Nasr ibn Sayyar
Nasr played a distinguished role in the wars against the Turgesh, although he failed to decisively confront the rebellion of al-Harith ibn Surayj in its early stages.
His tenure was nevertheless successful, as Nasr introduced long-overdue tax reforms that alleviated social tension and largely restored and stabilized Umayyad control in Transoxiana, which had been greatly reduced under the Turgesh onslaught.
Preoccupied with this conflict, Nasr was unable to stop the outbreak and spread of the Abbasid Revolution, whose leader, Abu Muslim, exploited the situation to his advantage.
As early as 705 he participated in a campaign along the upper Oxus River, led by Salih, the brother of Qutayba ibn Muslim, the general who had been tasked with subduing Transoxiana.
[3] In 724, Nasr is recorded as heading a Mudari army sent against Balkh, where restive Yamani troops refused to participate in the expedition against Ferghana that resulted in the disastrous 'Day of Thirst'.
[4][5][6] This led to resentment towards his person among the Yaman, especially from those around Balkh; and during the governorship of the Yamani Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri, along with other Mudari leaders, Nasr fell into disfavour and was mistreated.
There he faced the rebellion of the local Khurasani troops under al-Harith ibn Surayj, who called for reforms in taxation and the ending of discrimination towards the native converts (mawali).
In any case, Nasr and his army remained passive for the remainder of the revolt; they did not aid the provincial capital, Merv, when the rebels attacked it, and this stance encouraged several local tribes to join the uprising.
Julius Wellhausen wrote of him that "His age did not affect the freshness of his mind, as is testified not only by his deeds, but also by the verses in which he gave expression to his feelings till the very end of his life".
[1][13] From the early days of the Muslim conquests, Arab armies were divided into regiments drawn from individual tribes or tribal confederations (butun or ʿashaʿir).
By the 8th century, this division had become firmly established across the Caliphate and was a source of constant internal instability, as the two groups formed in essence two rival political parties, jockeying for power and separated by a fierce hatred for each other.
In the interim, the sources report variously that the province was run either by the Syrian general Ja'far ibn Hanzala al-Bahrani or by Asad's lieutenant Juday al-Kirmani.
Nasr's own relatively obscure tribal background—from a non-noble family of the Layth tribe from Kinanah—also suited the caliph's purposes, as it meant that he lacked any local power base of his own.
[18][19][20][21] His position was thus heavily reliant on the Umayyad central government in Damascus,[22][23] no doubt as Hisham intended: the caliph is reported to have remarked that he himself would be Nasr's tribal group.
[24] As a result, Nasr's rule throughout his tenure was not fully accepted by many Arab tribesmen: aside from the Yaman, who favoured their own candidate al-Kirmani and resented the shift in power back towards the Mudar, the Qays around Nishapur refused to support him, and even the Syrian contingent sided with his opponents.
It relied on the collection of a fixed tribute by the local non-Muslim (mostly Zoroastrian) gentry, the dihqans, who often discriminated against the Muslim settlers and the native converts.
The principality of Usrushana submitted peacefully, but when the Muslim army reached the Jaxartes, it was confronted by a 15,000-strong force from Shash along with Ibn Surayj's men and some Türgesh; according to Arab tradition, the latter were led by Suluk's murderer and successor, Kursul.
He apparently failed to subdue al-Shash, for he was forced to content himself with an agreement with the ruler of Shash, whereby Ibn Surayj was evicted to Farab, where the latter was left unmolested to continue his opposition to the Umayyads.
Tension and mutual mistrust existed between the Khurasani Arab levies (muqatila) and the 20,000 Syrian troops introduced into the province as a security measure after the disastrous Battle of the Defile in 731,[37] while tribal antagonisms continued to create trouble: apart from continued Yamani resentment at Nasr, there was strong dislike of the Umayyads' Syrian regime, fanned by their unjust tax policies.
[38] In addition, Khurasan was a major center of early Shiism, and specifically of the Kaysanite sect of the Hashimiyya, which had gained wide acceptance in the province, especially among the mawali.
Yahya was captured and executed, and the resulting vacuum in the Hashimiyya leadership opened the path for the Khurasani branch of the movement to come under the control of the Abbasid family.
[49][50] Nasr in turn tried to strengthen his own position by enlisting the services of al-Harith ibn Surayj, al-Kirmani's one-time adversary, who enjoyed considerable support among some Arab tribes and especially his fellow Tamimis.
With Marwan II still trying to consolidate his own position in Syria and Mesopotamia, Nasr was bereft of any hopes of reinforcement, and the allied armies of Ibn Surayj and al-Kirmani drove him out of Merv towards the end of 746.
