Selim Bey was a son and successor of Abdullah Bey, a derebey ("the lord of the valleys") of Upper Adjara, who was killed at Aketi during his raid against the neighboring Georgian principality of Guria in 1784. Selim Bey cherished an ambition to bring all of the Ottoman possessions in Georgia under his autonomous rule. In 1802, he capitalized on a crisis in Akhaltsikh and seized control of it, declaring himself a new pasha.