Transoxiana

The Yuezhi are visited by a Chinese mission, led by Zhang Qian in 126 BCE, that is seeking an offensive alliance with the Yuezhi to counter the Xiongnu threat to the north.

Although the request for an alliance is denied by the son of the slain Yuezhi king, who prefers to maintain peace in Transoxiana rather than to seek revenge, Zhang Qian makes a detailed account, reported in the Shiji, that gives considerable insight into the situation in Central Asia at this time.

Zhang Qian, who spends a year with the Yuezhi and in Bactria, relates that "the Great Yuezhi live two thousand or three thousand li (832-1,247 kilometers) west of Dayuan (Ferghana), north of the Gui (Oxus) river.

They are bordered on the south by Daxia (Bactria), on the west by Anxi (Parthia), and on the north by Kangju (beyond the middle Jaxartes).

They are a nation of nomads, moving from place to place with their herds, and their customs are like those of the Xiongnu.

They have some 100,000 or 200,000 archer warriors."

Although the Yuezhi had remained north of the Oxus for a while, they have apparently obtained the submission of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom to the south of the Oxus.

The Yuezhi are organized into five major tribes, each led by a yabgu, or tribal chief, and known to the Chinese as Xiūmì in Western Wakhān and Zibak, Guishuang in Badakhshan and the adjoining territories north of the Oxus, Shuangmi in the region of Shughnan, Xidun in the region of Balkh, and Dūmì in the region of Termez.

The Hepthalites, or White Huns, move south from the Altai Mountains region into Transoxiana, Bactria, Khorasan and eastern Persia, displacing the Scythians before 425.

The Hephthalites, a people of obscure origin called Ephthalites by the Greeks and Hunas by the Indians, are an agricultural people with a developed set of laws.

First mentioned by the Chinese, who described them as living in Dzungaria in 125, they had displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdia and Khorasan before 425, in which year they cross the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invade Sassanian Persia.

No sooner had Persia recovered from the famine, than war broke out with the Hephthalites, who, having displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdiana and Khorasan before 425, had later crossed the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invaded Persian lands.

In Persia, they were initially held off by Bahram Gur.

Peroz, provoked by an insult by Khush-Newaz, leads an invasion of the Hephthalite country forcing them to retreat, but when Peroz pursues the Hephthalites to the hills, he suffers a crushing defeat, is captured and forced to surrender his son Kavadh I to Khush-Newaz as a hostage until the ransom is paid.

Muslim commander Ahnaf ibn Qais marches north directly to Merv, in present Turkmenistan, where Yazdegerd III holds his court.

On hearing of the Muslim advance, Yazdegerd III leaves for Balkh.

No resistance is offered at Merv, and the Muslims occupy the capital of Khurasan without a fight.

Ahnaf stays at Merv and waits for reinforcements from Kufa.

Meanwhile, Yazdegerd has also gathered considerable power at Balkh and has sought alliance with the Khan of Farghana, who personally leads the Turkish contingent to help Yazdegerd III.

Uthman orders that Yazdegerd’s allied forces should be weakened by breaking up the alliance with the Turks.

Al-Ahnaf obeys the orders but keeps an eye on Yazdgerd III‘s moves.

When he later learns that the Turks have joined the Persians and both are approaching, he rallies his army and camps outside the town.

With an army that is only a fraction of the enemy's, he manages to defeat the Persians in Battle of Oxus river, killing their leader, while the Turks retreat to their land.

Yazdegerd's army retreats across the Oxus to Transoxiana; Yazdegerd himself has a narrow escape and fled to China.

Balkh is occupied by the Muslims, and with this occupation the Persian war is over.

The Muslims have now reached the outermost frontiers of Persia, beyond which lie the lands of the Turks and still further lies China.

The old and mighty empire of the Sassanids has ceased to exist.

Yazdgerd III then flees eastward from one district to another.

When Yazdegerd arrives in Merv, he demands tax from the Marzbān of Merv, losing also his support and making him an ally of Nezak Tarkan, the Hephthalite ruler of Badghis, who had helped him defeat Yazdegerd and his followers.

After his defeat, Yazdegerd is killed by a local miller for his purse while he is trying flee from Merv in 651.

Early Khazar history is intimately tied with that of the Göktürk empire, founded when the Ashina clan had overthrew the Juan Juan in 552.

With the collapse of the Göktürk empire due to internal conflict in the seventh century, the western half of the Turk empire had split into a number of tribal confederations, among whom were the Bulgars, led by the Dulo clan, and the Khazars, led by the Ashina clan, the traditional rulers of the Göktürk empire.

By 670, the Khazars had broken the Bulgar confederation, causing various tribal groups to migrate and leaving two remnants of Bulgar rule—Volga Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian khanate on the Danube River.

The first significant appearance of the Khazars in history had been their aid to the campaign of the Roman emperor Heraclius against the Sassanid Persians.

The Khazar ruler Ziebel (sometimes identified, inconclusively, as Tong Yabghu Khagan of the West Turks) had aided the Romans in overrunning Georgia.

A marriage had even been contemplated between Ziebel's son and Heraclius' daughter, but never took place.

During these campaigns, the Khazars may have been ruled by Mo-ho-sahd and their forces may have been under the command of his son Buri-sad.

The Umayyad Caliphate has been attempting simultaneously to expand its influence into Transoxiana and the Caucasus.

The first war between Khazaria and the Caliphate had been fought in the early 650s and ended with the defeat of an Arab force led by Abd ar-Rahman ibn Rabiah outside the Khazar town of Balanjar, after a battle in which both sides used siege engines on the others' troops.

Several further conflicts would erupt in the in following the decades, with Arab attacks and Khazar raids into Kurdistan and Iran.

The Khazars counterattack around 685, penetrating southward of the Caucasus into present-day Georgia, and Azerbaijan.

Qutayba ibn Muslim was born in 669 CE in Basra, where his family was influential.

His father, Muslim ibn ʿAmr, had enjoyed the favor of the Umayyads, and fell at the Battle of Maskin at the close of the Second Islamic Civil War.

Qutayba had risen at first as the protégé of Anbasa ibn Sa'id, but had been noticed by the powerful governor of Iraq and the East, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, during the suppression of the revolt of Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath in 700/701.

Under al-Hajjaj's patronage, he had taken Rayy from the rebel Umar ibn Abi'l-Salt in 701, and became the city's governor.

Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan appoints Qutayba as governor of Khurasan in late 704 or early 705.

The choice of Qutayba, who hails from the relatively weak Bahila tribe, is intended by al-Hajjaj to heal the destructive feud between the South Arab or "Yemeni" (Azd and Rabi'ah) and North Arab (Qaysi) tribal confederations in Khurasan by providing a governor who belongs to neither faction.

The Bahila are neutral between the two groups, but generally ally themselves to the Qays, thus furthering al-Hajjaj's policy of emasculating Azdi power, which had been dominant in Khurasan during the governorship of Yazid ibn al-Muhallab.

Furthermore, as Qutayba lacks a strong tribal base of his own, he could be expected to remain firmly attached to his patron.

Qutayba will spend the next ten years of his life in Central Asia, consolidating and expanding Muslim rule there.

In this endeavor, both his military and diplomatic and organizational abilities stand him in good stead; most importantly, he is able to enlist the support of the local Iranian population and the powerful dihqan (the Iranian "gentry") class.

The Arabs had reached Central Asia in the decade after their decisive victory in the Battle of Nahavand in 642, when they completed their conquest of the former Sassanid Empire by seizing Sistan and Khurasan.

The first Arab attacks across the Oxus had ranged as far as Shash (Tashkent) and Khwarizm, but they had been little more than raids aiming at seizing booty and extracting tribute, and had been interrupted by the intertribal warfare that had broken out in Khurasan during the Second Islamic Civil War (683–692).

Subsequent governors, most notably Sa'id ibn Uthman and al-Muhallab ibn Abi Suffrah, had made attempts to conquer territory across the river, but they had failed.

The native princes, for their part, have tried to exploit the Arabs' rivalries, and with the aid of the Arab renegade Musa ibn Abdallah ibn Khazim, who in 689 seized the fortress of Tirmidh for his own domain, they managed to eject the Arabs from their holdings.

Nevertheless, the Transoxianian princes remain riven by their own feuds, and fail to unite in the face of the Arab conquest, a fact that Qutayba will suitably exploit after 705.

The first task to which Qutayba set himself had been the suppression of the rebellion in Lower Tokharistan, which had been accomplished swiftly with the reconquest of Balkh.

Qutayba had then secured the submission of the local princes in the upper Oxus valley, most notably of Tish, king of al-Saghaniyan, who invites Qutayba to aid him in his dispute with the ruler of nearby Akharun (or Akhrun) and Shuman, in the northern mountainous districts of Tokharistan.

After extensive negotiations led by Sulaym the Persian, the tarkhan Nizak, ruler of the Hephthalite principality of Badghis, surrenders to Qutayba, and pledges to accompany him in his expeditions.

Qutayba occupies himself in 706–709 with the long and bloody conquest of Sogdia.

The Sogdians are at this time divided by civil war in which Bukhara had been seized by the ruler of nearby Wardana, the Wardan Khudah, while another local magnate, Khunuk Khudah, had declared himself king of Bukhara (Bukhar Khudah).

Taking advantage of the conflict, Qutayba is able to easily capture the city of Baykand after a two-month siege.

He leaves a small garrison there and departs, but the inhabitants launch a revolt soon after.

The Arab army then turns back and proceeds to sack the city.

The men of fighting age are executed, the women and children sold off as slaves, and enormous booty amassed, especially in armor and weapons, which equips the Arab army.

The brutal punishment meted out to Baykand shocks the region: the Sogdians patch up their quarrels and the Sogdian princes of Kish and Nasaf unite behind the Wardan Khudah.

Arab accounts mention the participation of Turgesh troops as well, but this is probably an anachronism.

Qutayba is able to capture two outlying towns, Tumuskath and Ramithana, in the campaign of 707 before he is threatened in his rear by the allied Sogdian army.

Qutayba avoids a battle, and engages in negotiations to gain time, before executing a rapid retreat to safety through the Iron Gate to beyond the Oxus, crossing the river at Tirmidh.

Qutayba’s campaign of 708 had also been a failure, which had drawn the ire of al-Hajjaj.

For 709, al-Hajjaj draws up a new plan for his subordinate: the Arabs launch a direct attack on Bukhara, which catches the alliance—possibly weakened by the death of its leader, the Wardan Khudah—by surprise.

The city is taken by storm, a tribute of two hundred thousand dirhams imposed, and an Arab garrison installed.

In its direct aftermath, Tarkhun, the ruler of Samarkand, sends envoys to Qutayba and becomes a tributary vassal to the Caliphate.

The Hephthalite princes of Tokharistan rebel against the Arabs later in the year, but are swiftly subdued by Qutayba.