[2][3] The loyalties of Transoxiana's native Iranian and Turkic populations and those of autonomous local rulers remained questionable, however, as demonstrated in 719, when the Transoxianian princes sent a petition to the Chinese and their Türgesh vassals for military aid against the Caliphate's governors.

The Umayyad governor of Khurasan, Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi, harshly suppressed the unrest and restored the Muslim position almost to what it had been during the time of Qutayba, except for the Ferghana Valley, control over which was lost.

[5][6] In 723, al-Harashi was replaced as governor by Muslim ibn Sa'id al-Kilabi, who resolved late the next year to launch an expedition with the goal of seizing Ferghana.

The campaign faced difficulties already in its early stages, when the news arrived of the accession of a new caliph, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, and the appointment of a new governor of Iraq, Khalid al-Qasri.

On the ninth day, the Arabs reached the Jaxartes only to find their path blocked by their enemies, troops of the native principalities of Shash and Farghana, and the remnants of the Sogdian rebellion that Sa'id al-Harashi had suppressed.

On the next day, despite suffering from thirst and being hemmed in between the Türgesh on their rear and the Transoxianian forces in front, the desperate Arabs managed to break through the enemy lines and cross the Jaxartes.

Transoxiana thereafter remained contested, and the Arabs did not recover their previous position until the campaigns of Nasr ibn Sayyar in 739–741, who took advantage of the collapse of the Türgesh Khaganate into civil wars after the murder of Suluk in 738.