Some, if not all, of these traditions developed in some detail, and where they are not balanced by other versions they present a distorted narrative of events, verging in some cases on the fictitious. The most noteworthy examples of this are the Khātūn legend (see below p. 18) and the typical story of the exploits of Mūsā b. Khāzim in Transoxania in a style not unworthy of Bedouin romance[19]. It is therefore most important to disentangle these variant traditions and assign its proper value to each. The Bāhilite accounts of Qutayba’s conquests, for instance, contain wild exaggerations of fact, which, nevertheless, have sometimes been utilised in all seriousness by modern historians, amongst other purposes to establish synchronisms with the Turkish inscriptions[20]. With these precautions, it is possible to follow up and reconstruct, with comparative certainty and completeness, that progress of the Arab arms in Central Asia whose vicissitudes are outlined in the following pages. NOTES (Full Titles in Bibliography) [1] Franke, Beiträge 41 ff., 67. Cordier, Chine I, 225. [2] If Marquart’s identification (Ērānshahr, 201 f.) is correct. [3] Cordier I. 229: Ērānshahr 50 ff. [4] Yuan Chwang I. 103. Prof. Barthold suggests that the connection between the Ephthalites and the Huns may have been political only, not racial. [5] Chavannes, Documents 155: Ērānshahr 89. [6] _T_ab. I. 2885. 13 and 2886. 3: Yaʿqūbī, History, II, 193: Yāqūt (ed. Wüstenfeld) I. 492: Balādhurī 403: Ērānshahr 65 f., 77 f., and 150. Bādghīs was still a nomad pasture-ground in the XIVth century: Ibn Ba_tt_ū_t_a, III, 67 f. [7] Yuan Chwang I. 105; II. 266; Chav. Doc. 161: Ērānshahr 250 ff. [8] Tomaschek, Soghdiana, 170. [9] See Marquart, Chronologie, 71: Shiratori in Keleti Szemle III (1902) footnote to pp. 122-3. [10] _Cf._ Narshakhī 29. 4. On the Iranisation of nomadic elements, Blochet, Introduction à l’Histoire des Mongols, (Leyden, 1910) p. 211 note; Peisker, The Asiatic Background, pp. 353-6. [11] Chavannes, Notes 91, and _cf._ below p. 80. [12] _Cf._ Barthold, in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie XXVI (1911) p. 262. [13] Yuan Chwang I, 75 n. 2, 102 ff: II 270: Chav. Doc. 200 f. [14] _E.g._ _T_ab. II, 1448, 7-10: _cf._ Ērānshahr 228. [15] _Cf._ Yaʿqūbī, Geog. 287: _T_ab. II 1205. 12: Ērānshahr 66, 87 ff. [16] Chavannes, Doc. 201, Note 37. [17] Narshakhī’s unreliability is even more marked in his account of the origins of the Sāmānid dynasty: _cf._ Barthold, Turkestan 215 n. 3. [18] See Goldziher, Muhammadanische Studien, I, 195 ff. [19] Prof. Barthold has drawn my attention to the fact that the story of Mūsā also includes (twice over) an episode from the popular legend of Zopyrus. See his article in Zapiski XVII (1906) 0141, and Wellhausen, Arabische Reich, 257, 265. [20] _E.g._ Marquart, Chronologie, p. 8. II. THE EARLY RAIDS _The Conquest of Lower _T_ukhāristān._