The Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, faced with crisis in Transoxiana, takes drastic measures: Khurasan is separated from the purview of the governor of Iraq and raised to a separate province, under the Jaziran general Ashras ibn Abdallah al-Sulami.

Like his predecessor, Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri, Ashras tries to win over the loyalties of the local population and the native, non-Arab converts to Islam (mawali), by addressing some of their grievances on taxation.

Soon, however, this policy is reversed—possibly due to pressure from the Caliph himself—and the often brutal measures the Arab tax-gatherers employ to gather the taxes from the mawali and the local landed aristocracy (dihqans) leads to a general revolt in Transoxiana.

This is made all the more dangerous to the Arabs due to the rebels' call for assistance to the Turgesh ruler, the khagan, who replies by leading his army in person against the Arabs.

By the time the khagan enters the field in 728, only Samarkand and the two fortresses of Kamarja and Dabusiyya on the Zarafshan River remain in Arab hands in all of Transoxiana.