In 1500, the first Safavid ruler, Ismail I, decisively defeated and killed Farrukh Yasar during his conquest of the area.

On 31 January 1468 the combined forces of Shirvanshahs and the Aq Qoyunlu defeated Timurid khan Abu Sa'id Mirza.

He sent his "Khalaf al-Umara and Akabir" (Deputy of emirs and nobles) Ziyaaddin Yusif and his personal merchant Khawja Yar Ahmad with 2 bullions of gold to Istanbul, in order to establish relations with Mehmed the Conqueror.

In 1465, Shirvanshah envoy Hasan Shirvani was sent to Moscow in order to establish diplomatic relations, in response Ivan III of Russia sent an embassy with leadership of Vasily Papin and a group of merchants (which also included Afanasy Nikitin) for trade and a pact against Golden Horde.

But in 1488 Shaykh Haydar of the Safaviyya Shia sect moved through Shirvan towards Derbent, supposedly to wage jihad against the Circassians, but instead laid siege to Shamakhi.

Farrukh Yasar was not able to mount a defense and asked his son-in-law Sultan Yaqub of Ak Koyunlu to come to his rescue on 9 June 1488.