The campaign of Marwan the Deaf; Tbilisi becomes the seat of an Arab emirate in the South Caucasus.
736
In the mid-7th century the Arabs invaded the Caucasus; in 645 Tbilisi too fell under their power. Thus began the period of Arab domination in the Georgian lands.
An Arab emirate established itself in Tbilisi, paying tribute to the Caliphate; meanwhile the peripheral Georgian principalities kept their autonomy and gradually gathered strength.
Arab pressure on lowland Kartli shifted the centre of Georgian statehood south-west, to Tao-Klarjeti, from which the country's later unification would begin.