For a moment the hopes of a radical change of policy entertained by the mawālī and the clearer-sighted Arabs were raised to the highest pitch by the appointment (in 109) of Ashras b. ʿAbdullah as-Sulami, accompanied by the separation of Khurāsān from Khālid al-Qasrī’s province of ʿIrāq. It is unnecessary to recapitulate here the far-reaching concessions by which he hoped to secure, and actually did for a time secure the allegiance of the _S_ughdians, or the methods by which the local princes, especially Ghūrak, succeeded in checking the movement[83]. It is generally assumed that the hostility of Ghūrak was due to the serious fall in revenue which would result. Though this was doubtless the plea put forward and accepted by Ashras it can scarcely have been the true issue. Ghūrak’s aim was not to maintain himself on good terms with the Arab governors but to recover his independence. If once the people became “Arabs” all hope of success must have been lost. It was a game with high stakes and Ghūrak won. It must not be overlooked, however, that the account as we have it is traditional and may often be mistaken on the sequence of cause and effect. The astonishing reversal of the measures adopted by Ashras is more probably to be explained by pressure from above, not from below, and our tradition may really present only the popular view of the Caliph Hishām’s reorganization of the financial administration[84]. The Arabs resorted to brutal methods to wring the taxes from the new converts, and with incredible blindness selected the dihqāns for special indignities. It is not unlikely that Narshakhī’s story of the martyrdom of native Muslims in Bukhārā is connected with this event, though there are many other possible explanations, such as, for example, an attempted _H_ārithite movement (see below, p. 76 f.) The reaction swung the whole population of Transoxania, dihqāns and peasantry alike, into open rebellion. The first small party of emigrants who quitted Samarqand, although supported by a few Arabs, were induced to surrender and return[85], but within a few months the dreaded Khāqān with his Türgesh had joined forces with the rebels and swept the Arabs across the Oxus. Even Bukhārā was lost[86] and only Samarqand with two minor posts on the Zarafshān, Kamarja and Dabūsia, held out. Ghūrak, however, still supported the Arabs, as Samarqand, although besieged, seems to have been in no danger, while his son Mukhtār, doubtless to keep a footing in the opposite camp, joined with the Türgesh.