Abū Ḥafṣ Qutayba ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ Muslim ibn ʿAmr al-Bāhilī (; 669–715/6) was an Arab commander of the Umayyad Caliphate who became governor of Khurasan and distinguished himself in the conquest of Transoxiana during the reign of al-Walid I (705–715). A capable soldier and administrator, he consolidated Muslim rule in the area and expanded the Caliphate's border to include most of Transoxiana. From 705 to , he consolidated Muslim control over the native principalities of Tokharistan and conquered the principality of Bukhara, while in 710–712 he conquered Khwarizm and completed the conquest of Sogdiana with the capture of Samarkand. The latter opened the road to the Jaxartes valley, and during the last years of his life Qutayba led annual campaigns there, extending Muslim control up to the Fergana Valley and parts of Chinese Turkestan.
To increase his strained manpower, Qutayba initiated the wide-scale levy of native Khurasani and Transoxianian soldiers who fought alongside the Arab Muslim troops. Following Walid's death, Qutayba, insecure of his position under the new regime, rebelled but failed to secure the support of his army, and was killed. Most of his conquests in Transoxiana were lost in the years after his death; only in the 740s was the Muslim position restored to the line reached by Qutayba, and only after the Battle of Talas in 751 did the region come solidly under Muslim control.
Origin and early life Qutayba was born in 669 CE in Basra, to an influential family of the Bahila tribe. His father, Muslim ibn ʿAmr, had enjoyed the favour of the Umayyads, but fought for their enemy Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr at the Battle of Maskin during the close of the Second Muslim Civil War. He was killed in the fighting, but while he lay wounded he obtained assurances of safety for Qutayba from Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. Qutayba rose at first as the protege of Anbasa ibn Sa'id, but was noticed by the powerful governor of Iraq and the East, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, during the suppression of the revolt of Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath in 700/701. Under al-Hajjaj's patronage, he took Rayy from the rebel Umar ibn Abi'l-Salt in 701, and became the city's governor.
Then, in late 704 or early 705, Abd al-Malik appointed Qutayba as governor of Khurasan in succession to al-Mufaddal ibn al-Muhallab. The choice of Qutayba, who hailed from the relatively weak Bahila tribe, was intended by al-Hajjaj to heal the destructive feud between the South Arab or "Yemeni" (Azd and Rabi'ah) and North Arab (Qaysi) tribal confederations in Khurasan by providing a governor who did not belong to either. The Bahila were neutral between the two groups, but generally allied themselves to the Qays, thus furthering al-Hajjaj's policy of emasculating Azdi power, which had been dominant in Khurasan during the governorship of al-Mufaddal's brother, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab. Furthermore, as Qutayba lacked a strong tribal base of his own, he could be expected to remain firmly attached to his patron.
Qutaybah mentioned his father, his tribe, and his homeland, praising himself in one of his speeches to the people of Khorasan, and reminding them that he was Iraqi in lineage and inclination, as he said, "Trace my lineage and you will find me Iraqi on my mother's side, Iraqi on my father's side, Iraqi by birth, Iraqi in my inclination, opinion, and religion.
Qutayba would spend the next ten years of his life in Central Asia, consolidating and expanding Muslim rule there. In this endeavour, both his military and diplomatic and organisational abilities came him in good stead; most importantly, he was able to enlist the support of the local Iranian population and the powerful (the Iranian "gentry") class.
Conquests in Central Asia
The Arabs had reached Central Asia in the decade after their decisive victory in the Battle of Nihavend in 642, when they completed their conquest of the former Sassanid Empire by seizing Sistan and Khurasan. The first Arab attacks across the Oxus ranged as far as Shash (Tashkent) and Khwarizm, but they were little more than raids aiming at seizing booty and extracting tribute, and were interrupted by the intertribal warfare that broke out in Khurasan during the Second Fitna (683–692). Subsequent governors, most notably Sa'id ibn Uthman and al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra, made attempts to conquer territory across the river, but they failed. The native princes, for their part, tried to exploit the Arabs' rivalries, and with the aid of the Arab renegade Musa ibn Abd Allah ibn Khazim, who in 689 seized the fortress of Tirmidh for his own domain, they managed to eject the Arabs from their holdings. Nevertheless, the Transoxianian princes remained riven by their own feuds, and failed to unite in the face of the Arab conquest, a fact which would be suitably exploited by Qutayba after 705. The international situation was also favourable to Qutayba. Tang China was weakened, and the Second Turkic Khaganate (682–744) was embroiled in warfare with the Türgesh Khaganate (699–766).
Conquest of Tokharistan and Bukhara The first task which Qutayba set himself was the suppression of the rebellion in Lower Tokharistan. This was accomplished swiftly in spring 705, with the reconquest of Balkh. One version of events holds that the city surrendered peacefully, but another suggests it was violently captured, which seems likely as the city is mentioned as ruined a few years later. Qutayba then secured the submission of the local princes in the upper Oxus valley, most notably of Tish, king of al-Saghaniyan, who invited Qutayba to aid him in his dispute with the ruler of nearby Akharun (or Akhrun) and Shuman, in the northern mountainous districts of Tokharistan. After extensive negotiations led by Sulaym the Persian, the tarkhan Nizak, ruler of the Hephthalite principality of Badghis, surrendered to Qutayba, and pledged to accompany him in his expeditions.
In 706–709, Qutayba occupied himself with the long and bloody conquest of Bukhara. Bukhara was at the time weakened by civil war: royal power had been weakened in favour of ambitious nobles during the minority of King Tughshada. The ruler of nearby Wardana, the Wardan Khudah, had seized most of Tughshada's territories, including Bukhara itself, while the remainder was ruled by another local magnate, Khunuk Khudah, who had usurped the title of king of Bukhara (Bukhar Khudah). Taking advantage of the conflict, Qutayba was able to easily capture the city of after a two-month siege. He left a small garrison there and departed, but the inhabitants launched a revolt soon after. The Arab army then turned back and proceeded to sack the city. The men of fighting age were executed, the women and children sold off as slaves, and enormous booty amassed, especially in armour and weapons, which equipped the Arab army. The high quality of the Sogdian craftmanship became proverbial as the "forging of Sughd" in Arabic accounts.
The brutal punishment meted out to Baykand shocked the region: the Sogdians patched up their quarrels and the Sogdian princes of Kish and Nasaf united behind the Wardan Khudah. Bahili accounts extolling Qutayba's achievements mention the participation of 200,000 Türgesh troops as well, but this is evidently an exaggerated anachronism. In the campaign of 707, Qutayba was able to capture two outlying towns, Tumuskath and Ramithana, before he was threatened in his rear by the united Sogdian army. Qutayba avoided a battle, and engaged in negotiations to gain time, before executing a rapid retreat to safety through the Iron Gate to beyond the Oxus, crossing the river at Tirmidh. The campaign of 708 was also a failure against the united Sogdian forces, which drew the ire of al-Hajjaj. For 709, al-Hajjaj drew up a new plan for his subordinate: the Arabs launched a direct attack on Bukhara, which caught the Sogdian alliance—possibly weakened by the death of its leader, the Wardan Khudah—by surprise. The city was taken by storm, a tribute of 200,000 dirhams imposed, and an Arab garrison installed. In its direct aftermath, Tarkhun, the ruler of Samarkand, sent envoys to Qutayba and became a tributary vassal to the Caliphate.
Consolidation of Arab rule over Tokharistan This success was followed however by the rebellion in the autumn of 709 of much of Lower Tokharistan under Nizak of Badhgis. Leaving Qutayba's camp on a pretext of going to Balkh and escaping to his native lands, Nizak quickly managed to gain the support of the principalities of Talaqan and Faryab, and the city of Balkh. In an effort to raise the entire region in revolt, Nizak also forced the nominal suzerain of Tokharistan, the Yabghu, to join the uprising. The year was too advanced for a direct confrontation and the Muslim levy-based army mostly disbanded, but Qutayba ordered his brother Abd al-Rahman to take the garrison of Merv, some 12,000 men, and head to Balkh to secure the Muslim position there. This move proved effective in discouraging the rebellion of more local princes, and in spring 710, Abd al-Rahman was able to re-establish Muslim control over Tokharistan almost without bloodshed. Most of the rebel rulers fled or capitulated, and finally, Nizak was captured with the assistance of some native princes and executed on al-Hajjaj's orders, despite promises of pardon. The Yabghu was exiled to Damascus and kept there as a hostage (possibly with the ruler of Chaghaniyan acting as regent in his stead). Lower Tokharistan was more firmly incorporated into the Caliphate, as Arab district representatives were appointed alongside the local princes, who were gradually relegated to secondary positions. Qutayba's brother Abd al-Rahman was installed with a garrison near Balkh to oversee the affairs of the province. From this point on, Balkh began developing "as a centre of Arab power and Islamic culture", in the words of C. E. Bosworth; within a generation, it was Islamicized to the extent of briefly replacing Marw as the provincial capital of Khurasan.
Despite the swift end of Nizak's revolt, the diversion of Arab resources for its suppression encouraged the king of Shuman and Akharun decided to rebel as well. Qutayba led his forces against him, and captured his citadel after a brief and violent siege. The king fell in battle, and his supporters were executed. Qutayba then marched west over the Iron Gate, taking Kish and Nasaf and visiting Bukhara, where he settled relations between the Arabs and the locals, installed Tughshada in the position of Bukhar Khudah and established an Arab military colony in the city. Later, in 712/13, Qutayba built a mosque in the city's citadel, but although the Arab authorities encouraged the conversion of the native population by paying them to attend prayers, Islamization proceeded slowly.