Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/384

705–15] heavily on Samarḳand. Muslim families brought from Khorāsān in great numbers were settled there: fire-houses and idol-temples were destroyed; the natives were all disarmed and no heathen dared remain in the town over-night. Bokhārā and Khwarizm were similarly colonised; and these three places became famous in the after history of Islām.

During the next two or three years, aided by large contingents of horse from the tribes he had subdued (the favourite policy in the East of using subject peoples to rivet their own chain ), Ḳoteiba pushed his conquests forward, taking Khojanda, Shāsh, and other cities of Ferghāna, till he reached Kāshghār and the confines of China. A curious tale is told of an interview with "the King of China,"—probably a border Mandarin,—who, to release Ḳoteiba from an oath that he would take possession of the land, sent him a load of Chinese soil to trample on, a bag of Chinese coin by way of tribute, and four royal youths on whom to imprint his seal. Ḳoteiba had now reached the limit of his conquests. While on this campaign he received tidings of the Caliph's death: suddenly the scene is changed and his future, as we shall see, all overcast.

Like Ḳoteiba in Central Asia, Moḥammad ibn al-Ḳāsim of the Thaḳīf tribe, cousin of Al-Ḥajjāj and governor of Makrān, was the first great conqueror on the Indian border. With a well-appointed army of 6000 men, he advanced on Sind and laid siege to its capital, Deibul. A catapult named the Bride, worked by 500 men, laid waste the city, and a stone shot from it overthrew the pinnacle of the famous temple of Al-Budd [Buddha], from which flaunted its great red flag. The omen struck terror into the enemy; the King fled, and Ibn al-Ḳāsim, leaving a garrison in the city, pursued him across the Mihrān (Indus), where, surrounded by his elephants, he was slain in a severe engagement. His wife and maidens, rather than suffer ‘dishonour, set fire to their palace, and were consumed with