He undertook successful campaigns into Georgia and Shirvan, although the limits of Shaddadid power were exposed by his failure to take over the Emirate of Tiflis and by devastating raids by the Alans.

[9] Münejjim Bashi records that at the time of his death in 1067, Abu'l-Aswar's total reign, both in Ganja and before that "over some territories", had lasted 46 years.

[3][13] Abu'l-Aswar was intimately connected with the Armenian princely houses, having married a sister of David I Anhoghin, King of Tashir.

[9] Abu'l-Aswar is first recorded by the history of Matthew of Edessa in 1040, when the Armenian nobleman Abirat, who had become embroiled in the dispute between Gagik I's sons Ashot IV and Hovhannes-Smbat III, came to Dvin.

The Shaddadid army, numbering an impossible 150,000 according to Matthew of Edessa, captured much of Tashir, but David was able to assemble a broad alliance against Abu'l-Aswar.

Gagik managed to repel the attack, and political turmoil in Constantinople gained him a couple of years of reprieve after that, but in 1042 a new emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042–1055), came to the throne determined to secure Byzantine claims in Armenia.

[19][20] Notwithstanding his previous promises, immediately after taking possession of Ani, the emperor requested that Abu'l-Aswar vacate the fortresses he had conquered.

[22][23] The successful resistance of Dvin put an end to the Byzantine advance in Armenia, helping preserve the independence of the smaller Armenian realms of Syunik, Tashir and Khachen.

[24] Soon after, the regional balance of power was permanently altered with the first large-scale raid of the Seljuk Turks under Qutlumush ibn Arslan Isra'il and Ibrahim Inal into Byzantine Armenia in 1048.

[30] 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",[30] 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.

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.

[32] This event highlighted the limitations of Shaddadid power,[3] 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.

[3][33] 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.

The two dynasties were linked by family ties—Fariburz's predecessor, Sallar (r. 1050–1063), had even been married to a daughter of Abu'l-Aswar—but now the Shaddadid ruler launched a series of invasions against Shirvan.

[3][37] 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.

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.

[38] 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.

[40] Abu'l-Aswar's reign represented the zenith of the Shaddadid dynasty,[5][41] 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.

[3][31][42] 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.