In 463 AD,
Priscus mentions that the Sabirs attacked the
Saragurs,
Oghurs and
Onogurs, as a result of having themselves been attacked by the Avars. It has been suggested that the nomadic motion began with the Chinese attack in 450–458 against the
Rouran Khaganate. In 504 and 515, they held raids around the
Caucasus, which was the
Sasanian northern frontier during the rule of king
Kavadh I, causing problems to the Persians in their war against the
Byzantine Empire. It has been proposed that the 20,000 Huns led by
Zilgibis were Sabirs. They made treaties with both
Justin I and Kavadh I, but decided on the former, which resulted in mutual agreement between Justin I and Kavadh I, and the former devastating attack on Zilgibis and his army. In 520s, the Queen
Boareks, widow of the Sabir chieftain Balaq (Turkic
balaq) through
Justinian I's diplomacy came closer to the Byzantines, and successfully attacked two Hunnic leaders Astera/Styrax (executed in Constantinople) and Aglanos/Glones (Sasanian ally). She ruled over 100,000 people and could field 20,000 strong-men army. At the
Battle of Satala (530), a mixed Persian army led by
Mihr-Mihroe consisted of circa three thousand Sabirs. In December 531, many Sabirs were summoned by the Persians to plunder around
Euphratesia,
Cyrrhus,
Cilicia, but some of the booty had been returned by the Roman
magister militum. During the
Lazic War (541–562), in 548, along with the
Alans they allied with
Gubazes II of Lazica and conquered the
Petra from the Persians. In 551, some Sabirs were allied to
Bessas in the
successful attempt to wrest Petra from the Persians, meanwhile, other four thousand led by Mihr-Mihroe were part of the unsuccessful siege of
Archaeopolis. In 556, two thousand Sabirs served as heavy infantry mercenaries of the Byzantine Empire against the Sasanian Empire. They were led by Balmaq (Turkic
barmaq, "finger" ), Kutilzis (Turkic
*qut-il-či, with
qut meaning "majesty") and Iliger (Turkic
Ilig-ār, "prince-man"). They won against the three thousand
Dilimnites near Archaeopolis. Eight hundred Dilimnites were killed in a failed rush. In the same year, some five thousand Sabirs allied to the Persians were killed by three thousand Roman horsemen. As part of the
Byzantine–Sasanian War of 572–591, in 572–573, Sabirs lost as part of the Sasanian mixed army against the
Marcian near
Nisibis. In 578, some eight thousand Sabirs and Arab allies were on the side of the Persians and raided territory around
Resaena and
Constantia. The Syriac translation of the
Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor's
Ecclesiastical History (c. 555) in Western Eurasia recorded thirteen tribes, including the
sbr (Sabir). They are described in typical phrases reserved for nomads in the ethnographic literature of the period, as people who "live in tents, earn their living on the meat of livestock and fish, of wild animals and by their weapons (plunder)". The Armenian and Arabic sources placed them in the North Caucasus, near
Laks,
Alans, Filān, Masqat, Sāhib as-
Sarīr and the Khazar town
Samandar. By the late 6th century, the coming of the
Pannonian Avars into Europe terminated the Sabir union in the North Caucasus. According to
Theophylact Simocatta, when the
Barsils, Onogurs and Sabirs saw the invading Uar and Chunni they panicked because thought the invaders were the Avars.
Menander Protector placed the events between 558 and 560. He mentioned them last time in connection with the Byzantine conquest in
Caucasian Albania during the reign of
Tiberius II Constantine (578–582), but the large sums were not enough to stop them to rejoin the Persians. They were assimilated into the
Khazars and
Bulgars confederations. The tribe Suwāz in
Volga Bulgaria is related to the city
Suwār in the same state, and North Caucasian kingdom Suwār. However, it is uncertain whether these Suwār i.e. Sawâr are the Sabirs who gone to the North Caucasus and after 558 retreated to the Volga, came there as the result of the Khazar state creation, or were tribes who never went to the North Caucasus, but stopped on the Volga.
Ahmad ibn Fadlan recorded that in the 10th century they still had their own leader with the title
Wirgh (*
Vuyrigh, Turkic
Buyruq), and there were some Suwār-Bulghar hostilities. There is no reliable information supporting the view of
Mikhail Artamonov, who has claimed the intermixing of the Sabirs and Khazars was facilitated by their common Bulgar ethnicity, or that they were Turkicized
Ugrians. Károly Czeglédy considered that the Khazar state was composed of three basic groups, including the Sabirs. Dieter Ludwig suggested that the Khazars were Sabirs who had formed an alliance with the Uar of
Khwarezm. The intimate ties between the Hungarians and the Sabirs led
Lev Gumilev to speculate that rather than
Oghuric they may have been
Ugric speakers (both terms being of the same etymological origin).
Al-Biruni remarked that the language of the Volga Bulgars and Sawârs was "compounded of Turkic and
Khazar", while modern scholars like Gyula Németh,
Lajos Ligeti and
Peter Benjamin Golden consider that the Sabirs spoke standard Turkic rather than Oghuric Turkic. ==Legacy==