Day of Thirst

The "Day of Thirst" (Arabic: Yawm al-'Atash) is the name traditionally given in Arabic historiography to a battle fought in 724 between the Turkic Turgesh khaganate and the Umayyad Caliphate on the banks of the river Jaxartes, in Transoxiana (Central Asia). It led to the collapse of Muslim rule over much of the region, which until 740 remained disputed territory, with both the Arabs and the Turgesh claiming sovereignty over it.

Background
The region of Transoxiana (Arabic: Ma wara' al-nahr) had been conquered by the Umayyad leader Qutayba ibn Muslim in the reign of Al-Walid I (r. 705–715), following the Muslim conquests of Persia and Khurasan in the mid-7th century. The loyalties of Transoxiana's native Iranian and Turkic populations and those of autonomous local rulers remained questionable, however, as demonstrated in 719, when the Transoxianian princes sent a petition to the Chinese and their Turgesh vassals for military aid against the Caliphate's governors. The Turgesh responded by launching a series of attacks against the Muslims in Transoxiana, beginning in 720. These incursions were coupled with uprisings against the Caliphate among the local Sogdians. The Umayyad governor of Khurasan, Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi, harshly suppressed the unrest and restored the Muslim position almost to what it had been during the time of Qutayba, although Umayyad control over the Ferghana Valley was not restored.

Expedition against Ferghana and the "Day of Thirst"
In 723, al-Harashi was replaced as governor by Muslim ibn Sa'id al-Kilabi, who resolved late the next year to launch an expedition with the goal of seizing Ferghana. The expedition faced difficulties in the campaign's early stages, with the news that al-Kilabi was to be removed from office at the accession of a new Caliph, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik. Nevertheless, al-Kilabi was then urged to proceed with the campaign, before his dismissal would take effect. Learning of al-Kilabi's dismissal, 4,000 Yemeni troops refused to march, but the Muslim officer Nasr ibn Sayyar, remaining loyal to al-Kilabi, was sent against them with an armed force, defeating the mutiny and forcing the disenchanted soldiers to rejoin the army.

Al-Kilabi led his army along the Jaxartes valley to Ferghana, and laid siege to it while devastating the surrounding countryside. At this point, the Umayyad army became aware that the Turgesh khagan Suluk was advancing against them with a stronger military force. Abandoning their camp, the Muslim army retreated so hastily towards the south that it was claimed they covered a distance in one day that equaled three days of normal travel. During the retreat, which continued for eight days, they were harassed by Turgesh cavalry and were forced to destroy all their baggage, allegedly worth one million dirhams. Nine days after the retreat began, the Arabs reached the Jaxartes. There they found a massed force of their enemies waiting, comprising troops of the Turgesh, Shash, Farghana, and the remnants of the Sogdian rebellion. After a difficult struggle, the Arabs managed to break through the enemy coalition's lines and cross the Jaxartes, reaching the relative safety of Khujand. There, the governorship was formally transferred to Abd al-Rahman ibn Na'im al-Ghamidi, who led the remnants of the army back to Samarkand.

Aftermath and impact
The defeat of the Arab army, and the casualties suffered, were a catalyst for the almost complete collapse of Muslim rule in Transoxiana over the next years. In the words of the British scholar H.A.R. Gibb, "it was practically the last aggressive expedition of the Arabs into Transoxania for fifteen years, but of much greater importance was the blow which it struck at Arab prestige. The roles were reversed; from now onwards the Arabs found themselves on the defensive and were gradually ousted from almost every district across the Oxus." The new Umayyad governor, Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri, campaigned incessantly over the next few years, but without achieving any major result. Asad also tried to secure the cooperation of the local elites by abolishing for a time the payment of taxes by the native converts (mawali), but this policy was opposed by the Khurasani Arabs themselves, and was reversed by Asad's successor Ashras ibn Abdallah al-Sulami. This led to a general uprising of Transoxiana in 728, and with Turgesh military aid the Arabs were evicted from almost the entire region. Transoxiana thereafter remained contested, and the Arabs did not recover their previous position until the campaigns of Nasr ibn Sayyar in 739–741, who took advantage of the collapse of the Turgesh khaganate into civil wars after the murder of Suluk in 738.