Number of Embassies from:—

1.717-731Sughd11,Tukhāristān5,Bukhārā2,Arabs4.
2.732-740”none”2”none”1(733).
3.741-747”4”3”1”4
4.750-755”4”2”3”6

These four periods, as will be seen, closely correspond to the fluctuations of Arab authority in Transoxania.

In the same year, 713, that Qutayba first led his army across the Jaxartes, a new era of westward expansion opened in China with the accession of Hiuen-Tsong. In 714 the Chinese intervened in the affairs of the Ten Tribes and obtained their immediate submission, while in the following year they restored the deposed king of Farghāna. In 716, on the death of Me-chuʾo, Khan of the Northern Turks, the powerful tribes of the Türgesh asserted their independence, and under their chief Su-Lu established, with Chinese assistance, a new kingdom in the Ili basin. The princes of Transoxania eagerly sought to profit by these developments to free themselves from the Arab yoke. In 718 a joint embassy was sent to China by Tughshāda, Ghūrak, Narayāna king of Kumādh, and the king of Chaghāniān. The first three presented petitions for aid against the Arabs, which are given in full in Chavannes’ Documents. Tughshāda asked that the Türgesh might be ordered to attack the Arabs, Ghūrak related the capture of Samarqand and asked for Chinese troops, Narayāna complained of the seizure of all his treasures by the Arabs and asked that representations might be made to induce them to remit their crushing taxation. It is significant that the king of Chaghāniān, acting for his suzerain, the Jabghu of Tukhāristān, did not compromise himself by joining in these requests. But beyond “fair words” the son of Heaven took no action, and no Chinese forces appeared West of the Jaxartes, in spite of the repeated entreaties addressed by the princes to their self-elected suzerain.

The Türgesh, however, were not long in intervening on their own account. Whatever opportunity the Arab government had to pacify the Sughdians was lost by a succession of incompetent governors. Already in the reign of ʿOmar II, as has been seen, they had withdrawn their allegiance from the weak ʿAbdur-Rahmān b. Nuʿaym. For a moment the situation seemed to improve at the beginning of the governorship of Saʿīd “Khudhayna” (102/720) owing to the firm handling of Samarqand by his lieutenant Shuʿba b. Zuhayr. But disturbances broke out and Shuʿba was recalled, perhaps in a vain attempt to appease the insurgents. It would seem that the Sughdians appealed to the new Turkish power in the East and Su-Lu, unable to make headway against the growing influence of China, willingly seized the opportunity of diverting his armies into Transoxania. A small Türgesh force was sent under Köl-chur (called by Tabarī Kūrsūl)[75] to make common cause with the Sughdian rebels in the following spring (end of 102). Saʿīd awoke to find the whole country in arms, a Turkish force marching on Samarqand, and the local princes, with few exceptions, aiding the invaders. The Arab commanders could not rely on their levies and a small garrison at Qasr al-Bāhilī was evacuated only with the utmost difficulty. The tale of their relief by a small force of volunteers is one of the most spirited narratives of adventure in Tabarī. But such episodes did not affect the general success of the Turkish forces. Kūrsūl continued his advance through Sughd without opposition, avoiding Samarqand, until at last Saʿīd was roused by public reproach to march against the Turks. After a small initial success, which he refused to follow up, he was severely defeated and confined to the neighbourhood of Samarqand. The Turks were not strong enough to undertake a siege of the city, as the whole operation seems to have been little more than a reconnaissance in force combined with a raiding expedition. As the Türgesh retired, the Arab cavalry followed them up as far as Waraghsar, the head of the canal system of Sughd. Ghūrak appears to have refrained from committing himself by openly aiding the rebels, and doubtless recognised that the Arabs were not so easily to be dislodged. From the fact that Saʿīd’s camp was pitched at Ishtīkhan, in close proximity to him, it may even be conjectured that he outwardly supported the Arabs.

But the new governor of ʿIrāq, ʿOmar b. Hubayra, was not the man to stand idly by in face of the danger that threatened Khurāsān. The weakness shown by Khudhayna and the complaints of oppression from his subjects, were sufficient reason for his recall, and Saʿīd b. ʿAmr al-Harashī, a man of very different stamp, was installed in his place. The transfer may be placed in the late autumn of 103/721. The new governor’s first act was to summon the rebels to submit, but a large number of nobles and merchants, with their retainers, either fearing that they could expect no mercy, or anxious to free themselves altogether from the Arab yoke, prepared to emigrate to Farghāna. Ghūrak did his utmost to persuade them to remain, but without effect; their absence would no doubt affect the revenues, and a certain emphasis is laid on the point in Tabarī’s account. Leaving hostages behind, the malcontents marched towards Farghāna and opened negotiations with the king for the occupation of ʿIsām. The majority settled in the interval at Khujanda, but other parties actually entered Farghāna, and one body at least occupied a fortified position on the Zarafshān. Al-Harashī followed up his demands by marching into Sughd and encamped near Dabūsia, where he was with difficulty persuaded to stay until sufficient contingents arrived. On advancing, he was met by a messenger from the king of Farghāna, who, outwardly professing to assist the Sughdians, had secretly decided to rid himself of them by calling in the Arabs against them. Al-Harashī eagerly seized the opportunity and pressed forward, receiving the allegiance of Ushrūsana as he passed. The emigrants, although urged by their leader Karzanj either to take active measures or to submit, decided to risk a siege in Khujanda, trusting to the protection of the king of Farghāna. But when Saʿīd set about the siege in earnest, and they realised that they had been betrayed, they surrendered on unexpectedly easy terms. Saʿīd divided them, placing the nobles and merchants in a camp apart from the soldiers. By the execution of Thābit, a noble from Ishtīkhan, he provoked a revolt, under pretext of which he massacred the nobles and the troops, sparing the merchants, who numbered four hundred, only in order to squeeze them of their wealth. Tabarī’s account very thinly veils al-Harashī’s responsibility for this wanton act of atrocious cruelty, which could not fail to embitter the feelings of the whole population of Transoxania. It is curious that the Persian Tabarī (Zotenberg IV. 268) has an entirely different story, which is found in none of the Arabic authorities. The refugees who escaped eventually took refuge with the Khāqān of the Türgesh, where they formed a regiment (no doubt continually recruited from new emigrants) which particularly distinguished itself in the war against the Arabs[76].

The expedition to Khujanda may be put in the spring and summer of 722 (end of 103, beginning of 104), though the chronology here, and indeed for all this period, is uncertain. The piecemeal reduction of the fortresses in Sughd occupied the remainder of the year, a series of operations whose difficulty is sufficient witness to the effect of the news from Khujanda in stiffening the resistance to the Arabs. The first fortress to be attacked was that of Abghar, in which a band of the emigrants had settled. The attack was entrusted to Sulaymān b. Abiʾs-Sarī, with an army composed largely of native levies from Bukhārā, Khwārizm, and Shūmān, accompanied by their princes. Sulaymān persuaded the dihqān to surrender, and sent him to al-Harashī, who at first treated him well in order to counteract the effect of the massacre of Khujanda, but put him to death after recapturing Kish and Rabinjān. The most inaccessible fortress and the crowning example of Al-Harashī’s perfidy were left to the last. The dihqān Subuqrī still held out in the fortress of Khuzar, to the south of Nasaf; unable to take it by force, Al-Harashī sent Musarbal b. Al-Khirrīt, a personal friend of Subuqrī, to offer him a pardon. On his surrender, he was sent to Merv and put to death, although the amnesty, it is said, had been confirmed by ʿOmar b. Hubayra.

The whole of Sughd was thus once more in the hands of the Arabs. The nearer districts, Khwārizm and Bukhārā, had remained loyal and the Oxus basin seems to have been unaffected. But to make a solitude and call it peace did not suit the aims of the Arab government and Al-Harashī found that his “policy of thorough” only provided Ibn Hubayra with an excuse for superseding him. During the winter, therefore, he was replaced by Muslim b. Saʿīd al-Kilābī, who, as the grandson of Aslam b. Zurʿa, came of a house long familiar with Khurāsān. The danger of the movement of revolt spreading to the Iranians of Khurāsān seems to have preoccupied the Arab government during all this period. Saʿīd Khudhayna had poisoned the too-influential Hayyān an-Nabatī on suspicion of rousing the Persians against the government and that it was felt even in Basra may be seen from Ibn Hubayra’s advice to his new governor, “Let your chamberlain be one who can make peace with your mawālī.” Muslim, in fact, favoured the Persians and did all in his power to appoint officials acceptable to them, the Mazdean Bahrām Sīs, for example, being appointed Marzubān of Merv[77]. But all such measures were merely palliatives and could not materially affect the growing discontent in Sughd and Tukhāristān. During his first year of office it is recorded (if the narrative is not, as Wellhausen thinks, a duplicate of the raid on Farghāna in the following year) that Muslim marched across the river but was met and pushed back into Khurāsān by a Turkish army, narrowly escaping disaster. It is not improbable that the local forces were again assisted by Türgesh on this occasion. In the following year, however, before the close of 105, a second expedition gained some success at Afshīna, near Samarqand. Meanwhile Hishām had succeeded Yazīd II as Caliph, and ʿOmar b. Hubayra, whose Qaysite leanings were too pronounced, was recalled in favour of Khālid b. ʿAbdullah al-Qasrī of Bajīla. The transfer took place most probably in March (724), though another account places it some months later. Muslim was now preparing an expedition into Farghāna, but the Yemenite troops at Balkh held back partly through dislike of the campaign and doubtless expecting the governor’s recall. Nasr b. Sayyār was sent with a Mudarite force to use compulsion; the mutinous Yemenites were defeated at Barūqān and unwillingly joined the army. It is noteworthy that troops from Chaghāniān fought alongside Nasr in this engagement. Before leaving Bukhārā Muslim learned that he was to be superseded, at the same time receiving orders to continue his expedition. Four thousand Azdites, however, took the opportunity of withdrawing. The remainder, accompanied by Sughdian levies, marched into Farghāna, crossed the Jaxartes, and besieged the capital, cutting down the fruit trees and devastating the land. Here news was brought that Khāqān was advancing against them, and Muslim hurriedly ordered a retreat. The Arabic accounts graphically describe the headlong flight of the Arabs. On the first day they retired three stages, the next day they crossed the Wādī Sabūh, closely pursued by the Türgesh; a detachment, largely composed of mawālī, which encamped separately, was attacked and suffered heavy losses, the brother of Ghūrak being amongst the killed. After a further eight days’ march, continually harassed by the light Turkish horse, they were reduced to burning all the baggage, to the value of a million dirhems. On reaching the Jaxartes the following day, they found the way barred by the forces of Shāsh and Farghāna, together with the Sughdians who had escaped from Saʿīd al-Harashī, but the desperate and thirsty troops, hemmed in by the Türgesh from behind, cut their way through. The rearguard made a stand, but lost its commander. At length the remnants of the army reached Khujanda, where ʿAbdur-Rahmān b. Nuʿaym took command on behalf of Asad b. ʿAbdullah, and made good his retreat to Samarqand.

This disaster, which is known as the “Day of Thirst,” marks a period in the history of the Arab conquests. It was practically the last aggressive expedition of the Arabs into Transoxania for fifteen years, but of much greater importance was the blow which it struck at Arab prestige. The rôles were reversed; from now onwards the Arabs found themselves on the defensive and were gradually ousted from almost every district across the Oxus. No wonder, therefore, that the memory of the “Day of Thirst” rankled even long after it had been avenged[78]. According to the Arab tradition, the Türgesh armies were led on this occasion not by Su-Lu himself, but by one of his sons. Unfortunately the accounts of Su-Lu in such Chinese works as have been translated are silent on his Western expeditions, and the Arab historians are our only authorities. The immediate result of the Arab defeat, not only in Sughd but in Tukhāristān and the southern basin as well, was to stiffen the attitude of passive resistance to the Arabs to the point at which it only needed active support to break into a general conflagration. From this time, if not before, the subject princes regarded the Türgesh as the agents of their deliverance, commissioned by China in response to the urgent entreaties they had addressed to the Emperor for aid in their struggle. We find this actually expressed in a letter sent three years later by the Jabghu of Tukhāristān, which is, in Chavannes’ words “but one long cry of distress”[79]. “I am loaded with heavy taxation by the Arabs; in truth, their oppression and our misery are extreme. If I do not obtain the help of the (Chinese) Kagan ... my kingdom will certainly be destroyed and dismembered.... I have been told that the Celestial Kagan has given this order to the Kagan of the Türgesh: To you I delegate the affairs of the Far West; you must at once send soldiers to drive out the Arabs.” The point of view here expressed is of course that of the ruling princes, whose resentment at the curtailment of their authority is understandable. Besides making allowance for some natural exaggeration, it would be dangerous to assume that this was as yet fully shared by the people. In all probability, if we may judge from historical analogies, there was also a pro-Arab party in Sogdiana, who felt that the best interests of the country lay, not in an opposition whose final issue could scarcely be in doubt, but in co-operation with their new masters as far as was possible. The tragedy of the Arab administration was that by alternately giving and refusing co-operation on its side, it drove its supporters in the end to make common cause with its opponents.