[17] Narshakhī’s unreliability is even more marked in his account of the origins of the Sāmānid dynasty: cf. Barthold, Turkestan 215 n. 3.
[18] See Goldziher, Muhammadanische Studien, I, 195 ff.
[19] Prof. Barthold has drawn my attention to the fact that the story of Mūsā also includes (twice over) an episode from the popular legend of Zopyrus. See his article in Zapiski XVII (1906) 0141, and Wellhausen, Arabische Reich, 257, 265.
[20] E.g. Marquart, Chronologie, p. 8.
II. THE EARLY RAIDS
The Conquest of Lower Tukhāristān.
Arab legend relates that the Muslim forces, pursuing Yazdigird from the field of Nihāwand in 21/642, had already come in contact with the “Turks” of Tukhāristān before the death of ʿOmar. But the final destruction of the Sāsānid power and first imposition of Arab rule on Khurāsān only followed ten years later, by the troops of ʿAbdullah ibn ʿĀmir, ʿOthmān’s governor in Basra. The Ephthalites of Herāt and Bādghīs submitted without a blow, and the first serious check to their advance was met in the Murghāb valley, when al-Ahnaf b. Qays with an army of 4,000 Arabs and 1,000 Persians found himself opposed by the organised forces of Lower Tukhāristān and was compelled to retire on Merv-Rūdh. A second expedition under al-Aqraʿ b. Hābis, however, defeated a weaker force in Jūzjān, and subsequently occupied Jūzjān, Fāryāb, Tālaqān, and Balkh. Small divisions made plundering raids into the neighbouring territories, e.g., to Siminjān (a town within the frontiers of Tukhāristān proper, governed by a Turkish prince, the Ruʿb Khān), and to Khwārizm, not always with success; on the other hand, a successful raid was made on Māyamurgh in Sogdiana in 33/654, which is mentioned by Abū ʿUbayda alone of the Arabic authorities[21]. A general insurrection which broke out shortly afterwards, headed by a certain Qārin, apparently a member of the noble Persian family bearing that name, seems to have been instrumental in causing the Arabs to evacuate Khurāsān for a time[22], though several raids are recorded of ʿAlī’s governors between 35 and 38 A.H. These earliest “conquests,” in fact, were little more than plundering raids on a large scale, the effect of that movement of expansion whose momentum was carrying forward the Arabs irresistibly. According to the Chinese records, which, however, require to be used with caution at this point, the retreat of the Arabs in 655 was followed up by the army of Tukhāristān who reinstated Pērōz, the son of Yazdigird, as titular king of Persia[23].
When peace was restored to Islām by the recognition of Muʿāwiya in 41/661, Ibn ʿĀmir was again entrusted with the conquest of Khurāsān. The same rough and ready methods were adopted as before; there appears to have been no definite plan of invasion, and even the order of governors is uncertain. Not only are traditions relating to A.H. 32 and 42 confused by the different authorities, but a vast amount of the whole is affected by tribal legends. Hints of fierce resistance are given from time to time. Qays b. al-Haytham, the governor’s first legate, was faced with a fresh revolt in Bādghīs, Herāt, and Balkh. He recaptured the latter and in retaliation destroyed the famous shrine of Nawbahār, but left the Ephthalites to be dealt with by his successor, ʿAbdullah ibn Khāzim. It is clear that there was no ordered progress of the Arab arms until Khurāsān was brought under the administration of Ziyād b. Abīhi. After an experimental division of the province under tribal leaders, a policy obviously dangerous and quickly abandoned, Ziyād, realising the danger of allowing Persian nationalism a free hand in the East, backed up by the resources of Tukhāristān, centralised the administration at Merv, and organised a preventive campaign. In 47/667 his lieutenant, al-Hakam b. ʿAmr al-Ghifārī, opened a series of campaigns directed to the conquest of Lower Tukhāristān and Gharjistān, in the course of which he crossed the Oxus and carried his arms into Chaghāniān, and drove Pērōz back to China in discomfiture. On his death, three years later, the conquered provinces rose in revolt, but the new governor, Rabīʿ b. Ziyād al-Hārithī, the first conqueror of Sijistān, after reducing Balkh, pursued the Ephthalite army into Quhistān and dispersed it with great slaughter. Again an expedition was sent across the Oxus into Chaghāniān (clearly indicating the connection between Chaghāniān and Lower Tukhāristān), while another directed down the left bank of the river secured Zamm and Āmul, the two chief ferry points for Sogdiana. Mention is also made of a conquest of Khwārizm. All these expeditions seem to point to a methodical plan of conquest, arranged between Ziyād and his governors; the Arab power was thus firmly established, for the moment at least, in the Cisoxanian lands, and the way prepared for the invasion of Sogdiana. A further important step was the colonisation of Khurāsān by fifty thousand families from Basra and Kūfa[24], settled according to Arab practice in five garrison towns, for the double purpose of securing the conquests already made, and providing the forces for their further extension.