Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
The Great Arab Conquests (54 page)
The battle of Khāristān was little more than a skirmish, but it marked the end of the power of the Khagan and the Türgesh empire. He retreated far to the east to his base in the Ili valley. Defeated, with his reputation in tatters, he was assassinated by his subordinate, Kūrsūl. Kūrsūl in turn was unable to hold the Turks together in the face of Chinese intrigue, and by 739 the Türgesh Empire had dissolved. It was to be another two centuries before a Turkish state was to appear again in Central Asia.
Asad died of natural causes the next year, 738. After a brief interval the caliph Hishām appointed Nasr b. Sayyār as the new governor. In some ways it was an unusual choice. Almost all the men who had governed Khurasan before came from the west. Many of them had never previously visited the province. Some were able, some seem to have been appointed to grant political or personal favours in Damascus rather than because they were suitable for this most demanding of provincial governorates. Nasr, by contrast, had spent thirty years in the province, virtually his whole adult life. He belonged to a small group of professional officers who had formed the staff of previous governors, but he was the first of these to be given the top appointment. It was also helpful in some ways that, like Qutayba before him, he belonged to the small tribe of Kināna. He was not involved in the fierce and deep-rooted tribal rivalries that had taken hold among many of the Arabs of Khurasan. But, as with Qutayba, this position had its downside: Nasr was dependent on support from Damascus, and if this were to fail for any reason he could not call on tribal support to sustain him.
He came to office at a good moment. His predecessor, the lamented Asad, had established good relations with many of the local princes. At the same time, the Türgesh Turks were no longer a power to be reckoned with. Some princes still hoped that the Chinese might intervene. In 741 the Chinese court received an ambassador from Shāsh complaining that ‘now the Turks have become subject to China, it is only the Arabs who are a curse to the Kingdoms’, but, while the distant Chinese might grant high-sounding titles, it became apparent that they would not intervene militarily to provide effective support. Most of the princes must have been aware that the Muslims were now the only show in town: they had to come to terms with them or perish.
Nasr, like Qutayba before him, worked with a twin-track policy. As Gibb says, ‘He had seen the futility of trying to hold the country together by mere brute force, and the equal futility of trying to dispense with force.’
63
Shortly after his appointment, he gave a sermon in the mosque in the provincial capital at Merv,
o
which was essentially a political manifesto.
64
At first glance, it was mostly about money. He made it clear that he was the protector of the Muslims and that henceforth Muslims (not, it should be noted, Arabs) would get preferential tax status. All land would be liable for the
kharāj
tax but Muslims would be exempt from the
jizya
, by which he meant the poll tax. The implication was clear: all Muslims, whether Arab immigrants or local converts, would have the same privileged fiscal status; all infidels, whatever their class or ethnic background, would have to pay. It was said that 30,000 Muslims who had been paying the poll tax now no longer had to do so, while 80,000 infidels had to start paying up. Of course, the effect of Nasr’s decree, or rather his regulation of a previously chaotic situation, had wider implications; conversion to Islam meant that you became an equal member of the ruling community. It was a clear and attractive incentive and played a part in the creation of a ruling class in Khurasan and Transoxania which was defined by religion, Islam, rather than by ethnic identity, Arab. It was this body of Khurasani Muslims who were to rise in revolt against Nasr and the Umayyad government in 747 and install the Abbasids as rulers of the Muslim world in 750.
63
Shortly after his appointment, he gave a sermon in the mosque in the provincial capital at Merv,
o
which was essentially a political manifesto.
64
At first glance, it was mostly about money. He made it clear that he was the protector of the Muslims and that henceforth Muslims (not, it should be noted, Arabs) would get preferential tax status. All land would be liable for the
kharāj
tax but Muslims would be exempt from the
jizya
, by which he meant the poll tax. The implication was clear: all Muslims, whether Arab immigrants or local converts, would have the same privileged fiscal status; all infidels, whatever their class or ethnic background, would have to pay. It was said that 30,000 Muslims who had been paying the poll tax now no longer had to do so, while 80,000 infidels had to start paying up. Of course, the effect of Nasr’s decree, or rather his regulation of a previously chaotic situation, had wider implications; conversion to Islam meant that you became an equal member of the ruling community. It was a clear and attractive incentive and played a part in the creation of a ruling class in Khurasan and Transoxania which was defined by religion, Islam, rather than by ethnic identity, Arab. It was this body of Khurasani Muslims who were to rise in revolt against Nasr and the Umayyad government in 747 and install the Abbasids as rulers of the Muslim world in 750.
In the short term, Nasr’s policy seems to have been successful. The fact that we hear virtually nothing about Tukhāristan and Khwārazm at this time, and little about Soghdia, suggests that these areas were largely peaceful under Muslim rule. It is probable that by this time most of the princes in this area had converted to Islam, and this is certainly true of the ones we know about, notably the rulers of Bukhara and the Barmakids of Balkh. Contingents from Transoxania served in Nasr’s armies: when he was raiding Shāsh in 739, he had 20,000 men from Bukhara, Samarqand, Kish and even from wild and remote Ushrūsanā in his forces. A few of these may have been of Arab origin, but it is likely that most were locals who joined the Muslim armies in the hope of pay and booty.
He also set about encouraging Soghdian merchants, who had fled east to Farghāna during the wars of the 720s, to return. This was not a simple matter. The Soghdians demanded conditions. The first of these was that those who had converted to Islam and had then apostasized should not be punished. This was a difficult one; the penalty for apostasy from Islam was (and still is) death, and it was not easy to get around this. It is interesting that Nasr did not feel obliged to ask any religious scholars before making his decision. These were the days before the crystallization of Islamic law, and he simply decided on his own initiative that this concession should be made. Even half a century later, the idea that such a clear principle of Islam could be disregarded on the authority of a provincial governor would have been unthinkable, but in these rough-and-ready frontier conditions Nasr could get away with it in the wider cause of Islam. Then there was the question of the tax arrears that many of the merchants owed; these were written off. Finally there was the question of Muslim prisoners held by the Soghdians. Perhaps surprisingly, Nasr agreed that these needed to be returned only after their bona fides had been checked by a Muslim judge. Nasr received a good deal of criticism in some quarters and the caliph, Hishām, himself initially repudiated the agreement, but in the end it was agreed that the most important thing was to win over these prosperous and powerful men. The treaty was made and the merchants returned to Soghdia.
65
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The only major offensive operation that Nasr launched was the 739 expedition to Shāsh and Farghāna. The accounts of these campaigns are picturesque but confused and the course of events is not entirely clear. When Nasr’s army reached distant Farghāna they besieged the city of Qubā, eventually coming to terms with the son of the ruler. Negotiations were carried out by the young prince’s mother through an interpreter; she is said to have taken the opportunity to deliver a short homily on kingship, which gives us another glimpse into the mentality of these eastern Iranian rulers.
‘A king is not a true king,’ she began,
unless he has six things: a vizier to whom he may tell his secret intentions and who will give him reliable advice; a cook who, whenever the king does not feel like food, will find something that will tempt him to eat; a wife who, if he goes in with a troubled mind to see her and he looks at her face, causes his anxieties to disappear; a fortress in which he can take refuge, a sword which will not fail him when he fights the enemy and a treasury which he can live off anywhere in the world.
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She was also shocked to see the treatment of one of the sons of the old governor Qutayba, who occupied a fairly modest place in the governor’s camp. ‘You Arabs’, she complained, ‘don’t keep faith nor do you behave properly with one another. It was Qutayba who laid the foundations of your power, as I myself saw. This is his son, yet you make him sit below you. You should change places with him!’ This is a strong affirmation both of the reputation Qutayba still enjoyed twenty years after his ignominious death and of the importance of inherited status.
This campaign seems to have marked the end of major offensive expeditions. Nasr may have spent time pacifying Soghdia but from 745 onwards he was entirely preoccupied in Merv and Khurasan with the rebel movement that later would become the Abbasid revolution. Embassies were sent to China to regulate relations now that the Turks no longer formed a barrier between the two great powers. An embassy in 744 seems to have been intended to develop commercial contacts and contained representatives from the Soghdian cities Tukhāristan, Shāsh and even Zābulistān (in southern Afghanistan). Further embassies were sent in 745 and 747.
67
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By 750 the conquest of Transoxania was essentially complete and the north-eastern frontier of the Muslim world established along lines that were to remain more or less unchanged until the coming of the Seljuk Turks three centuries later. It was also the frontier of settlement. Islamic rule was established in areas where there were ancient cities and settled villages. Further to the east, in the vast grasslands of Kazakhstan and Kirghistan, the ancient beliefs and ways of life continued largely unaltered. The conquest of Transoxania was the hardest that Muslim armies ever undertook. Their opponents were determined and resilient, and the armies of Islam endured repeated setbacks. In the end, it was only when governors like Asad b. Abd Allāh and Nasr b. Sayyār cooperated with and incorporated local elites that it was possible. Islam certainly triumphed over native religions in this area, but the princely values of Transoxanian rulers were to have a profound effect on the culture of the whole eastern Islamic world and the survival of Iranian culture within it.
There was, however, to be one final, decisive act in the struggle for Central Asia. We know virtually nothing about it from Arab sources, but the Chinese annals fill in some of the gaps.
68
In 747 and 749 the Prince of Tukhāristan appealed for Chinese help against bandits in Gilgit, near the headwaters of the Indus, an area where Muslim armies never penetrated, along a route to China sometimes used by Soghdian traders. The Chinese governor of Kucha sent a Korean officer to deal with the problem. In a series of amazing campaigns, he crossed the mountains along the precipitous route of what is now the Karakorum highway and defeated the rebels. He was then called in by the king of Farghāna to help in a local dispute with the neighbouring king of Shāsh. The Chinese forces ended up by taking Shāsh and the king fled to seek help from the Abbasid governor Abū Muslim, who had established himself at Samarqand. He sent a force under one of his lieutenants, Ziyād b. Sālih. The Chinese with their Farghāna allies and some Turks met the Muslim armies near Taraz in July 751. It was the first and last time that Arab and Chinese armies came into direct confrontation. The Arabs were victorious but sadly we have no more details of this conflict.
68
In 747 and 749 the Prince of Tukhāristan appealed for Chinese help against bandits in Gilgit, near the headwaters of the Indus, an area where Muslim armies never penetrated, along a route to China sometimes used by Soghdian traders. The Chinese governor of Kucha sent a Korean officer to deal with the problem. In a series of amazing campaigns, he crossed the mountains along the precipitous route of what is now the Karakorum highway and defeated the rebels. He was then called in by the king of Farghāna to help in a local dispute with the neighbouring king of Shāsh. The Chinese forces ended up by taking Shāsh and the king fled to seek help from the Abbasid governor Abū Muslim, who had established himself at Samarqand. He sent a force under one of his lieutenants, Ziyād b. Sālih. The Chinese with their Farghāna allies and some Turks met the Muslim armies near Taraz in July 751. It was the first and last time that Arab and Chinese armies came into direct confrontation. The Arabs were victorious but sadly we have no more details of this conflict.
This encounter marked the end of an era. Arab forces were never to penetrate east of Farghāna or north-east of Shāsh, never to follow the Silk Road into Sinkiang and across the Gobi Desert. It was also the last time that Chinese armies ever reached so far west. They would probably have returned in force to avenge their defeat, but four years later, in 755, Central Asia and then China itself were torn apart by the revolt of An Lushan, and it was to be a millennium before Chinese forces once again appeared in Kashgar. Any hope the Soghdian princes may have entertained that the Chinese would support them against the Arabs were ended for ever. The battle of Taraz or Talas, like the battle of Poitiers in 732 in the west, was little reported in the contemporary Arab sources. Although Poitiers was a defeat and Talas a victory for Arab arms, both were to mark the furthest limits of Arab expansion in their areas.
The battle of Talas was also remembered in the Arab tradition for a completely different reason. It was widely believed that the artisans captured by the Arabs in the course of the campaign had brought the technology of paper-making to the Arab world. It is certainly the case that paper had been known in China before this, but it appears in Islamic society only in the second half of the eighth century, replacing both parchment and papyrus as the main writing material. Exactly what historical reality lies behind the accounts of the prisoners of Talas we cannot tell. What is likely, however, is that contacts with the Chinese in Central Asia led to the import of this new writing material. Cheap, easy to produce and use, paper was to have a major impact on the literacy and culture of the Muslim and later the European world.
9
FURTHEST EAST AND FURTHEST WEST
By the end of the seventh century, Muslim armies had achieved some sort of control over the whole of North Africa in the west and Khurasan and much of Transoxania in the east. In many ways the frontiers they had created had a geographical logic that made them a suitable place to call an end to expansion - the Straits of Gibraltar in the west and the wild mountains of eastern Afghanistan and Makrān in the east. In the event, neither of these formed a permanent obstacle, and in the final push of the early Arab conquests Muslim armies conquered most of the Iberian peninsula and Sind, the southern part of modern Pakistan.
Sind was very remote from Arabia and the heartlands of the early Muslim state.
1
The overland route led through the pitiless deserts of Makrān, where the track led from one parched oasis to another and where supplies were almost impossible to obtain. Alexander the Great had been one of the few men to try to lead an army through this land, and it proved one of the toughest struggles he had had to face. The alternative route was by sea, along the barren southern coast of Iran and Makrān to the ports around the mouth of the Indus river. In either case, the distances and the nature of the terrain made the journey very difficult.
1
The overland route led through the pitiless deserts of Makrān, where the track led from one parched oasis to another and where supplies were almost impossible to obtain. Alexander the Great had been one of the few men to try to lead an army through this land, and it proved one of the toughest struggles he had had to face. The alternative route was by sea, along the barren southern coast of Iran and Makrān to the ports around the mouth of the Indus river. In either case, the distances and the nature of the terrain made the journey very difficult.
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