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." 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