Kutaisi University
Invited Specialist
Philology
PhD in Philology
Tbilisi, Georgia
giorgimuliani@gmail.com
Abstract
The history of relations between Iran and Georgia is an exceptionally complex and multi-layered process extending over several millennia. Owing to its distinctive geographical location and the richness of its human and material resources, Georgia has always attracted the attention of neighbouring empires and rulers, including Safavid Iran. Throughout its history, this resulted in repeated invasions, plundering, captivity, and destruction.
In the seventeenth century, the Safavid shahs, particularly Shah Tahmasp and Shah Abbas I, repeatedly invaded Georgia as part of a deliberate policy and deported hundreds of thousands of captives from Kakheti in eastern Georgia to various regions of Iran. These forced deportations took place under extremely harsh and tragic conditions. The Safavid shahs gave their military campaigns a religious character, describing them as ghaza, or a struggle of Islam against unbelievers. Consequently, one of their principal aims—and one of the perceived achievements of their campaigns—was the religious conversion of captives and deported populations in Iran.
Persian sources and the accounts of European travellers indicate that the issue of religious conversion among Georgians was treated differently, and more severely, than among other ethnic groups of the Caucasus, particularly Armenians. Many Georgian nobles and princes were raised at the Iranian royal court, converted to Islam, and were subsequently sent back to Georgia as rulers. Some Islamised Georgians attained exceptionally high offices at the Safavid court.
The conversion of deported captives took place at different times and in various forms. Shah Abbas reportedly pardoned approximately three thousand Georgian families on the condition that they convert to Islam and resettled them in Mazandaran. As for the Georgians deported to the central regions of Iran, the Safavid capital, and the province of Fereydan, the earliest and only very limited information concerning their conversion is found in the work of Iskandar Munshi, on which subsequent sources and interpretations have largely relied.
According to Iskandar Munshi, Shah Abbas sent a trusted representative to the region to convert the Georgians to Islam. It was claimed that, because they were Christians, they were subjected to oppression and that conversion would protect them from attacks by nomadic and “wild” tribes. The historian reports that in that year 5,000 people converted to Islam, some forcibly and others voluntarily.
A widespread view among both scholars and Georgians holds that this period marked the final years of Christianity among the Fereydani Georgians. However, the findings of the present study challenge this assumption. The research draws on the account of a European traveller who passed through Fereydan on his way to Isfahan and encountered the local Georgian population.
According to this newly identified evidence, at least a portion of the Georgian population living in the Fereydan region preserved the religion of their ancestors until the middle of the nineteenth century.
The present study examines the question of religion among the Fereydani Georgians from a historical perspective, with particular emphasis on newly discovered evidence and information.