The nomadic tribes of the Yuezhi, according to the Han chronicles, following a crushing defeat in 162 BCE by the Xiongnu (Huns?), flee from the Tarim Basin towards the west, crosses the neighboring urban civilization of the "Dayuan" (probably the Greek possessions in Ferghana), and resettle north of the Oxus in modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, in the northern part of the Greco-Bactrian territory.

The Dayuan are to remain a healthy and powerful urban civilization that is to have numerous contacts and exchanges with China from 130 BCE.

The Yuezhi apparently occupy the Greco-Bactrian territory north of the Oxus during the reign of Eucratides, who is busy fighting in India against the Indo-Greeks.

…Fergana.

Qutayba leads an expedition in 715 farther north into Central Asia, establishing nominal Arab rule over Farghana (now part of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan).

He is even traditionally credited with reaching the borders of Chinese Turkestan, and apparently he acquires paper from the Chinese, bringing it to Arab civilization.

Qutayba’s campaign against Ferghana is under way when news reaches the army of Caliph Walid's death and the accession of his brother Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik to the throne.

The new Caliph is a bitter enemy of Qutayba, for the latter had argued in favor of excluding him from the succession.

Although Sulayman reconfirms him in his position as governor, Qutayba fears that he will soon be removed.

Finally, after negotiations with the new regime in Damascus fail, Qutayba resolves to rebel.

The Khurasani Arabs refuse to support him, and the native auxiliaries, although favorably disposed towards him, are prevented from declaring their support by Hayyan al-Nabati.

Only his family, his fellow Bahili tribesmen and his bodyguard, the Archers, remain faithful.

The opposition, led by the Tamim tribe, coalesces around their leader Waki ibn Abi Sud al-Tamimi.

Qutayba and other members of his family are killed at Ferghana by Arab soldiers in August 715 (according to al-Tabari) or early 716 (according to Ibn Qutaybah).

Waki ibn Abi Sud succeeds him as governor, and orders the army to return to Merv, where it is disbanded.

The Umayyad leader Qutayba ibn Muslim had conquered the region of Transoxiana in the reign of al-Walid I (reigned 705–715), following the Muslim conquests of Persia and Khurasan in the mid-seventh century.

The loyalties of Transoxiana's native Iranian and Turkic populations and of the autonomous local rulers remain questionable, however: the Transoxianian princes in 719 etition to the Chinese court and their Turgesh vassals for military aid against the Umayyad Caliphate's governors.

The Turgesh in response have since 720 have launched a series of attacks against the Muslims in Transoxiana, coupled with uprisings against the Caliphate among the local Sogdians.

The Umayyad governors had initially managed to suppress the unrest, although control over the Ferghana Valley had been lost.

Ggovernor Muslim ibn Sa'id al-Kilabi and his army suffer a heavy defeat (the so-called "Day of Thirst") at the hands of the Turgesh in 724 when he tries to subdue Ferghana.

This defeat pushes the Arabs on the defensive, and even though no pitched battles will take place, the Arab position in Transoxiana will collapse swiftly over the next few years.

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.

The Karluk vanguard had left the Altay region and at the beginning of the eighth century had reached the banks of the Amu Darya.

Famed for their woven carpets in the pre-Muslim era, they are considered a vassal state by the Tang Dynasty after the final conquest of the Transoxania regions by the Chinese around 744.

The Karluks rise in rebellion against the Göktürk, at this time the dominant tribal confederation in the region, in about 745, and establish a new tribal confederation with the Uyghur and Basmyl tribes.

The Karluks had remained in the Chinese sphere of influence and an active participant in fighting the Muslim expansion into the area, up until their split from the Tang in 751.

Chinese intervention in the affairs of Western Turkestan had ceased after their defeat at the Battle of Talas in 751 by the Arab general Ziyad ibn Salih.

The Arabs had dislodged the Karluks from Ferghana to …

…Ahmad, Fergana; …

…Ferghana, …

Zahiruddin Muhammad, later to be famous as Babur, was born on February 14 [O.S.

], 1483 in the city of Andijan, Andijan Province, Fergana Valley, in contemporary Uzbekistan.

He is the eldest son of Umar Sheikh Mirza, ruler of the Fergana Valley, the son of Abū Saʿīd Mirza (and grandson of Miran Shah, who was himself a son of Timur) and his wife Qutlugh Nigar Khanum, daughter of Yunus Khan, the ruler of Moghulistan (and great-great grandson of Tughlugh Timur, the son of Esen Buqa I, who was the great-great-great grandson of Chaghatai Khan, the second born son of Genghis Khan).

Babur meaning "tiger” in Persian, is also transliterated as Baber or Babar).

Babur hails from the Barlas tribe, which is of Mongol origin and had embraced Turkic and Persian culture.

He had converted to Islam and resides in Turkestan and Khorasan.

Aside from the Chaghatai language, Babur is equally fluent in Persian, the lingua franca of the Timurid elite.

Hence Babur, though nominally a Mongol (or Moghul in Persian language), draws much of his support from the local Turkic and Iranian people of Central Asia, and his army is diverse in its ethnic makeup.

It includes Persians (known to Babur as "Sarts" and "Tajiks"), ethnic Afghans, and Arabs, as well as Barlas and Chaghatayid Turko-Mongols from Central Asia.

In 1494, at eleven years old, Babur becomes the ruler of Fergana, in present-day Uzbekistan, after Umar Sheikh Mirza dies in an accident.

During this time, two of his uncles from neighboring kingdoms, who had been hostile to his father, and a group of nobles who want his younger brother Jahangir to be the ruler, threaten his succession to the throne.

His uncles are relentless in their attempts to dislodge him from this position as well as from many of his other territorial possessions to come.

Babur is able to secure his throne mainly through help from his maternal grandmother, Aisan Daulat Begum, although there is also some luck involved.