The Battle of the Baggage (Arabic: ﻳﻮﻡ ﺍلاﺛﻘﺎﻝ, romanized: Yawm al-athqāl) was fought between the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate and the Turkic Türgesh tribes in September/October 737.

The Umayyads under the governor of Khurasan, Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri, had invaded the Principality of Khuttal in Transoxiana, and the local ruler called upon the Türgesh for aid.

The Umayyad governors initially managed to suppress the unrest, but control over the Ferghana Valley was lost and in 724 the Arabs suffered a major disaster (the "Day of Thirst") while trying to recapture it.

[5][6] The Muslims suffered another major defeat in the Battle of the Defile in 731, in which they lost some 20,000–30,000 men, crippling the native Khurasani Arab army and necessitating the transfer of new troops from Iraq.

[7][8][9] In addition, the Umayyad authorities were preoccupied by the rebellion of al-Harith ibn Surayj, which broke out in early 734, spread quickly, and gathered the support of a large portion of the indigenous Iranian population.

Asad had time enough to send ahead his heavy baggage train, laden with the plunder and captives from Khuttal, back south under the command of Ibrahim ibn Asim al-Uqayli, accompanied by the contingent from the allied principality of al-Saghaniyan.

The Türgesh attacked the camp but were turned back after a fight in which, according to al-Tabari, the Arabs' servants put on pack-saddle cloths as armour and used the tent-poles to strike at the riders' faces.

The campaign had been a disaster for Asad and his now mainly Syrian army; Muslim control north of the Oxus had collapsed entirely, and while the Arab governor had been able to escape complete destruction, he had suffered considerable casualties.

On Harith's urging, on the other hand, the Türgesh khagan decided to launch a winter attack south of the Oxus, hoping to raise the local population in revolt against the Arabs.