Azerbaijanis in Georgia - Religion

Religion

Azeris in Georgia are mainly Muslim, with 80% being Shiite and 20% Sunni. Georgia's constitution provides for religious freedom, and Azeris have the opportunity to attend mosques in the country. The largest Shiite mosque in Tbilisi was built in 1524 by Ismail I of Persia. In 1951, during the construction of the Metekhi bridge the communist government ordered the mosque to be demolished. The Sunni mosque was built between 1723 and 1735 by the Ottomans, but it was destroyed in 1740 by reinvanding Persians. In 1864, it was restored and headed by the Teregulovs, a family of Volga Tatar origin who settled in Tbilisi two decades prior to that. Since the demolition of the Shiite mosque in 1951, the Shiite Azeris of Tbilisi have attended the Sunni mosque (the only Muslim temple in modern Tbilisi), where the Sunni and Shiite sections were separated by a black curtain. In 1996, the new imam ordered to remove the curtain and both denominations have prayed together ever since.

Although able to preserve their linguistic and religious identity, the Azeris in Georgia have undergone some influences from Georgian culture, such as mourning over the body of the deceased for three days, while Azeris elsewhere, as most Muslims, generally bury their dead on the day of death before sunset.