Caucasica IV, I. Sahl ibn-Sunbat of Shakkī and Arrān
Vladimir Minorsky
BSOAS
THE territory of the present-day Soviet republic of Azarbayjan roughly corresponds to the ancient Caucasian Albania (in Armenian Alovan-V, or Alvan-k', in Arabic Arrdn > al-Rari). Twenty-six languages were spoken in Albania and it had its own kings (Strabo, xi, 4). However, during the seven centuries between Pompey's expedition in 66-5 B.C., to which we owe most of our information on the ancient life of the country, and the Arab invasion in the 7th century a.d., great changes had taken place in the area, under the influence of the Persian expansion up to the Caucasian passes, the Khazar and Alan inroads from the north, and the Armenian cultural activities which resulted in the conversion of the surviving Albanians to the Armenian form of Christianity. The Arab geographers refer to the Arranian language as still spoken in the neighbourhood of Barda'a (Persian : Perdz-dbddh, Armenian Partav), but now ... | 
