[155] This defeat was known as the battle of the Defile (ash-Shīb), A.H. 112 (730).
[156] Tabari, Annales, Series II. p. 1539.
[157] About ten or eleven thousand perished in the battle, the remainder were betrayed to the Khākān (Tabari, loc. cit. p. 1542).
[158] Tabari, loc. cit. p. 1543.
[159] Junayd in his report seems to have laid the blame of his defeat on Saura for advancing too far out of Samarkand. According to Tabari, his words were: “Saura disobeyed me; I ordered him to keep near the river, but he did not do so” (loc. cit. p. 1544). Beladhori also, in his very brief account of this campaign, makes no mention of defeat or even disaster. He merely says that Junayd fought the Turks till he had utterly repulsed them, and then asked the Caliph for reinforcements. The account in the Persian Tabari is roughly as follows:—Junayd’s first brush with the Turks was successful; but their Khākān was not discouraged by his reverse. He mustered a host so formidable that Junayd found it necessary to order Saura, who had taken possession of Samarkand, to join forces with him. He then marched against the Khākān with 20,000 men. The Turkish leader adopted tactics which have again and again enabled a prescient leader to triumph against immense odds. On learning that Saura had left Samarkand, he turned and fell upon him with such ferocity that not one of his 20,000 troops escaped to tell the tale. Thereupon Junayd summoned every town of Khorāsān and Tokhāristān to send him its quota of reinforcements; and having thus gathered an army of 43,000 strong, despatched it under a trusted follower to relieve Samarkand, which was closely besieged by the victorious Khākān. The Mohammedans reached the city when their garrison was on the point of surrendering, and attacked the beleaguering host. For the first time during many disastrous years the banner of Islām prevailed. The Khākān was smitten hip and thigh, and forced to raise the siege of Samarkand. Junayd placed a garrison there of 5000 men under Nasr ibn Sayyār, and returned to Merv, where death soon closed his brilliant career.
[160] He appears to have received the appointment from his brother Khālid, the governor of `Irāk.
[161] It is worthy of remark that in the Persian Tabari the record of Asad’s second tenure of office is not only very brief, but even differs essentially from that of the Arabic original.
[162] In Schefer’s edition of Narshakhi (p. 59) the date is absurdly given as 166.
[163] Descendants of `Abbās, uncle of the Prophet. See note below, p. [80].
[164] Cf. Tabari, loc. cit. p. 1988 et seq.