Qutaibah bin Muslim
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Qutaibah bin Muslim ('قُتيبة بن مسلم') (also known as Qutaibah Ibn Muslim Al Baheli) (d. 715) was an Arab Muslim, born in Iraq, and lived during the late 7th/early 8th century. The military governor of Iraq at the time (Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef) discovered his military intelligence from within the wars he used to lead against the outlaws and those who tried to revoke the government. He served under the Ummayad caliphs, and made his greatest gains during the reign of al-Walid I.
Qutaibah was granted the governor-ship of Khorasan (now part of Iran) in 704 and thus came into the command of a large standing army of about 50,000 Arab troops. From that time on, he used his military expertise in numerous campaigns to expand Umayyad dominion over the territories to the north and east. He began in 705 with the recovery of lower Tukharistan and its capital, Balkh (now part of northern Afghanistan). He then crossed the Oxus River (Amu Darya) and in a series of brilliant campaigns conquered Bukhara and its surrounding territories (706–709) in Sogdiana (now part of Uzbekistan). He then took Samarkand (710–712) and Khwarezm, with its capital, Khiva (all now part of Uzbekistan).
Qutaibah then led an expedition in 715 farther north's into Central Asia, establishing nominal Arab rule over Farghana (now part of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan). He is even traditionally credited with reaching the borders of Chinese Turkistan, and apparently he acquired paper from the Chinese bringing it to Arab civilization.
Despite his victories, he was jailed and executed after the death of Al-Walid I, by the new caliph, Suleiman. The reasoning behind this was political and likely because Suleiman saw Qutaibah as a threat or he felt that Qutaibah was among those who had tried to stop al-Walid from appointing Suleiman the next caliph. Others have speculated that it was due to Qutaibah's good relationship with Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef.
Many of the territories Qutaibah conquered were incorporated into the province of Transoxiana “which lies beyond the Oxus”. Though Qutaibah himself was primarily concerned with the military administration of the conquered territories, his successors ultimately achieved the Islamization of the heretofore primarily Buddhist peoples of those regions. The conquered cities of Samarkand and Bukhara became major centers for the dissemination of Islamic culture and learning among the Asian peoples of Central Asia.
