Adjarians, like other
ethnographic groups of Georgians, have historically followed Christianity. However, in the course of the 200 years of Ottoman rule, which pursued discriminatory policies against Christians, Adjarians gradually converted to
Islam. The
nobility converted first. Adjarians were fully Islamized by the end of the eighteenth century. During the 1853–1856
Crimean War and the 1877–1878
Russo-Turkish War, as other Ottoman subjects many Adjarians fought on the side of the Turks. The Ottomans were forced to cede Adjara to the expanding
Russian Empire in 1878 under the
Treaty of Berlin. Russian authorities initially promoted emigration, allowing Muslims to sell their property and leave the country, as a result of which many
Muslims moved to the Ottoman Empire. However, Russian authorities then tried to win the loyalty of local Muslims by building mosques and madrassas, reasoning that it was better to operate these religious establishments under strict supervision of the state, while prohibiting locals from studying in Muslim countries. As a result, many
muhacir came back to Adjara. Adjara became part of the independent
Georgian Democratic Republic in 1918. However, in April 1918, the
Ottoman Empire invaded Georgia and captured Batumi. On 4 June 1918, the
Treaty of Batum was signed, under which Georgia was forced to cede Adjara to the Ottoman Empire. However, due to the Ottoman defeat in the First World War and the
Treaty of Mudros, the Ottomans soon withdrew from the territory, and Adjara fell under the temporary occupation of Great Britain. During this time, under the leadership of prominent Adjarian activist
Memed Abashidze, the Congress of the Representatives of Muslim Georgians was held on 31 August 1919. It passed a resolution supporting reunification with Georgia and elected Majlis of Georgian Muslims, which represented Muslim Georgians in relation to the British administration. , a pioneering Georgian female
aviator of Adjarian provenance The British administration ceded Adjara to the
Democratic Republic of Georgia on July 20, 1920. It was granted autonomy under the Georgian constitution adopted in February 1921 when the
Red Army invaded Georgia. Achara joined the territory of
Soviet Georgia under the 1921
Treaty of Kars, between the Ottoman Empire and the
USSR. The treaty required that Achara would have "administrative autonomy and the right to develop its own culture, its own religion, and its own agrarian regime". However, the
Soviet atheist ideology dampened religious practice in the region, thus diminishing the Adjarian legitimation for autonomy within the Soviet system. In the 1920s, the Achars rebelled against the Soviet anti-Islamic activities and
collectivization reforms. The armed uprising began in the mountainous regions of Adjara in April 1929. Soviet troops were deployed in response and swiftly quelled the revolt. The Georgian population of Adjara had been generally known as
Muslim Georgians until the 1926 Soviet
census listed them as
Adjarians, separate from the rest of Georgians, counting 71,426 of them. In subsequent Soviet censuses, they were listed with other Georgians, and the question of religion was completely dropped from Soviet censuses
after 1937. There was a resurgence of the Adjarian religious identity during the
dissolution of the USSR. Islamic religious practice became the cultural norm,
madrassas reopened and the
call to prayer sounded from mosques. Local leader
Aslan Abashidze leveraged the ongoing
Islamic revival to advance his political goals. After the Georgian independence, the first Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia appointed Abashidze as the chairman of Ajaria's parliament in 1991. Taking advantage of the turmoil caused by the
Georgian Civil War,
War in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia, he unilaterally took power without formal agreement and started to withhold tax revenue and capture
Adjara's considerable wealth. The Head
Mufti of Achara, Haji Mahmud Kamashidze, supported Abashidze in his power struggle. However, after Abashidze reached his goals, he stopped using the Muslim movement for his political goals. The
2004 Adjara crisis led to Aslan Abashidze stepping down from his post after thousands of Adjarians protested against his rule in Batumi in May 2004, with Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili symbolically proclaiming "Abashidze has fled, Adjara is free". == Religion ==