Fakhr al-Din Fariburz ibn Sallar (), commonly known as Fariburz I (), was the sixteenth Shah of Shirvan, reigning from 1063 until his death, which occurred between 1094 and 1096. His rule coincided with a profound reordering of power in the Caucasus, above all the advance of the Seljuqs, and he navigated it chiefly through negotiation, tribute and opportune alliance rather than open confrontation. Regarded as a ruler of considerable diplomatic skill, he presided over a realm that at its greatest extent reached from Mughan to Kumuk and Alania, and he spent much of his reign extending its borders at the expense of his neighbours.
Reign Fariburz succeeded to the throne on the death of his father Sallar on 20 February 1063, although he had in practice governed most of the kingdom during the latter years of his father's reign.
Within a month, in March, the Shaddadid ruler of Arran, Abu'l-Aswar Shavur I, invaded Shirvan, seized the fortress of Quylamiyan, garrisoned it and withdrew. The likeliest cause of the attack was Fariburz's decision to shelter Anushirvan ibn Lashkari, whom Abu'l-Aswar, his great-uncle, had deposed in 1049. Shavur soon returned and laid waste to the country, driving off the flocks and herds; the Shirvanians who opposed him were cut down, and many notables were taken prisoner and stripped of their possessions. He then encamped before the gates of the capital, Yazidiyya (Shamakhi), where, according to the Ta'rikh al-Bab, he collected his own daughter – the widow of the late Sallar – together with her money, goods and valuables, and returned with her to Arran.
In July 1063 Shavur invaded a third time, halting at the village of Sadun (identified by Sara Ashurbeyli with the present-day Sədan) and burning the crops, villages and estates around it. Unable to resist him, Fariburz dispatched his son Afridun, accompanied by Anushirvan, to seek help from the ruler of Sarir, Afridun's maternal grandfather. The appeal was refused, and after three months Afridun came home empty-handed.
In January 1064 Shavur mounted a fourth invasion, occupying several villages and districts, leaving part of his army behind under some of his emirs, and demanding 40,000 dinars. In Rajab of that year (June–July 1064) Fariburz concluded a peace with him: Shavur received the 40,000 dinars and in exchange restored Quylamiyan.
Hostilities with Derbent In 1065 the townspeople of Derbent (al-Bab), led by the city's chiefs (ra'ises), rose in revolt and killed their ruler, the Hashimid emir Mansur ibn Abd al-Malik. Mansur was a cousin of Fariburz – the son of his paternal aunt – and had always lived at peace with him, and the Shirvanshah made the murder his pretext for war. He raided and destroyed the villages of al-Bab, and when the Derbentis resisted him near the Qalabad bridge as he reached the fortress of Mihyariya in Masqat, he defeated them with heavy slaughter. He then executed many of the ra'ises of al-Bab, plundered their property, drove off their herds and returned to Shirvan. Ashurbeyli reads the incessant clashes between the ra'ises, the emir of al-Bab and the Shirvanshah as evidence that, with the development of feudal relations in the second half of the 11th century, the urban elite had grown strong enough to fight the feudal rulers for independence in the government of the cities.
The Ta'rikh al-Bab records that on the last day of Rabi' II 457 (9 April 1065) Fariburz's cousin Hormuzd (son of Manuchihr I) died on his hereditary estate in Tabasaran and was buried there among his maternal uncles – evidence, as Ashurbeyli notes, that Tabasaran formed part of the Shirvanshahs' lands and was governed by their kinsmen. Later that year Fariburz returned with his army to Masqat, encamped on the banks of the Samur River, and in early July 1065 sent out raiding detachments against Derbent. The Shirvanshah withdrew only after the people of Derbent had released his paternal aunt Shamkuya from captivity and sent her to him, escorted by faqihs, together with all her property and valuables.
A certain Mufarrij ibn Muzaffar, styled "chief-of-chiefs of Derbent", thereupon sought help from the ruler of Sarir, who consented. Leading a force of his own men reinforced by Saririans, Mufarrij laid siege to Shabaran, but the Shirvanian regular army, aided by the townspeople, defeated him and took him prisoner. The people of al-Bab and their ra'ises then resolved to surrender the city to the Shirvanshah, who had the citadel repaired, strengthened with troops and stocked with provisions, while the emir of al-Bab, Abd al-Malik ibn Lashkari, withdrew to Haydaq. On 30 January 1066 Fariburz installed Afridun as governor of al-Bab, and the inhabitants received him with great ceremony.
The Ta'rikh al-Bab also preserves obscure notices of unrest in the Shirvanian capital itself. To suppress it Fariburz resorted to foreign troops. In April 1066, the chronicle relates, he grew wrathful against the people of his capital Yazidiyya and loosed the "infidel Georgians" upon them (one manuscript reads "the Khazars") who plundered the inhabitants and seized the Muslim ulama, ra'ises and notables; the Shirvanshah then ordered some of the captives executed with bound hands, others crucified, and the rest imprisoned until they had paid the arrears of the kharaj of past years.
Conflict with the Turks A more formidable threat soon appeared in the form of the Oghuz Turks, who in 1066 raided Shirvan, plundering the encampments (hilal) of the Kurds and carrying off great booty in people, livestock and property. Fariburz attempted to buy them off, without success. On 22 November 1066 the Turkic warlord Qara-tegin descended on Shirvan a second time, now in alliance with Fariburz's paternal uncle Mamlan ibn Yazid, a rival claimant to the throne. Qara Tegin besieged Yazidiyya and ravaged its hinterland, then swept through the mountains and valleys of the country, killing great numbers, driving off the herds and enslaving women and children before descending on Baku and repeating the destruction there. So grave did the situation become that Fariburz sent his stud of more than 4,000 thoroughbred brood mares away to Masqat for safety. In January 1067, for reasons that are not recorded, he had a number of Shamakhi's inhabitants crucified, among them his own chamberlain (hajib), Lashkari ibn Rahman.
Qara-tegin's bands meanwhile plundered everything in their path from Baku to Shabaran, and he once more invested Yazidiyya. Fariburz's position worsened further when a fresh body of 2,000 Turkic troops arrived to reinforce the besiegers. These newcomers attempted a ruse: they sent word to Fariburz that "the Sultan has sent us to help thee and to drive Qara-tegin from thee", ostensibly arrested Qara-tegin and Mamlan, and invited the Shirvanshah to come and collect the prisoners. Fariburz saw through the stratagem and did not leave his residence. The Turks then released the two men and pressed on with the siege. To destroy his domestic enemy, Fariburz secretly paid 6,000 dinars to Savtegin, the chamberlain of the Seljuq sultan Alp Arslan, who was overlord of the Turkic bands ravaging the Caucasus.
The chamberlain accordingly invited Mamlan, then residing at the castle of Qalabad, to a feast. When Mamlan, having drunk heavily, was given leave to depart, he was waylaid on the road and killed, on the night of 24 February 1067, by three of Fariburz's men: his cousin Lashkarsitan (apparently a son of Abu'l-Aswar), his servant Shad-tekin and his chamberlain Namdar ibn Muzaffar. Mamlan's body was brought to Yazidiyya and buried there. The Turks thereupon crossed the Kura and withdrew with their booty, and in the same month the ruler of Qazvin, Erbasgan (or Elbasan) – a brother-in-law of Alp Arslan – sent officials to collect the annual tribute of 30,000 dinars that Fariburz had undertaken to pay in return for protection against further Turkic raids.
Bar Hebraeus records that in 1067 a Shirvanshah trapped an Armenian patrician named Aristakes with 200 of his men and handed them over to Alp Arslan, who ultimately forced them to convert to Islam. Although Bar Hebraeus does not name the Shirvanshah, and curiously describes him as a "Turkish emir", Fariburz was the ruler active in that year.The Chronography of Gregory Abû’l Faraj, the Son of Aaron, the Hebrew Physician, Commonly known as Bar Hebraeus, London: Oxford University Press, 1932, page 218.
The rebellion in Shaki and its aftermath In April 1067 Bagrat IV of Georgia marched against Fariburz and seized the castle of Daskarat al-Husayn in the province of Shaki, which he subsequently handed over to Aghsartan I, king of Kakheti, who now held the province that had formerly belonged to Fariburz. Fariburz marched to recover the fortress but failed and returned to the capital. Later in 1067 the military chiefs Qaymas and Qara-tegin came to the Shirvanshah with a detachment of Turkic cavalry, this time apparently invited by Fariburz against Georgians, and Qara-tegin was given in marriage a daughter of Fariburz's uncle Qubad. Qaymas died suddenly in Shirvan shortly afterwards – Ashurbeyli raises the possibility of poison – and was buried in Yazidiyya. In June the shah's cousin Lashkarsitan was killed before the gates of Qabala by the people of Quni (or Khuni) – possibly, in Ashurbeyli's conjecture, Khazars settled there. In October Fariburz's aunt Shamkuya died in the Gulustan castle and was buried beside her father at Shabaran.
Submission to Alp Arslan Towards the end of 1067 the Seljuq sultan Alp Arslan entered South Caucasus since region's overlord Elbasan supported his rival Qawurd. Fariburz went to him with precious gifts, offering his presents and his service (al-hadiyya wa'l-khidma), and in 1068 accompanied him on campaign against Bagrat IV; the Shaddadid Fadl ibn Shavur likewise met the sultan in submission, handing over the keys of his treasury. Fariburz used the sultan's authority to settle his own scores: on his return he marched against Quni, killing many of its people, driving off the herds and burning the villages in revenge for Lashkarsitan.
When Alp Arslan came back from his Georgian campaign and passed through Ganja towards Barda, the people of Derbent complained to him that Fariburz had imprisoned several of their chiefs – part of his continuing struggle with the ra'ises who sought to rule the city independently. The sultan ordered their release, which Fariburz carried out; nonetheless, Alp Arslan had him imprisoned. In the ensuing confusion Qara-tegin – by marriage the husband of Fariburz's cousin – fled from Yazidiyya to Masqat, where he was killed, and Fariburz's brother Guzdaham ibn Sallar absconded to the country of the Lakz with the tribute money owed to the sultan. After some days Fariburz was freed and sent home, but only on condition of a heavy annual tribute. In July 1068 Afridun left Derbent and returned to Shirvan, meanwhile Alp Arslan left Caucasus following the news of Böritigin's death.