469 deJ. C. (St Petersburg: Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1849), 529-32, 552-3 (wheremore modern translations based on the Qaukhch‘ishvili edition are available, theseare cited instead).

26 D. M. Lang, “Georgia in the reign of Giorgi the Brilliant (1314-1346),” Bulletin ofthe School of Oriental and African Studies 17 (1955) : 79.

27 Allen, History, 258-260.2 8 R. Met‘reveli, David IV Aghmashenebeli (Tbilisi: Sabchot‘a Sak‘art‘velo, 1991),

155-56; K‘. Ch‘khataraishvili, “Uts‘khoelebi XII saukunis Sak‘art‘velos lashkarshi,”in Sak‘art‘velo Rustavelis Khanashi: Rustavelis Dedageba 800 Tslist‘avisadmi MidzghvniliK r e b u l i (Tbilisi: Mets‘niereba, 1966), 161-186.

29 V. Minorsky, “Caucasica in the History of Mayyafariqin,” Bulletin of the School ofOriental and African Studies 13 (1949) : 31.

30 H. Hasan, Researches in Persian Literature (Hyderabad, India: Government Press,1958), 42-6, 63-7.

31 See, for example, J. Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: the Royal Diwan(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

32 For an art-historical approach to interpreting a similarly syncretic culture, see A.Eastmond, Art and Identity in Thirteenth Century Byzantium: Haghia Sophia and theEmpire of Trebizond (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004).

33 Many Armenian families succeeded in carving out careers for themselves in theservice of the Georgian monarchy, albeit sometimes at the price of ‘Georgianizing’themselves. So while this essay concentrates on Georgian-Muslim relations, it shouldbe remembered that some of the élite families considered here had both a Georgianand an Armenian identity that space precludes discussing on this occasion. For astudy of their political relations with the invaders, see R. Bedrosian, “The Turko-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13th-14th Centuries” (Ph.D. diss.,Columbia University, 1979); available online at <www.rbedrosian.com>.

34 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 186-7; Brosset, trans., Histoire, 513-4.3 5 For example, on the noble Liparit’s friendship with the sultan, see K ‘ a r t ‘ l i s

T s ‘ k h o v r e b a, 1: 304; Thomson, trans., Rewriting Caucasian History, 296, and see also V.Minorsky, “Caucasica II: The Princes Orbeli in Persia,” Bulletin of the School of Orientaland African Studies 13 (1951) : 874-77.

86 A. C. S. Peacock



36 J. Kolbas, The Mongols in Iran: Chingiz Khan to Uljaytu 1220-1309 (London: Rout-ledge, 2006), 136-7.

37 Abu Layth (Abuleti Orbeliani): (K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 1: 331; Thomson, trans.,Rewriting Caucasian History, 323; see also M. F. Brosset, Additions et Eclaircissements àl’histoire de la Géorgie (St Petersburg: Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1851), 351; R.W. Thomson, trans., “The Historical Compilation of Vardan Arawelci,” DumbartonOaks Papers 43 (1989), § 68, 71.

38 Fakhr al-Dawla (Pakhradaula Orbeliani): Brosset, Additions, 351, StéphanosOrbélian, Histoire de la Siounie, translated by M. F. Brosset (St Petersburg: AcadémieImpériale des Sciences, 1864-6), 146.

39 Hasan, Jalal: Brosset, Additions, 344. For an Armenian Hasan Jalal, see I. A.Orbeli, “Hasan Dzhalal, knyaz Khachenskii,” Izvestiya Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk6th series, 3 (1909) : 405-436.

40 See for example, Ter-Ghewondyan, Arab Emirates, 98-9.41 For the political and cultural background, see Allen, History, 95-108, 308-320; D.

Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia: A History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 63-86.42 Aghbugha Mkhargrdzeli: Brosset, Additions, 362, Kirakos Gandzaketsi, Istoriia

Armenii, translated by L. A. Khanlaryan (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), 119, 157; AghbughaJaqeli: K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 335, 476, (no trans.); Khut‘lubugha Mankaberdeli:K‘art‘lis Ts ‘khovreba, 2: 281; Brosset, Histoire, 1: 598 (where it is given as Khut‘lusha).

43 See Peacock, “Georgia and the Anatolian Turks,” 138-39.44 Ibn al-Athir, Al-K§mil f• al-ta¥r•kh, edited by C. Tornberg (Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1966),

12: 242.45 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 297; tran. Brosset, Histoire, 1: 612. 4 6 J. M. Rogers, “The Mxargrdzelis Between East and West,” Bedi Kartlisa 34 (1976) :

318; Hayrapet Margarian, “Sahib-Divan ±ams ad-Din Muhammad Juvaini and Arme-nia,” Iran and the Caucasus 10 (2006) : 171-3.

47 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 276, 278; trans. Brosset, Histoire 1: 593, 594.48 See “Atabak,” Encyclopaedia of Islam 2d ed. 1: 731-2.49 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 110; K. Vivian, trans., The Georgian Chronicle: The Period of

Giorgi Lasha (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1991), 141.50 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 294, 322-3; Brosset, trans., Histoire, 1: 608, 640-41.51 The Georgian chronicle of the Mongol period alludes to this effective indepen-

dence of Samts‘khe by commenting on the accession of Georgian kings that theyinherited their land except for those of the Jaqelis, Samts‘khe, e.g. K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba,2: 270, 293, 297; Brosset, trans., Histoire, 1: 586, 608, 612.

5 2 On the Jaqelis and medieval Samts‘khe see A. C. S. Peacock, “Between Georgiaand the Islamic World: The Atabegs of Samc‘xe and the Turks,” in At the Crossroads ofEmpires: 14t h- 1 5t h Century Eastern Anatolia, ed. D. Beyazit (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2011). Onthe later history of Samts‘khe, see K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 4: 703-41; translated by M. F.Brosset in Histoire de la Géorgie, Partie 2: Histoire Moderne (St Petersburg: AcadémieImpériale des Sciences, 1856); R. Bayraktar, Ahıska-Çıldır Beylerbeyli©i ( I s t a n b u l :Yaªayan Kitaplar, 2001); J-L. Bacqué-Grammont, Études turco-safavides, IV, V, VI, VII:“Une description ottomane du Saatabago vers 1520,” Bedi Kartlisa 36 (1978) : 149-166;[with Ch. Adle] “Notes et documents sur Mzé-Câbûk, atabeg de la Géorgie mérid-ionale (1500-1515) et les safavides,” Studia Iranica 7, ii (1978) : 213-249; “Notes et doc-uments sur les Ottomanes, les Safavides, et la Géorgie, 1516-1521,” Cahiers du monder u s s e 20, ii (1979) : 239-272; “Notes sur les Safavides et la Géorgie,” Studia Iranica 9, ii(1980) : 211-231.

5 3 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 310-315; Brosset, trans., H i s t o i r e, 1: 626-630; for a fifteenth cen-tury attack, see M. Todua, “Sparsuli tsqaro Sak‘art‘veloshi T‘urkmant‘a shemosevis she-sakheb” in M. Todua, Kart‘ul-Sparsuli Etiudebi (Tbilisi: Mets‘niereba, 1975), 2: 173-194.

54 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 255, 273-4, 277; Brosset, trans., Histoire, 1: 573, 590, 593;K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 4:700ff.

87


55 D. M. Lang, Studies on the Numismatic History of Georgia in Transcaucasia (NewYork: The American Numismatic Society, 1955), 18-33.

56 See also Minorsky, “Caucasica in the History of Mayyafariqin,” 31.57 “Sharvansha da Shahansha”: see document printed in K‘art‘uli Istoriuli Sabut‘ebi

IX-XIII ss, (K‘art‘uli Istoriuli Sabut‘ebis Korpusi, I), eds. T‘. Enukidze, V. Silogava andN. Shoshiashvili (Tbilisi: Mets‘niereba, 1984), 77-8.

58 Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia, 64-72. For the rather later Shahnama transla-tions (fifteenth-eighteenth centuries), see Shahnames Kart‘uli Versiebi (Tbilisi: T‘bilisisUniversitetis Gamomts‘emloba, 1916, 1934, 1974).

5 9 This is likely if we accept that Mankaberdeli is cognate with the Turkic Manko-birti (cf. Jalal al-Din, possibly < *Mingburni). However, against this must be set thepossibility that it is connected with the region of Makhkanaberd near Lake Van (seeKirakos, I s t o r i i a, 141), and Rashid al-Din refers to Sadun clearly as Sadun-i Gurji,“Georgian Sadun” (J§mi† al-Taw§r•kh, eds. M. Rawshan and M. Musavi, [Tehran:Nashr-i Alburz, 1373], 1026, 1196) . At any rate, Sadun’s ability at Mongolian and/orTurkish was noteworthy; see K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 248; Brosset, trans., H i s t o i r e, 1: 565.

60 Thomson, “Historical Compilation,” § 82. It is true that nowhere is it specificallystated they were Muslims. However, if they were Kurds (on which term see furthern. 94 below) and later “believed in Christ,” as Vardan puts it, it is reasonable toassume they were Muslims. See also V. Minorsky, Studies on Caucasian History (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 102.

61 See H. Houben, Roger II of Sicily: A Ruler between East and West (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2002), 98-162, esp. 124-8. I am grateful to Mark Whittow fordiscussion of this point.

62 O. Grabar, “Islamic Influence on Byzantine Art,” Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 2:1018-19.

63 Anatoly M. Khazanov, “Nomads in the History of the Sedentary World,” inKhazanov and Wink, eds., Nomads in the Sedentary World, 2-3.

64 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 1:340; Thomson, trans., Rewriting Caucasian History, 332; V.Minorsky, “Caucasica in the History of Mayyafariqin,” 31-2.

65 V. Minorsky, “Caucasica in the History of Mayyafariqin,” 33-4.66 Ibid, 34.6 7 Al-Fariqi, see V. Minorsky, A History of Sharvan and Darband in the 10t h- 1 1t h

C e n t u r i e s (Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1958), 170-2.68 Ahmada Surameli: K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2:305, 317; Brosset, trans., Histoire, 1:623,

633.69 A. Eastmond, Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia (University Park, PA: Pennsylva-

nia State University Press, 1998), 90-2.70 P. B. Golden, “Cumanica I: the Qipcaqs in Georgia,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi

4 (1984) : 45-8771 Ibn al-Athir, Al-K§mil, 12: 4517 2 See C. Marinacci, “The Architecture of the Karin/Erzurum Region,” in R. Hovannisian,

ed., Armenian Karin/Erzurum (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2003), 102-3 and J. Gierlichs,Mittelalterliche Tierreliefs in Anatolien und Nordmesopotamien: Untersuchungen zür figür -lichen Baudekoration der Seldschuken, Artuqiden und ihrer Nachfolger bis ins 15. Jahrhundert(Tübingen: E. Wasmuth, 1996 [Istanbuler Forschungen 42]), 80-106 (esp. 93-5), 145-7.

73 Burhan al-Din Abu Nasr al-Anawi, An•s al-Qul¶b, MS Aya Sofya 2984, Süley-maniye Library, Istanbul, f. 3b.

74 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 1: 334; Thomson, trans., Rewriting Caucasian History, 325; seealso Minorsky, History of Sharvan and Darband, 136.

7 5 E. E. Bertel’s, Izbrannye Trudy 2: Nizami i Fuzuli (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo VostochnoiLiteratury, 1962), 35. Bertel’s’ evidence for the Georgian-speaking Shirvanshahs isunclear. On Georgia and Shirvan, see N. Asat‘iani, “Sak‘art‘velo-Sharvanis politikuriurt‘iert‘oba XII saukuneshi” in XII Saukunis Sak‘art‘velos Istoriis Sakit‘khebi (Voprosy

88 A. C. S. Peacock



Istorii Gruzii XII veka), ed. Sh. Meskhia (Tbilisi: T‘bilisis Universitetis Gamomts‘emloba,1968), 7-54.

76 See Peacock, “Georgia and the Anatolian Turks,” 140-41.77 Babaie et al., New Elites, 37-8; D. Crecelius and G. Djaparizde, “Relations of the

Georgian Mamluks of Egypt With Their Homeland in the Last Decades of the Eigh-teenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 45, iii (2002) :320-341.

78 M. Canard, “Les reines de la Géorgie dans l’histoire et la légende musulmanes,”Revue des Études Islamiques 37 (1969) : 3-20. Reprinted in M. Canard, L’expansion arabo-islamique et ses repercussions (London: Variorum, 1974), Study XVII.

79 A. Khanbaghi, The Fire, the Star and the Cross: Minority Religions in Medieval andEarly Modern Iran (London: IB Tauris, 2006), 60.

80 For comparison with Turkish converts to Christianity in Byzantium, see Brand,“The Turkish element in Byzantium,” 16-7.

81 Dzveli K‘art‘uli Literaturis Krestomat‘ia, edited by S. Qaukhch‘ishvili (Tbilisi: Stal-inis Sakhelobis T‘bilisis Sakhelmtsip‘o Universitetis Gamomts‘emloba, 1946), 1:77.

82 See al-Fariqi, T§¥r•kh al-F§riq•: Al-Dawla al-Marw§niyya, edited by B. A. †Awad,(Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnani, 1984), 97-8.

83 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 1: 322; Thomson, trans., Rewriting Caucasian History, 313; Al-Husayni, Akhb§r al-Dawla al-Salj¶qiyya, ed. M. Iqbal (Beirut: Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida,1984), 44.

84 V. Minorsky, “Caucasica II: The Georgian Maliks of Ahar,” Bulletin of the Schoolof Oriental and African Studies 13 (1951) : 868-74.

85 Armenia and the Crusades: Tenth to Twelfth Centuries. The Chronicle of Matthew ofEdessa, translated by A. E. Dostourian (Lanham, MD: National Association forArmenian Studies and Research, 1993), 278.

86 Minorsky, “Caucasica II,” 875-6.87 Peacock, “Georgia and the Anatolian Turks,” 141-42; see also Eastmond, Art and

Identity, 91-93. 88 This Georgian prince is called in the Arabic sources Amirzadah b. M§lik al-Kurj.

See Al-Maqrizi, Kit§b al-Sul¶k li-Ma†rifat Duwal al-Mul¶k, ed. M. M. Ziyada (Cairo: Laj-nat al-ta¥lif wal-tarjama wal-nashr, 1939-1973), 3, ii:545, 626, 740.

89 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 329, (no trans.); Sharaf al-Din Yazdi, Zafarnama, ed. M.†Abbasi (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1336), 1: 291, 297.

9 0 “Abkhaz,” Encyclopaedia of Islam 2d ed., 1: 100-2. A rather emotive account isgiven in W. Feuerstein, “Die Eroberung und Islamisierung Südgeorgiens” in C a u c a s i aBetween the Ottoman Empire and Iran, 1555-1914, eds. R. Motika and M. Ursinus( W i e sbaden: Reichert: 2000), 21-9. See also G. Sanikidze and E. W. Walker, “Islam andIslamic Practices in Georgia,” Berkeley Programme in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Work -ing Papers Series, 2004, posted at the eScholarship Repository, University of California:< h t t p :// r e p o s i t o r i e s . c d l i b . o r g / i s e e e s / b p s / > .

91 Georgian text: Dzveli K‘art‘uli Literaturis Krestomat‘ia, 1: 55-71; partial Englishtranslation in D. M. Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints (London: Allen andUnwin, 1956), 115-133; complete Italian translation and commentary in G. Shugaia,La Spiritualità Georgiana: Martirio di Abo, santo e beato martire di Cristo di Ioane Sabanisze(Rome: Edizioni Studium, 2003).

92 Dzveli K‘art‘uli Literaturis Krestomat‘ia, 1: 61; Lang, Lives and Legends, 117-8;Shugaia, La Spiritualità Georgiana, 218.

93 Thomson, “Historical Compilation,” § 82.9 4 The Mkhargrdzelis and the Mankarberdelis are among the families with an ances-

tor named Kurd; see Vardan in Thomson, “Historical Compilation,” ibid., and Kirakos,Istoriia Armenii, 141, 222; see Brosset, A d d i t i o n s, 343, 365 for further examples. On thepossibility that Kurd merely means Muslim, consider the following statement of Al-Qalqashandi, citing al-†Umari’s description of Georgia: “The term for the Muslim

89


inhabitants is Kurd, for the Christian ones Kurj [Georgian]” (Kit§b Sub¡ al-A†sh§ f•‹in§†at al-Insh§¥, Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya, 1913-1922), 8:27, cited in Lang, “Geor-gia in the reign of Giorgi the Brilliant,” 77.

95 Ibn al-Athir, Al-K§mil, 12:416-7.96 Nesawi, Histoire du sultan Djelal ed-Din Mankobirti, edited and translated by O.

Houdas (Paris: Publications de l’école des langues orientales vivantes, 1891-5), 1: 125. 9 7 V. Minorsky, “Thomas of Metsop‘ on the Timurid-Turkman Wars,” in P r o f e s s o r

Muhammad Shafi Presentation Volume, ed. S. M. Abdullah (Lahore, Pakistan: Majlis-e-Armughan-e-‘Ilmi, 1955), 8-9, reprinted in V. Minorsky, The Turks, Iran and the Caucasusin the Middle Ages (London: Variorum, 1978), Study XI. For a full account based on acritical edition of the Armenian text, see Tovma Metsopetsi, Istoriia Timurlenga i ego Pre -e m n i k o v, Russian translation by K. S. Ter-Davtyan (Yerevan: Nairi, 2005), 59-62. The textmay also be found in English translation at: <http://www. rbedrosian. com/tm4.htm>.

98 Kirakos (Istoriia Armenii, 257) tells us that before the Mongols seized the townShamkhor, it had been held by Vahram [Mkhargrdzeli] and his son Aghbugha, indi-cating he must have been born and given that name before the arrival of the Mongols.

99 K‘art‘lis Ts‘khovreba, 2: 222; trans., Brosset, Histoire, 1: 540.100 See D. M. Lang, “Georgia in the reign of Giorgi the Brilliant,” passim.

90 A. C. S. Peacock


Identity, Culture and Religion on Medieval Islam's Caucasian Frontier

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