Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
The Great Arab Conquests (52 page)
You advanced on the enemy at night as if you were playing with your
girl-friend
Your cock was drawn and your sword sheathed.
For your enemies you are like an affectionate bride
Against us you are like a sharpened sword.
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He arrived in Khurasan without any previous first-hand knowledge of the province and immediately became embroiled in a complicated dispute about financial irregularities which led to him dismissing a number of experienced officials. The administration was in disarray when the Turkish army surrounded a little Muslim outpost called Qasr al-Bāhilī, the exact location of which is not known. There were only a hundred Muslim families in the fortress and they began to negotiate their surrender. Meanwhile the Muslim governor of Samarqand called for volunteers to raise the siege. At first 4,000 men volunteered, but as they marched towards the enemy many of them drifted away, leaving their commander Musayyab
n
with only a thousand or so men as they approached the besieged castle. Musayyab sent two scouts on a dark night to try to make contact with the defending garrison. It was not easy, because the Turks had flooded the surrounding area. Eventually they found a sentry, who brought the commander to them. The messengers said that the relieving force was only about 12 kilometres (2
farsakhs
) away and asked the defenders whether they could hold out for the night. The commander replied that they had sworn to protect their women and they were all prepared to die together the next day. When the messengers returned to Musayyab he told his men that he was going to march immediately. The Muslims fell upon the Turkish camp at dawn. There was a hard struggle and a number of prominent Muslims fell as martyrs, but eventually the Turks were put to flight. The relieving force entered the fortress and gathered up the Muslim survivors. One of the party later recalled meeting a woman who implored him in the name of God to help her. He told her to get up behind him on his horse and he grabbed her son and took him in his arms. Then they galloped off and the rescuer commented admiringly that the woman ‘was more skilful on the horse than a man’. Eventually rescuers and rescued made their way to the safety of the walls of Samarqand, but the fort was lost. When the Turks returned the next day, they found nothing but the corpses of their comrades.
45
n
with only a thousand or so men as they approached the besieged castle. Musayyab sent two scouts on a dark night to try to make contact with the defending garrison. It was not easy, because the Turks had flooded the surrounding area. Eventually they found a sentry, who brought the commander to them. The messengers said that the relieving force was only about 12 kilometres (2
farsakhs
) away and asked the defenders whether they could hold out for the night. The commander replied that they had sworn to protect their women and they were all prepared to die together the next day. When the messengers returned to Musayyab he told his men that he was going to march immediately. The Muslims fell upon the Turkish camp at dawn. There was a hard struggle and a number of prominent Muslims fell as martyrs, but eventually the Turks were put to flight. The relieving force entered the fortress and gathered up the Muslim survivors. One of the party later recalled meeting a woman who implored him in the name of God to help her. He told her to get up behind him on his horse and he grabbed her son and took him in his arms. Then they galloped off and the rescuer commented admiringly that the woman ‘was more skilful on the horse than a man’. Eventually rescuers and rescued made their way to the safety of the walls of Samarqand, but the fort was lost. When the Turks returned the next day, they found nothing but the corpses of their comrades.
45
The rescue of the defenders of Qasr al-Bāhilī was a stirring story of Muslims protecting their own, retold many times and celebrated in poetry and song, and it shows the solidarity felt by these settlers in a hostile land, but it could not disguise the fact that the Muslims were in trouble. The governor Sa
c
īd led a campaign to Transoxania, but to the disgust of his more militant supporters he did not go beyond Samarqand. What was probably worse as far as they were concerned was that he allowed them to pillage the Soghdians, saying that Soghdia ‘was the garden of the caliphs’. By this he meant that Soghdia was an asset which should be taxed rather than destroyed in conflict.
46
c
īd led a campaign to Transoxania, but to the disgust of his more militant supporters he did not go beyond Samarqand. What was probably worse as far as they were concerned was that he allowed them to pillage the Soghdians, saying that Soghdia ‘was the garden of the caliphs’. By this he meant that Soghdia was an asset which should be taxed rather than destroyed in conflict.
46
By the spring of 722 the situation in Transoxania was described as ‘disastrous’ for the Arabs. Khudayna was replaced by a new governor, another Sa
c
īd known as Sa
c
īd al-Harashī. In contrast to his predecessor, he was aggressive and brutal and determined to reassert Muslim control in Soghdia. The events that followed are especially interesting because, almost uniquely in the annals of the Muslim conquests, we have a series of absolutely contemporary documents to supplement the Arabic narrative sources. In 1933 a shepherd discovered a basket of Soghdian documents on Mount Mugh in what is now Tajikistan but was then part of Soviet Central Asia. Mount Mugh was a Soghdian fortress which had been the stronghold and last refuge of the last independent Soghdian prince of Penjikent, Dīwashtīch.
47
The documents had presumably been abandoned when the fortress was taken by the Arabs in 722 and consisted of political correspondence and administrative and legal documents. Dīwashtīch was clearly an ambitious man who was challenging Ghūrak of Samarqand for leadership of the Soghdian princes, trying to assemble a coalition of local nobles to oppose the Arab advance. Unfortunately for him, many of the Soghdians had chosen to flee to the north-east, to Farghāna, to take refuge rather than join his alliance and fight. Furthermore Kūrsūl, the leader of the Türgesh Turks from whom he had hoped for support, was proving elusive and failed to come to his aid. The letters are interesting because they provide some insight into the rivalries among the local princes as they tried to work out a response to the Muslim invasions, but also because they substantially back up the version of events that we find in Madā’inī’s account of the Arab invasions as used by Tabarī.
48
It is unusual and, for the historian, comforting to have this immediate confirmation that the narratives on which we base our understanding of these events do indeed reflect a historical reality.
c
īd known as Sa
c
īd al-Harashī. In contrast to his predecessor, he was aggressive and brutal and determined to reassert Muslim control in Soghdia. The events that followed are especially interesting because, almost uniquely in the annals of the Muslim conquests, we have a series of absolutely contemporary documents to supplement the Arabic narrative sources. In 1933 a shepherd discovered a basket of Soghdian documents on Mount Mugh in what is now Tajikistan but was then part of Soviet Central Asia. Mount Mugh was a Soghdian fortress which had been the stronghold and last refuge of the last independent Soghdian prince of Penjikent, Dīwashtīch.
47
The documents had presumably been abandoned when the fortress was taken by the Arabs in 722 and consisted of political correspondence and administrative and legal documents. Dīwashtīch was clearly an ambitious man who was challenging Ghūrak of Samarqand for leadership of the Soghdian princes, trying to assemble a coalition of local nobles to oppose the Arab advance. Unfortunately for him, many of the Soghdians had chosen to flee to the north-east, to Farghāna, to take refuge rather than join his alliance and fight. Furthermore Kūrsūl, the leader of the Türgesh Turks from whom he had hoped for support, was proving elusive and failed to come to his aid. The letters are interesting because they provide some insight into the rivalries among the local princes as they tried to work out a response to the Muslim invasions, but also because they substantially back up the version of events that we find in Madā’inī’s account of the Arab invasions as used by Tabarī.
48
It is unusual and, for the historian, comforting to have this immediate confirmation that the narratives on which we base our understanding of these events do indeed reflect a historical reality.
The Arabs conquered Penjikent in 722. The site is the most fully excavated of all Soghdian sites. The ancient city stood on a plateau overlooking the fertile lands of the upper Zarafshan valley. Looking north, across the flat plain of the river, the arid peaks of the Turkestan range are clearly visible. The city itself was built of brick and mud-brick and by 722 it had become a place of refuge and exile for many Soghdian nobles.
49
Large houses decorated with frescoes showing Soghdian lords fighting, hunting and feasting were constructed. All this magnificence came to an end with the Arab conquest and much of the town was destroyed. Some quarters were rebuilt, on a more modest scale, after 740, when Arab administration was more secure in this area and trade started to pick up again, but the town never recovered its earlier prosperity.
49
Large houses decorated with frescoes showing Soghdian lords fighting, hunting and feasting were constructed. All this magnificence came to an end with the Arab conquest and much of the town was destroyed. Some quarters were rebuilt, on a more modest scale, after 740, when Arab administration was more secure in this area and trade started to pick up again, but the town never recovered its earlier prosperity.
Despite such occasional success for Arab arms, none of the governors in this period was able to emulate Qutayba’s achievements and re-establish the Muslim position in Transoxania. The combined forces of the Soghdians and the Turks meant that the Arab hold over the lands beyond the river was as precarious as ever. By 728 the only places in the Zarafshan valley that remained in Muslim hands were the great fortress city at Samarqand and the smaller fortified towns of Dabūsiya and Kamarja, both defended by Muslim garrisons, on the main road there. Even Bukhara was effectively lost. The struggle to hold these remaining outposts was the key to the campaign in Transoxania, and the siege of Kamarja by the Turks that year is one of the most vividly described set pieces of the war. The conflict began almost by accident. The Khagan, the leader of the Turks, was marching along the main road from Samarqand heading for Bukhara. The Muslims in the small roadside city of Kamarja were unaware of what he was doing until they took their animals out to water, came over a hill and saw ‘a mountain of steel’, made up of the Turkish forces and their Iranian allies. The Arabs had to move fast if they were going to be able to take shelter behind the walls of the town. They sent some of their beasts down to the river to drink as a decoy to lure the Turks away, and then made for the fortifications as quickly as they could, with the Turks, who had now caught sight of them, hard on their heels. Because the Arabs knew the terrain better, they got there first and began to barricade themselves behind the earthworks, lighting brushwood fires to destroy the wooden bridge across the moat.
In the evening, when the Turks temporarily abandoned the assault, the defenders were approached with two offers of aid. One of them was from none other than the grandson of the last Sasanian king, Yazdgard III, who had joined the Turks, hoping to regain the empire of his ancestors. He offered to intercede on their behalf with the Khagan and acquire safe conducts for them. It would certainly have suited him to gain the friendship of a group of Arab warriors. But they were scornful, and his proposal was rejected with abuse.
50
50
The next offer was more plausible. It came from a man called Bāzagharī. He was a local man whom the Khagan seems to have trusted as an intermediary. He brought with him to the city walls some Arab prisoners captured earlier in the campaign. He called up to the defenders to send someone down to negotiate with him. The first man they sent did not understand any Turkish so they had to find another man, an Arab from Qutayba’s tribe of Bāhila, who did. Bāzagharī brought a financial offer from the Khagan: he would take the Arab defenders into his own army with enhanced rates of pay; those who had recived 600 dirhams would now have 1,000 and those who were on 300 would get 600. The Arab emissary greeted this with scorn. ‘It won’t work,’ he said. ‘How can the Arabs, who are wolves, work with the Turks, who are sheep? There will not be peace between you and us.’ Some of the Turks were furious and wanted to execute the ambassador there and then but Bāzagharī refused. The messenger was increasingly anxious for his own safety, so he made an offer that half the Arabs would go free and half would serve the Khagan. Then he went to the wall, held on to the rope and was pulled up. When he reached safety, his tone changed completely. He asked the people of Kamarja what they felt about going to unbelief after faith with predictable results. He egged the Muslims on: ‘They will call on you to fight with the infidels,’ to which they replied, ‘We will die together sooner than that.’
‘Then let them know.’
So the people shouted down their refusal.
Meanwhile the Khagan ordered his men to throw green wood (which would not burn) into the moat surrounding the city while the defenders threw in dry wood (which did). When the moat was full, the Muslims set it ablaze and God supported their cause by sending a strong wind. In one hour the work that had taken the Turks six days was destroyed. The archers on the walls also did their work: many of the attackers were injured or killed, including Bāzagharī, who was wounded and died that night. Things now began to turn nasty. The Turks executed the Arab captives they had already seized, about a hundred in number, in cold blood, throwing the heads of the best known of them to the defenders. In return, the Arabs slew 200 of the sons of the infidels, ‘though they fought desperately’. The Turks now attacked the gate of the earthwork and five of them managed to reach the top of the wall before being dislodged.
Individual incidents were remembered with great clarity in the later narratives. In one of these the prince of Shāsh (Tashkent), who was an ally of the Khagan, asked permission to attack. The Khagan refused, saying that it was too difficult, but the prince responded that if he were to be rewarded with two Arab slave girls he would go ahead and permission was granted. He and his companions came across a breach in the wall beside which there was a house with a hole that opened on the breach. There was a man lying sick in the house, but despite his illness he had the strength and wit to throw a hook, which caught the prince’s chain mail. Then he called the women and boys in the house to help him pull his victim in. The prince was then felled by a stone and stabbed to death. A young Turk came up and slew the killer, taking his sword, but the defenders managed to keep hold of his body.
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In another incident, the Muslims took the wooden boards used to line irrigation ditches and set them up on top of the earthwork, making doors that could be used as a shelter and arrow slits for archers. One day they had a great chance when the Khagan himself came to inspect. One archer shot him in the face but he was wearing a Tibetan helmet that had a nose-piece (perhaps like the Norman helmets seen in the Bayeux tapestry) and no harm was done. He also suffered a superficial chest wound but escaped without serious injury.
As the siege dragged on, the Khagan became weary and irritable. He accused his allies the Soghdian princes of claiming that there were only fifty donkeys in the town and that it could be taken in five days, but two months had passed and the resistance was as strong as ever. Negotiations began. The Khagan said it was not the custom of the Turks to abandon a siege without conquering the city or the defenders leaving it, while the Muslims replied that they would not abandon their religion. So it was suggested that they should depart to Samarqand or Dabūsiya, the only towns in the area still in Muslim hands. The Muslims sent a messenger to get advice from Samarqand. He went off and met a Persian nobleman who was a friend of his (another of these inter-ethnic friendships we can see emerging in this area). He arranged for him to borrow a couple of the Khagan’s own horses, which were grazing in a meadow near by. He reached Samarqand the same day. There the people advised that the garrison of Kamarja should evacuate to Dabūsiya, which was closer. The siege had lasted for fifty-eight days and the Muslims had not watered their camels for the last thirty-five of these.
The surrender was agreed, but in the atmosphere of mutual suspicion engendered by the siege and the execution of hostages, it was not easy to arrange things. Both sides gave five hostages to the other. The Muslims refused to leave until the Khagan and the bulk of his army had departed, and even then they kept a close eye on the hostages: each Turk was wearing only a robe, with no armour, and seated behind him on his horse was an Arab with a dagger in his hand. Meanwhile the Iranians travelling with the group were frightened that the garrison of Dabūsiya, said to have been 10,000 in number, would come out and attack them. In the event the Dabūsiya garrison, seeing horsemen, standards and a large military force approaching, thought that Kamarja had fallen and that this was the Khagan’s army approaching them. They prepared for war. Then the mood changed completely when a messenger from the army told them the true story, and horsemen galloped out to help the weak and injured through the city walls. One by one the hostages were allowed to go, but only when the Arab hostages with the Turks were released. When there was only one hostage left on each side, neither side wanted to release their man first. Finally the Arab hostage
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with the Turks told the Turkish officer, Kūrsūl, that he was happy for the other hostage to be released first. Later Kūrsūl asked him why he had taken this risk, to which the Arab replied, ‘I trusted your view of me and that your spirit would be above treachery.’ He was generously rewarded, given a horse and armour and returned to his companions. As in so much medieval warfare, savage cruelty was mingled with individual acts of chivalry, and some Turks, at least, were recognized as honourable and worthy opponents.
52
with the Turks told the Turkish officer, Kūrsūl, that he was happy for the other hostage to be released first. Later Kūrsūl asked him why he had taken this risk, to which the Arab replied, ‘I trusted your view of me and that your spirit would be above treachery.’ He was generously rewarded, given a horse and armour and returned to his companions. As in so much medieval warfare, savage cruelty was mingled with individual acts of chivalry, and some Turks, at least, were recognized as honourable and worthy opponents.
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