_Early History._
The Oxus is a boundary of tradition rather than of history. Lying
midway between the old frontier of Aryan civilisation formed by the
Jaxartes and the Pamīr and the natural strategic frontier offered by the
north-eastern escarpment of the plateau of Īrān, it has never proved a
barrier to imperial armies from either side. It was not on the Oxus but
on the Jaxartes that Alexander’s strategic insight fixed the position of
Alexander Eschate, and when the outposts of Persian dominion were thrust
back by the constant pressure of the Central Asian hordes, their retreat
was stayed not on the Oxus but on the Murghāb. Thus when the tide of
conquest turned and the Arabs won back her ancient heritage for Persia,
they, like Alexander, were compelled to carry their arms ever further to
the East and all unknowing re-establish the frontiers of the Achaemenid
Empire. It was from the legends of Sāsānian times, enshrined in the pages
of the historians and the national epic of Firdawsī, that the Oxus came
to be regarded as the boundary between Īrān and Tūrān.
Through all the centuries of invasion, however, the peoples of Sogdiana
and the Oxus basin remained Iranian at bottom, preserving an Iranian
speech and Iranian institutions. But the political conditions of the
country at the period of the Arab conquests were so complex that it is
necessary to trace briefly the course of their development.
The second century B.C. was a period of upheaval in Central Asia: the
powerful Hiung-Nu peoples were dispossessing weaker tribes of their
pasture lands and forcing them to migrate westwards. Between 150 and
125 B.C. a succession of nomadic tribes, the last and most powerful of
which were a branch of the Yueh-Chi, were driven down into Sogdiana. It
is now generally held that these tribes were of Aryan origin, though the
question is not perhaps settled with absolute certainty. Before long,
however, a second group, the K’ang, possessed themselves of Sogdiana,
driving the Yueh Chi on into Bactria and the Afghan mountains[1]. In
these districts they found, alongside the Iranian peasantry, a settled
population of Tukhari (in Chinese, Ta-Hia), already noted in the Chinese
annals for their commercial enterprise[2], and while at first the nomad
tribes introduced complete confusion, it would seem that they rapidly
absorbed, or were absorbed by, the native elements, and thus assimilated
the Hellenistic civilisation of Bactria. From this fusion arose, about
50 A.D., the powerful Kushan Empire which spread into India on the one
side and probably maintained some form of suzerainty over the K’ang
kingdoms of Sogdiana on the other. Under the new empire, Buddhism was
acclimatised in Turkestan, and Sogdiana developed into a great _entrepôt_
for Chinese trade with the West. Towards the close of the third century
the Kushan Empire, weakened by attacks from the new national dynasties
in India and Persia, reverted to its primitive form of small independent
principalities, which, however, retained sufficient cohesion to prevent
a Persian reconquest. It is practically certain that Sāsānian authority
never extended beyond Balkh and rarely as far. In the fourth and
fifth centuries references are made to a fresh horde of nomads in the
north-east, the Juan-Juan (Chionitae, Avars)[3], but it does not appear
that any new settlements were made in the Oxus countries.
In the middle of the fifth century, another people, the Ephthalites
(Arabic Hay_t_al, Chinese Ye-Tha), perhaps a branch of the Hiung-nu,
not only completely overran the former Kushan territories, but by
successive defeats of the Persian armies forced the Sāsānid Kings to pay
tribute. The Ephthalites appear to have been a nomadic people organised
as a military caste of the familiar Turkish type, and the existing
institutions and principalities, in large part at least, continued side
by side with them[4]. Their rule was too transitory to produce any
lasting effects, or to inflict any serious injury on the commerce and
prosperity of Sogdiana.
The rise of the Central Asian empire of the Turks proper (Tu-Kueh) dates
from their overthrow of the Juan-Juan in Mongolia in 552, under their
great Khan, Mokan. His brother Istämi (the Silzibul of the Byzantine
historians), the semi-independent jabghu of the ten tribes of Western
Turks, after consolidating his power in the Ili and Chu valleys, formed
an alliance with Khusrū Anūshīrwān, and in a joint attack between 563
and 568 the two powers completely overthrew the Ephthalite kingdom and
divided their territories. For a brief moment the Oxus was the actual
boundary between Īrān and Tūrān; under pressure from the silk traders of
Sogdiana, however, the alliance was broken and the weaker successors of
Anūshīrwān could scarcely do more than maintain their outpost garrisons
on the Murghāb. From this time the Ephthalites, like the Kushans, were
gradually assimilating to the Iranian population[5], though the change
was less rapid in the Cisoxine lands of Lower _T_ukhāristān, Bādghīs,
and Herāt, where Ephthalite principalities were re-constituted, probably
with Turkish support, and continued to give Persia much trouble on her
north-eastern frontiers[6]. On the other hand the Turks of the five
western tribes (Nu-she-pi), who became independent after the break up of
the Great Khanate about 582, maintained their suzerainty over Sogdiana
and the middle Oxus basin by frequent expeditions, in one case at least
as far as Balkh. There is no trace in our records of extensive Turkish
immigration into the conquered lands; at most, small groups of Turks
wandered south with their herds, especially, it would seem, south of the
Iron Gate[7]. In general, Turkish interference in the administration
of the subject principalities was at first limited to the appointment
of military governors and the collection of tribute. Thus, in the
semi-legendary account given by An-Naysābūrī of the Turkish conquest of
Bukhārā the Bukhār Khudāh is represented as the chief dihqān under the
Turkish governor. It is possible also that the native princes maintained
guards of Turkish mercenaries.
At this period, therefore, so far from the Oxus being a barrier, there
was considerable intercommunication between the peoples on either side,
and at least the elements of a racial and cultural unity, in spite of
political divisions. This is a factor of importance in the history of the
Arab conquests: the conquest of Transoxania is intimately linked with the
fortunes of Lower _T_ukhāristān, and only became possible when the latter
country was completely subdued. On the other hand, the Jaxartes formed
a natural racial and political frontier. “Shāsh and _S_ughd have seldom
run together” says Vámbéry, and in spite of nominal annexations on more
than one occasion Muslim rule was not effectively imposed on Shāsh and
Farghāna until some time after the final conquest of Transoxania. Their
chief importance for the history of Transoxania is that they formed the
jumping-off place for counter-invasions from the East. It is not without
significance that of the two battles which were decisive in establishing
Arab rule in Sogdiana one was fought to the west of Balkh and the other
on the Talas river, far into the Turkish lands beyond the Jaxartes (see
pp. 84 and 96).
_Political Divisions._
Researches into Chinese records have now made it possible to obtain
a more definite idea of the political conditions of these frontier
provinces in the seventh century. All the principalities acknowledged
the Khan of the Western Turks as overlord and paid tribute to him under
compulsion, though, as will appear, there is good cause for doubting
whether a Turkish army ever came in response to their appeals for support
until the rise of the Türgesh power in 716.
Geographically the cultivated lands to the west and south-west of the
middle Jaxartes are divided by the Hissar mountains into two well-defined
areas. The northern area includes the rich valley of the Zarafshān and
the lesser streams which descend the northern slope of the watershed,
the southern comprises the broad basin formed by the Oxus and its
tributaries between the mountains of the Pamīr and the steppelands. The
former, which as a whole is called Sogdiana in distinction from the
smaller principality of _S_ughd, was at this period divided between
a number of small states, each independent of the others but forming
together a loose confederacy in a manner strikingly reminiscent of the
Hellenic city-states. The strongest bond of union was formed by their
mutual interest in the Chinese silk trade, the chief stations of which
were at Samarqand, Paykand, and Kish. The premier city was Samarqand, the
pre-eminence of which and high culture of whose population is vouched
for by Yuan Chwang. Special emphasis is laid on their enterprise and
success in trade, and a number of early embassies, doubtless commercial
missions, are recorded from Samarqand and Bukhārā to the Chinese court.
The merchant families of Paykand, according to Tomaschek’s rendering of
Narshakhī[8], were Kushans, but Iranian elements, reinforced by emigrants
from the Sāsānid dominions, formed the majority in the cities. The
agricultural population was almost if not entirely Iranian.
A second link between the majority of the cities was formed by the ruling
house of the Shao-wu, if, as the Chinese records assert, these all
belonged to one royal family. The head of the clan governed Samarqand
and was allied by marriage to the Turkish Khan; cadet branches ruled in
Ushrūsana, Kish, Bukhārā, and the lesser principalities in the basin of
the Zarafshān. In the later lists the rulers of Shāsh and Farghāna as
well as the Khwārizm Shāh are shown as belonging to the clan also, though
with less probability[9]. Whether the family were of K’ang origin, or,
as the Chinese records state, belonged to the Yueh-Chi, they appear in
the Arabic histories with Persian territorial titles (Khudāh, Shāh, and
the general term dihqān). Some of the princes also possessed Turkish
titles, probably conferred on them as vassals of the Khan. The ruler
of Samarqand, as king of _S_ughd, is called the Ikhshīdh or Ikhshēdh,
which is easily recognised as the Persian _khshayathiya_. This title was
borne also, as is well known, by the king of Farghāna. It is certain
at least from both Chinese and Arabic accounts that these rulers were
not Turks. The Turkish names by which they are sometimes called were
given out of deference or compliment to their Turkish suzerains, just
as Arabic names begin to appear amongst them immediately after the
Arab conquests. Particularly misleading is the name _T_arkhūn which
appears more than once in the list of princes of Samarqand and has been
erroneously taken as the title Tarkhān, though it is in reality only the
Arabic transcription of a personal name spelt in the Chinese records
Tu-hoen. During the six or seven hundred years of their rule all these
princes had become fully identified with their Iranian subjects[10]. The
“kingship” moreover was not a real monarchy but rather the primacy in
an oligarchical system. Their authority was far from absolute, and the
landed aristocracy (dihqāns) and rich merchants possessed, as will be
seen later, not only a large measure of independence but also on occasion
the power to depose the ruling prince and elect his successor. As the
succession appears to have been largely hereditary it is probable that,
according to Iranian custom, eligibility was confined to a single royal
house. In some cases, it would seem, the succession was regulated during
the lifetime of the reigning prince by some such method as association in
the principate, probably combined with the appointment of the remaining
princes to other fiefs[11].
The “confederacy” of these states, however, was in no sense an alliance
and probably amounted to little more than a _modus vivendi_. Besides
the more important princes there existed an enormous number of petty
autocrats, some possibly Turkish, others probably descended from former
conquerors, whose authority may sometimes have scarcely extended beyond
the limits of their own villages. In lands subject to the Turks and
patrolled by nomadic tribes an effective centralised government was
hardly possible. Mutual antagonisms and wars cannot have been uncommon
though we have now no record of them, except that during the early Arab
period there was hostility between Bukhārā and Wardāna, but the latter
cannot be reckoned among the Shao-wu principalities since, according
to Narshakhī, it was founded by a Sāsānid prince about 300 A.D. Until
the profitable Chinese trade was threatened by the Arabs we find no
trustworthy record of combined resistance offered by the country to its
piecemeal reduction, and only long after the conquests of Qutayba is
there any hint of a concerted rising. At the same time, the strength of
the cities and warlike nature of their inhabitants may be gauged from the
way in which they not only preserved themselves from destruction at the
hands of their successive nomad invaders, but even gained their respect,
while this, in some respects perhaps the most highly civilised of all
the lands subdued by the Arabs[12], proved also the most difficult to
conquer, and most intractable to hold.
The same lack of unity is apparent in the districts south of the Iron
Gate, though nominally subject to a single authority. It is important
to bear in mind that the Zarafshān and Oxus valleys were completely
independent of one another—that the difference between them was not
merely one of government, but also of language, and even, to some extent,
of blood, owing to the greater mixture of races in the southern basin.
When, occasionally, as in the “Mūsā legend”, reference is made in the
Arabic histories to common action by _S_ughd and _T_ukhāristān, it is
due to a complete misunderstanding of the state of the country prior to
the conquest, and it is worthy of notice that no such reference is to
be found in any narrative otherwise reliable. On his outward journey in
630, Yuan Chwang found the country divided into twenty-seven petty states
under separate rulers, with the chief military authority vested in the
Turkish Shād, the eldest son of the Jabghu of the Western Turks, who
had his seat near the modern Qunduz. During the period of anarchy which
befell the Western Turks in the following years, the whole district was
formed into an independent kingdom under a son of the former Shād, who
founded the dynasty of Jabghus of _T_ukhāristān. Minor Turkish chiefs
and intendants probably seized similar authority in their own districts,
and though the Jabghu was recognised as suzerain of all the lands from
the Iron Gate to Zābulistān and Kapisa and from Herāt to Khuttal[13],
his authority was little more than nominal except within his immediate
district of Upper _T_ukhāristān. The lesser princes, in Shūmān, Khuttal,
&c., many of whom were Turkish, appear to have acted quite independently
and did not hesitate to defy their Suzerain on occasion. The name
_T_ukhāristān is used very loosely in the Arabic records, with misleading
effect[14]. How relatively unimportant to the Arabs _T_ukhāristān proper
was is shown by the fact that its annexation (see below p. 38) is passed
over in silence. The brunt of the resistance offered to the early Arab
conquests was borne by the princes of _Lower_ _T_ukhāristān, _i.e._,
the riverain districts south of the Iron Gate, including Chaghāniān and
Balkh, together with the Ephthalite principalities in Jūzjān, Bādghīs,
and Herāt, and possibly the mountainous fringe of Gharjistān. This
explains why the Arabs always regarded Balkh, the old religious capital
of the Kushan Empire and site of the famous Buddhist shrine of Nawbahār,
as the capital of the “Turks”; it was in fact the centre of what we
might almost term the “amphictyony” of Lower _T_ukhāristān, combining
strategic and commercial importance with religious veneration. Long after
the Nawbahār had been destroyed by Ibn ʿĀmir this sentiment continued to
exist in the country[15].
A chance narrative in _T_abarī (II. 1224 f.), which, though of Bāhilite
origin, can scarcely have been invented, indicates the situation in Lower
_T_ukhāristān in 710. In the presence of Qutayba, the Shād and as-Sabal
(King of Khuttal) do homage to the Jabghu, the former excusing himself
on the ground that though he has joined Qutayba against the Jabghu, yet
he is the Jabghu’s vassal. The Ephthalite prince of Bādghīs then does
homage to the Shād, who must consequently be regarded as the chief prince
in Lower _T_ukhāristān. His identification with the Jabghu himself in
another passage (_T_ab. II. 1206. 9) is obviously impossible. Though
certainty on the point is hardly to be expected, the description best
suits the king of Chaghāniān (Chāghān Khudāh), who consistently adopted
an attitude of co-operation with the Arabs. It would seem too that the
king of Chaghāniān commanded the armies of Lower _T_ukhāristān in 652 and
again in 737. Moreover, an embassy to China on behalf of _T_ukhāristān
in 719 was actually despatched by the king of Chaghāniān, which implies
that he held a status in the kingdom consonant with the high title of
Shād. The conclusion drawn by Marquart and Chavannes that the king of
Chaghāniān and the Jabghu were identical is disproved by the Chinese
records[16].
Such conditions of political disunion were naturally all in favour of the
Arabs. It might have seemed also that the general insecurity, together
with the burden of maintaining armies and courts and the ever-recurring
ravages of invasion, would move the mass of the population to welcome
the prospect of a strong and united government, more especially as so
large a proportion of the Muslim armies were composed of their Persian
kin. For the Arabic records in general are misleading on two important
points. By their use of the word “Turk” for all the non-Persian peoples
of the East, they give the impression (due perhaps to the circumstances
of the time in which the chief histories were composed) that the
opponents of the Arabs in Transoxania were the historical Turks. The
truth is that until 720 the Arab invaders were resisted only by the
local princes with armies composed almost entirely of Iranians, except
perhaps on one or two special occasions when Turkish forces may have
intervened. The other error is in interpreting the conquests as primarily
wars for the Faith. Rebellion, for instance, is expressed in terms of
apostasy. It is now well established that this conception is exaggerated;
religious questions did not, in fact, enter until much later and even
then chiefly as expressions of political relationships. To the Iranian
peasantry, themselves steadfastly attached to the national cults, the
advent of another faith in this meeting-place of all the cultures and
religions of Asia at first carried little significance. Two factors in
particular combined to provoke a resistance so stubborn that it took the
Arabs a century merely to reduce the country to sullen submission. The
first of these was the proud national spirit of the Iranians which was
eventually to break down the supremacy of the Arabs and give birth to
the first Persian dynasties in Islām. The few wise governors of Khurāsān
found in this their strongest support, but, outraged again and again by
an arrogant and rapacious administration, the subject peoples became
embittered and sought all means of escape from its tyranny. The second
was the interest of the commercial relations on which the wealth and
prosperity of the country depended. This again might have disposed the
cities to accept a rule which promised not only stability, but a wide
extension of opportunity. The Arab governors, as we shall see, were
not indeed blind to this, but the exactions of the treasury, and still
more the greed of local officials, combined with the unsettlement of
constant invasion to create an attitude of distrust, which deepened later
into despair. It must not be forgotten that the commercial ties of the
Sogdians were much stronger with the East than with the West, and that
this too prompted them to cultivate relations with the Turks and Chinese
rather than with the Arabs when the necessity of making a choice was
forced upon them.
_The Arabic Sources._
The early Arabic sources are remarkably rich in material for the
reconstruction of the conquests in Khurāsān and Transoxania. For the
earlier period the narratives of Yaʿqūbī and Balādhurī are nearly as full
as those of _T_abarī, but the special value of the latter lies in his
method of compilation which renders the traditions amenable to critical
study and thus provides a control for all the others. Moreover, while
the other historians, regarding the conquests of Qutayba as definitely
completing the reduction of Transoxania, provide only meagre notices for
the later period, _T_abarī more than compensates for their silence by
the enormous wealth of detail embodied in the accounts he quotes from
Al-Madāʾinī and others of the last thirty years of Umayyad rule. As a
general rule, these three historians rely on different authorities,
though all use the earlier histories of Al-Madāʾinī and Abū ʿUbayda
to some extent. The monograph of Narshakhī (d. 959 A.D.) based on
both Arabic and local sources, with some resemblance to Balādhurī, is
unfortunately preserved only in a Persian version of two centuries
later which has obviously been edited, to what extent is unknown, but
which probably represents the original as unsatisfactorily as Balʿamī’s
Persian version of _T_abarī. Even so it preserves to us some account of
the peoples against whom the Arab invaders were matched, and thus does a
little to remedy the defects of the other historians in this respect. It
may well be doubted, however, whether some of its narratives merit the
reliance placed upon them by van Vloten[17]. The much later historian Ibn
al-Athīr introduces very little new material, but confines himself for
the most part to abridging and re-editing the narratives in _T_abarī,
with a tendency to follow the more exaggerated accounts. The geographer
Ibn Khūrdādhbih gives a list of titles and names, which is, however, too
confused to supply any reliable evidence.
Reference has already been made to certain aspects of the conquests
in which the Arab historians are misleading. Their information on the
Turks and the principalities of Sogdiana can now, fortunately, be
supplemented and parts of their narratives controlled from Chinese
sources, chiefly through Chavannes’ valuable “Documents sur les Tou-Kiue
(Turcs) Occidentaux.” But there are two other facts which also demand
attention: one, that the Arabic authorities, as we possess them, and
even with all allowance made for their limitations, are by no means
exhaustive; _i.e._, reliance on omissions in the narratives is an unsafe
principle of criticism: the other, that by critical study it is possible
to distinguish at certain points several lines of tendentious tradition
or legend, directed to the interests of national feeling or of some
particular tribe or faction, and centred in some cases round specific
persons. These may most conveniently be summarised as follows: