Muslim architecture in Georgia.
What is it about?
This article draws upon fieldwork carried out in the Meskheti (Ahıska) region of modern Georgia to introduce, analyse, and discuss local mosque architecture. These mosques shed light on trans-regional and trans-imperial artisan and patronage networks and architectural and aesthetic currents in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Why is it important?
The region’s Islamic art and architecture is largely unknown to the international scholarly community due to a turbulent history, especially in the twentieth century. The article retraces the story of how local Muslim communities navigated the complex process of maintaining their religious identity and visible material culture amid the shifting political and social tides in the region during that time, and the fate of the edifices they built after they were forced to leave the region in the mid-twentieth century.