In 1400 the invasion of Tīmūr added a crowning horror to the sufferings of Georgia, and though for a brief period the rule of Alexander I (1414–1442) delivered the country from the foreign yoke and drove out all the Muhammadans—after his death it was again broken up into a number of petty princedoms, from which the Turks and the Persians wrested the last shreds of independence. But the Muhammadans always found Georgia to be a turbulent and rebellious possession, ever ready to break out into open revolt at the slightest opportunity. Both Turks and Persians sought to secure the allegiance of these troublesome subjects by means of conversion to Islam. After the fall of Constantinople and the increase of Turkish power in Asia Minor, the inhabitants of Akhaltsikhé and other districts to the west of it became Muhammadans. [251] In 1579 two Georgian princes—brothers—came on an embassy to Constantinople with a large retinue of about two hundred persons: here the younger brother together with his attendants became a Musalman, in the hope (it was said) of thereby supplanting his elder brother. [252] At a rather later date, the conquests of the Turks brought some of the districts in the very centre of Georgia into their power, the inhabitants of which embraced the creed of the conquerors. [253] From this period Samtzkhé, the most western portion of Georgia, recognised the suzerainty of Turkey: its rulers and people were allowed to continue undisturbed in the Christian faith, but from 1625 the ruling dynasty became Muhammadan and many of the chiefs and the aristocracy followed their example. Christianity retained its hold upon the peasants much longer, but when the clergy of Samtzkhé refused allegiance to the Katholikos of Karthli, there ceased to be regular provision made for supplying the spiritual needs of the people: the nobles, even before their conversion, had taken to plundering the estates of the Church, and after becoming Musalmans they naturally ceased to assist it with their offerings, and the churches and monasteries falling into decay were replaced by mosques. [254] The rest of Georgia had submitted to Persia, and when Tavernier visited this part of the country, about the middle of the seventeenth century, he found it divided into two kingdoms, which were provinces of the Persian empire, and were governed by native Georgian princes who had to turn Muhammadan before being advanced to this dignity. [255] One of the first of such princes was the Tsarevitch Constantine, son of King Alexander II of Kakheth, who had been brought up at the Persian court and had there embraced Islam, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. [256] The first Muhammadan king of Karthli, the Tsarevitch Rustam (1634–1658), had also been brought up in Persia, and he and his successors to the end of the century were all Muhammadans. [257]