A chance narrative in _T_abarī (II. 1224 f.), which, though of Bāhilite origin, can scarcely have been invented, indicates the situation in Lower _T_ukhāristān in 710. In the presence of Qutayba, the Shād and as-Sabal (King of Khuttal) do homage to the Jabghu, the former excusing himself on the ground that though he has joined Qutayba against the Jabghu, yet he is the Jabghu’s vassal. The Ephthalite prince of Bādghīs then does homage to the Shād, who must consequently be regarded as the chief prince in Lower _T_ukhāristān. His identification with the Jabghu himself in another passage (_T_ab. II. 1206. 9) is obviously impossible. Though certainty on the point is hardly to be expected, the description best suits the king of Chaghāniān (Chāghān Khudāh), who consistently adopted an attitude of co-operation with the Arabs. It would seem too that the king of Chaghāniān commanded the armies of Lower _T_ukhāristān in 652 and again in 737. Moreover, an embassy to China on behalf of _T_ukhāristān in 719 was actually despatched by the king of Chaghāniān, which implies that he held a status in the kingdom consonant with the high title of Shād. The conclusion drawn by Marquart and Chavannes that the king of Chaghāniān and the Jabghu were identical is disproved by the Chinese records[16]. Such conditions of political disunion were naturally all in favour of the Arabs. It might have seemed also that the general insecurity, together with the burden of maintaining armies and courts and the ever-recurring ravages of invasion, would move the mass of the population to welcome the prospect of a strong and united government, more especially as so large a proportion of the Muslim armies were composed of their Persian kin. For the Arabic records in general are misleading on two important points. By their use of the word “Turk” for all the non-Persian peoples of the East, they give the impression (due perhaps to the circumstances of the time in which the chief histories were composed) that the opponents of the Arabs in Transoxania were the historical Turks. The truth is that until 720 the Arab invaders were resisted only by the local princes with armies composed almost entirely of Iranians, except perhaps on one or two special occasions when Turkish forces may have intervened. The other error is in interpreting the conquests as primarily wars for the Faith. Rebellion, for instance, is expressed in terms of apostasy. It is now well established that this conception is exaggerated; religious questions did not, in fact, enter until much later and even then chiefly as expressions of political relationships. To the Iranian peasantry, themselves steadfastly attached to the national cults, the advent of another faith in this meeting-place of all the cultures and religions of Asia at first carried little significance. Two factors in particular combined to provoke a resistance so stubborn that it took the Arabs a century merely to reduce the country to sullen submission. The