The Court's Wooing of Transoxania

استمالة المأمون وجند المعتصم لأهل ما وراء النهر

Al-Ma'mun's Khurasan agents campaigned the unsubmitted while his envoys enrolled willing Transoxanians — their kings' sons included — in the diwan, honored and raised in stipend at court. Al-Mu'tasim kept the same till most of his army's standing troops were Sughdians, Faraghanis, Ushrusanis and Shashis, their kings attending his gate; Islam prevailed there and they raided the Turks beyond them. Abdallah ibn Tahir's son Tahir opened lands of al-Fuziyya none had reached before; and Ibn Ayyash holds Qutayba settled Arabs beyond the river as far as Farghana and al-Shash.

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The Sack of Zibatra and al-Mu'tasim's Retaliation

In al-Baladhuri: Zibatra was an old Roman fortress taken with the old fortress of al-Hadath by Habib ibn Maslama al-Fihri, standing until the Romans wrecked it in al-Walid ibn Yazid's days; rebuilt unsoundly, the Romans camped on it in Marwan ibn Muhammad's civil war and demolished it; al-Mansur rebuilt it, they damaged it, and al-Rashid rebuilt and garrisoned it through Muhammad ibn Ibrahim; in al-Ma'mun's caliphate the Romans raided it and its people's pasturage, driving off livestock, and al-Ma'mun ordered its repair and fortification; when the Byzantine tyrant's embassy came in year 210 seeking peace he refused and wrote to the frontier governors, who ranged Byzantine lands killing and subduing with handsome success, only Yaqzan ibn Abd al-A'la ibn Ahmad ibn Yazid ibn Asid al-Sulami being hit; then in the caliphate of al-Mu'tasim — Abu Ishaq ibn al-Rashid — the Romans came to Zibatra, killed the men, captured the women and wrecked it, which grieved and angered him so that he raided them as far as Amorium — having destroyed forts before it — camped on it, took it, killed the fighters, captured the women and children, then demolished it and ordered Zibatra rebuilt, fortified and garrisoned, which the Romans afterwards attempted and failed to take.

The Court's Wooing of Transoxania

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The Sack of Zibatra and al-Mu'tasim's Retaliation