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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

N. destroyed, was restored to its former comfort and prosperity; and, whilst it is
certainly indicative of the persevering industry and enterprise of the people, suggests
the possession of wealth and the existence of an extensive and profitable trade with
China.
In the plunder of this prosperous commercial town Kutaiba took a vast store of
gold and silver, and, amongst other valuables, two rare pearls, each the size of a pigeon's
egg, found in one of the idol temples. These last he sent as an offering to Hajáj with
the letter announcing his victory. The Khálif in acknowledgment gracefully expressed
his astonishment more at the rarity of his General's honesty than of his precious
offering.
After the destruction of Bekand, the Arabs successively reduced Khabnon,
Fáráb, and Wardána; and then Kutaiba found himself surrounded, and cut off from
communication with Khurásán, by the numerous armies pouring in from the east
and north to the aid of Bukhárá. Amongst the leaders of these troops were Malik
Tarkhon of Saghd, the Jand Khidát, and the Wardána Khidát, and Málik Gormu-
ghánon, Turk, who was sister's son of the Faghfur=Emperor of China.
Kutaiba was thus hemmed in for four months, and was finally extricated from
his difficulty by the address of one of his councillors—the Maulá Hayán Nabti,
who opened a communication with Tarkhon, and so artfully played upon his fears, by
representing in exaggerated terms the dangers that threatened him from the vast
numbers of his foreign allies, that he soon succeeded in obtaining from him a nominal
tender of submission with the payment of 2,000 diram as tribute, and thus effected
a dissolution of the Turk confederation. The allies, finding that Tarkhon had retired
from the field, broke from each other, and retraced their steps to their respective
countries, plundering all the way; and the Arabs, thus set free, marched upon
Bukhárá, where they levied a heavy indemnity, and then returned across the Oxus
to Marv.
Kutaiba made four successive campaigns against Bukhárá, with whose deposed
Queen he carried on an amour, that has supplied the historians of the time with many
amusing anecdotes. His last campaign was in 94H.=712 A.D., when he established
Tughsháda in the government, and fixed the yearly tribute at 40,000 diram for the
Khálif, and 10,000 diram for the Amír of Khurásán. At this time, too, owing to
the habitual relapsing of the people from the newly enforced faith to their old idola-
try, he distributed his Arabs amongst the citizens—one in each household—the
more effectually to convert the people by example and to teach them the rites and
doctrines of the new religion. He ordered also that they should share equally with
the family in food and raiment, to be supplied free of cost at the expense of the
town. These measures proved extremely distasteful to the citizens, who naturally at
first opposed them; but the force of summary and severe examples speedily cowed
them to submission, though 700 families of a sect called Kashkasha, who are des-
cribed as a wealthy mercantile community, abandoned their dwellings in the city, and
formed a settlement of huts outside its walls. These in the course of years grew
into a suburb called afterwards Kosh Mughan="Dwelling of fire-worhippers." It is
probable, I may here note, that these Kashkasha (query Kashisha=Christian priest)
were Christians, and not, as the name afterwards given to their settlement would
imply, Zoroastrians, because in this last campaign Kutaiba destroyed every emblem
of idolatry in the place, and on the site of the great idol temple built the Juma
Masjid or Friday Mosque, whilst he suppressed any outward signs of adherence to
idolatry by the only arguments known to Islám, by death or tribute.
V. B. In the year following this settlement of Bukhárá, Kutaiba invaded the province
of Farghána, and thence crossing the Tirik Dawán or "Sweating Pass" into
Káshghar—at that time occupied by the Uighúr—ran his expedition as far as Turfán
on the Chinese frontier of Kánsuh. Here he received intelligence of the death of
the Khálif Walíd, and consequently, retracing his steps, returned to Marv where he
was killed in a plot by his enemies at the end of 98H.=716A.D., aged 47 years.