TAF PUBLISHING

The article aims a) to study the question of peaceful coexistence between Christian Georgia and the Islamic World; b) to discuss and explore the policy of tolerance of other religions pursued by Georgian King David IV the Builder and his successors in their Muslim subjects. It is suggested that the status of the Muslim population in the Christian Kingdom of Georgia resembled that of the dhimmis (or members of the “protected” communities) in the Islamic states, although the Muslims living in the Kingdom of Georgia enjoyed more rights than the dhimmis in Islamic countries, legally and socially they were not equal with Christians. The methodological foundation of the research is the method of historicism, scholarly objectivity, and systematicity, which will enable us to explore the research issues deeply. Statistical, historical-comparative, and chronological methods will be the basis of the analysis of the historical data, and adequate conclusions will be reached. These methodologies made it possible to discuss the politics of religious tolerance from the analytic point of view based on that data and sources belonging to various types (narrative, epigraphic, documental) and various languages (Georgian, Armenian, Arabic, Persian and Turkish). The 12th-13th century Georgian literature and historical sources, expressing negative feelings towards Islam, keep silent about the policy of Georgian kings towards their subjected Muslim population. However, the works of Arab and Persian authors, dating from the same period, contain information concerning this fact. One part of these sources will be studied from the standpoint of the history of Georgia for the first time.