In 1049, Abu'l-Aswar's nephew Lashkari, the emir of Ganja, died, after a troubled reign of 15 years. He was succeeded by his infant son
Anushirvan, but actual power was in the hands of his chamberlain (
hajib), Abu Mansur. After barely two months, a group of elders opposed to the new regime's policies deposed Abu Mansur while he was at
Shamkur and called upon Abu'l-Aswar to assume control of Ganja as well. Abu'l-Aswar agreed and abandoned Dvin, which had become too exposed to the Byzantines. The city was left in the hands of a series of governors until 1053, when he appointed his son Abu Nasr Iskandar as ruler of the city and the surrounding regions. The Shaddadid ruler first set things in order in Shamkur, and then entered Ganja, taking possession "all the lands of Arran and its fortresses". At this point in his career, Abu'l-Aswar had achieved a considerable reputation as a ruler and a warrior; the
Ziyarid prince
Keikavus (), who later wrote a well-known
mirror for princes, the
Qabusnameh, even came to Ganja and spent several years at the Shaddadid court to participate in the
jihad against the Christians, after having spent eight years at the court of
Maw'dud of Ghazni. According to Keikavus, his host was "a great king, a man firm and clever, [...] just, courageous, eloquent dialectician, of pure faith and far-sighted". This estimate was shared by the Byzantines, for Skylitzes likewise calls him "as clever a strategist as anybody else, capable of thwarting the enemies' tactics and policies", while Münejjim Bashi writes that after his takeover of Ganja, "Abu'l-Aswar [...] restored the name of the dynasty to life after it had nearly died out. He became strong and the situation of the subjects and the army became orderly." , installed under Abu'l-Aswar's orders in 1062, now at the
Gelati Monastery in
Georgia According to Münejjim Bashi, in 1053, Abu'l-Aswar seized the (unidentified) fortress of Basra from the Georgians, and refortified and garrisoned it with many men. In 1054/5, along with many of the neighbouring rulers, he became a vassal of the Seljuk Sultan
Toghrul Beg (), although at least initially the impact of Seljuk overlordship seems to have been light, as neither Toghrul nor his successor
Alp Arslan () appeared on Shaddadid coinage at this time. In 1062, Abu'l-Aswar received a delegation from the
Emirate of Tiflis, an isolated Muslim stronghold within the Christian Georgian kingdoms. Following the death of Emir Ja'far ibn Ali, the locals had evicted his quarrelling sons, and now asked Abu'l-Aswar to assume control of the city. The Shaddadid ruler was inclined to accept, but his
vizier, Bakhtiyar ibn Salman, dissuaded him by warning that such an action would disperse his limited forces. After Abu'l-Aswar's refusal, Tiflis was occupied by the Georgians, until they were evicted by Alp Arslan in 1068. This event highlighted the limitations of Shaddadid power, which was further demonstrated by an
Alan invasion through the
Darial Pass in the same year: more than 20,000 inhabitants of Arran were carried off as slaves according to Münejjim Bashi's account. In response to the Alan threat, Abu'l-Aswar built a wall and moat around the suburb (
rabad) of his capital Ganja. The gates installed by Abu'l-Aswar for this new fortification were carried off by the Georgians under
Demetrius I in 1139, and are still preserved at the
Gelati Monastery in modern
Georgia. In 2012–14, replicas of the original gates were installed in Ganja's Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography. At the same time, Abu'l-Aswar's relations with his neighbour,
Shirvanshah Fariburz I (), abruptly deteriorated. The two dynasties were linked by family ties—Fariburz's predecessor,
Sallar (), had even been married to a daughter of Abu'l-Aswar—but now the Shaddadid ruler launched a series of invasions against
Shirvan. In spring 1063, Abu'l-Aswar captured the Quylamiyan castle, marched on to the capital of Shirvan,
Shamakhi, defeated the Shirvanshah's forces in battle, plundered their camp, and captured his own daughter, her treasure and retinue. He then withdrew to Arran, but in July returned to Shirvan to raid it. In the next year, he again invaded Shirvan and captured a number of fortresses, while the local Kurdish tribes went over to him. After his return to Ganja, a peace treaty was signed with the Shirvanshah in June/July 1064, whereby Abu'l-Aswar returned Quylamiyan in exchange for 40,000
gold dinars. In 1064, the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan invaded Byzantine Armenia and took Ani. Abu'l-Aswar himself led raids into the area, capturing the unidentified fortress of Wyjyn ("one of the best in Armenia" according to Münejjim Bashi). Münejjim Bashi further records that Alp Arslan handed over control of Ani to him;
Ibn al-Athir reports the transfer to an unnamed emir, while
Vardan Areveltsi records that the fortress was granted only to Abu'l-Aswar's son and successor,
Fadl. Immediately after his return to Ganja and the dispersal of his army, however, the Alans again crossed the Darial Pass in October 1065, and, allied with the inhabitants of
Shakki, raided Arran. At Shamkur they killed more than 200 volunteers for the
jihad, and raided even to the very gates of Ganja itself, before moving on to raid the environs of
Barda'a. Abu'l-Aswar and his troops preferred to remain within the protection of the walled cities rather than face the raiders in the field, and the Alans reached all the way to the
Araxes before turning back north, along with the prisoners they had taken. Abu'l-Aswar died on 19 November 1067, and was buried at the main mosque of Ganja. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Fadl II, whom he had already announced as his heir, and to whom the oath of allegiance (''
bay'ah'') had been taken by the Shaddadid family, the army and the people of Arran. Apart from Fadl, Abu'l-Aswar had four more sons—Ashot, Iskandar,
Manuchihr, and Marzuban—as well as an unnamed daughter, wife of the Shirvanshah Sallar. Abu'l-Aswar's reign represented the zenith of the Shaddadid dynasty, but their fall began almost immediately after his death: the Seljuks strengthened their grip on Arran and the other principalities of the region, and Alp Arslan visited Ganja in person to extract an enormous tribute. Fadl II's reign was troubled—at one point he was captured and held by the Georgians for eight months—but he managed to capture Derbent. Fadl II was overthrown by his son
Fadlun (Fadl III) in 1073, who was in turn deposed in 1075 by the Turkish
ghulam Sav Tegin, to whom the Seljuks had assigned control of Arran and Derbent. This ended the family's rule over Arran, but a junior line, led by Abu'l-Aswar's third son Manuchihr, continued to govern Ani as emirs, initially as Seljuk, and later as Georgian, vassals. This last branch of the Shaddadids maintained a precarious independence until the end of their dynasty in . == See also ==