18 Iranian Empire and Caucasian Borderlandswith Zand support, but later in that decade he was ousted through
the intervention of Qobbeh and Shakki. For the next twenty years,
Qobbeh dominated Shirvan, sometimes through direct rule, some-
times by backing feuding Khan Chopans. During the 1790s, Qobbeh
weakened and lost control of Shirvan, but the internal warfare persis-
ted several more years. Not until the middle of the decade did the
khanate show signs of recovery.
Baku, Derbent, and Shakki were not strong as independent khan-
ates. In the mid-eighteenth century, Baku came under the rule of de-
scendants of the Iranian garrison commander of 1723. There was a
heated power struggle among members of the ruling family during
the early 1790s. With the small size of the khanate's population and
the cost of the internecine warfare, Baku was at the mercy of its
neighbors. Qobbeh forced Baku to pay tribute, but by the end of the
century Baku's ruler looked for protection from an alternate source,
at first warily from Shirvan, then more enthusiastically from the re-
vived Iranian state. Derbent was even weaker. It was ruled by a local
family for eleven years after the breakup of Nader Shah's empire and
conquered by Qobbeh. The ruling dynasty in Shakki seized power
during the 1740s as the representative of Sunni interests against the
Shii incumbent. In the middle of the century, the second ruler of the
line was killed by tribesmen from the high mountains who were in
league with a rebellious beg. There ensued a bloody war among mem-
bers of the ruling dynasty that continued until the end of the century.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, Qobbeh was the
strongest of the Shirvani successor states and a dominant force in the
region as a whole. Qobbeh's rise was facilitated not only by the weak-
ness of potential rivals but also by its strategically advantageous ter-
rain; its dense forests and numerous swift-flowing streams were valu-
able defenses against invaders. The Qaitaq khans had survived the
claims of Peter the Great and Nader Shah by submitting to both, but
during the 1760s Fath 'Ali Khan began to subdue his neighbors, forc-
ing Shakki and Baku into submission and conquering Derbent and
Shirvan and in the process taking control of Saleyan. Fath 'Ali went
on to extend his suzerainty south of the Aras and Kura to Ardabil,
Talesh, and parts of Gilan. He also struck at the power of his greatest
rivals, Georgia and Qarabagh, by helping the people of Ganjeh oppose
those two principalities and by defeating Qarabagh in battle. However,
he died in 1789, soon after achieving this victory. Qobbeh's power
began to decline immediately. A few years later, one of Fath 'Ali's
younger sons, Sheikh 'Ali, rebuilt much of the khanate's strength