David IV retakes Tbilisi

1122

Five centuries after an Arab governor first installed himself there, the Georgian king marched into Tbilisi, ended four hundred years of Muslim rule, and moved his capital from Kutaisi. He issued coins in Georgian and Arabic and proclaimed religious tolerance in a bilingual charter. David's Tbilisi became a cosmopolitan city where Georgian Christians, Armenian merchants, and Muslim traders worshipped side by side under the protection of the crown.