In ca. 789, it was made the second alternate capital (after Dvin) of the governor ("ostikan") of the province of Arminiya. Its governors strengthened the defenses of the city in order to counter the invasions of the Khazars attacking from the north. In 768, the Catholicos of All Armenians, Sion I Bavonats'i, convoked an ecclesiastical council at Partav, which passed 24 canons that addressed issues relating to the administration of the Armenian Church and marriage practices. By the ninth to tenth centuries, Barda had largely lost its economic importance to the nearby town of Ganja; the seat of the Catholicos of the Church of Albania was also moved to Bardak (Berdakur), leaving Partav as a mere bishopric. According to the Muslim geographers Estakhri, Ibn Hawqal, and Al-Muqaddasi, the distinctive Caucasian Albanian language (which they called al-Raniya, or Arranian) persisted into early Islamic times, and was still spoken in Barda in the tenth century. Thus, Ibn Hawkal mentioned that the people of Barda spoke Arranian, while Estakhri stated that Arranian was the language of the "country of Barda."