Saʿīd was unable to retain his position in Khurāsān, and for five years the conquests were stayed (except for summer raids) under the indolent Aslam b. Zurʿa and the avaricious ʿAbdur-Ra_h_mān b. Ziyād. In 61/680-681 Yazīd I appointed Salm, another son of Ziyād, to Khurāsān and Sijistān. Eager to emulate his brother, Salm, even before leaving Ba_s_ra, announced his intention of renewing the expeditions into Transoxania and enlisted a picked force on the spot, including such tried leaders as Muhallab b. Abī _S_ufra and ʿAbdullah b. Khāzim. From a poem preserved in the _H_amāsa of Abū Tammām[30] it would appear that somewhat unwilling levies for this expedition were raised even in Mesopotamia. Towards the close of the winter a surprise attack was made on Khwārizm, with some success. _T_abarī gives two versions of this expedition, the first of which is a highly embroidered one from the Muhallabite tradition. During the same year, Salm marched into _S_ughd and occupied Samarqand, where he appears to have made his headquarters over the winter. Balādhurī mentions a subsidiary raid on Khujanda under Aʿshā Hamdān, in which, however, the Muslims were defeated, and a _S_ughdian revolt which was crushed with the loss of its leader, here called Bandūn. The name is almost certainly to be read as that of the Bukhār-Khudāh, Bīdūn[31], and in view of the silence of _T_abarī raises rather a difficult problem. It may be conjectured that what Balādhurī intended was a revolt of the Bukhariots, combined with _S_ughdian forces. The origin of this statement may perhaps be sought for in the Bukhārā tradition, which Balādhurī does not follow in his general account of the expeditions of Salm, but which he may have tried to work in with the other. On the other hand he nowhere refers to Bīdūn as the Bukhār Khudāh. As related by Narshakhī and Yaʿqūbī Salm’s expedition is directed solely against Bukhārā. Khātūn, on promising her hand to _T_arkhūn, receives a reinforcement of 120,000 men from _S_ughd, and Bīdūn (here still alive) recruits an army in “Turkistān,” including the “Prince of Khotan.” After severe fighting, the Muslim forces, numbering 6,000, kill Bīdūn and rout the unbelievers, taking so much booty that the share of each horseman amounts to 2,400 dirhems. Khātūn, thoroughly humbled by this decisive proof of Arab invincibility, sues for peace and pays a heavy tribute. Beyond the fantastic exaggerations and incoherencies of the legend, there is nothing inherently improbable in a Bukhariot revolt. In support of this view, it may be remarked that the death of Bīdūn at this point would agree with the slender data we have for the internal wars which probably formed the original basis of the Khātūn-legend, and would also provide a foothold for the later developments of the tradition. Without fuller evidence, however, we can get no further than reasonable conjecture.