The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c12.50

v1.c12.50

Al-Bīrūnī tells us nothing about the internal history of these rulers of Kia-pi-shi, who held the Kabul valley for at least two hundred years. For this we must turn to the annals of the Arabs, whose conquering armies had shattered the Sasanids and were threatening Khurāsān and Sijistān in the middle of the 7th century A.D.¹ I have already referred to the destruction of the Epthalite power on the Oxus by the Turks in the middle of the sixth century A.D. Taking advantage of the waning power of the Sasanids, the Turks had spread their influence south of that river and even beyond the Hindukush.² But '*the establishment of the T'ang dynasty in 618 A.D. marked the beginning of a new and glorious epoch in the history of the Chinese relations with the 'western regions.'*³ Aided by the internal feuds of the Turks, they succeeded in destroying the power of the Northern Turks in 630 A.D. and that of Western Turks in 658-59 A.D. and soon extended their suzerainty across Turkistan and the Oxus valley to the territories south of the Hindukush.³ Thus in relation to the *Sāhis*, the Chinese and the Arabs occupied the same position in the middle of the seventh century A.D. which the Sasanids and the Turks occupied in the middle of the sixth. But the terrible defeat of the Chinese imperial forces in 670 A.D. and the brilliant campaigns of Qutayba (705-15 A.D.) initiated an irresistible movement of the Arabs towards Central Asia, which soon made them supreme in Transoxania. In A. H. 256 (A.D. 870) Yaʻqūb ibn Layth al-Ṣaffār had already brought the flag of Islam into the Kabul valley.⁴