Al-Tabari said: When Ghurak, King of Samarkand, saw Qutayba’s insistence on them, he wrote to the King of Al-Shash, Akhshad Ferghana and Khaqan: We are inferior to you in what is between you and the Arabs. If he reaches us, you will be weaker and humiliated, so whatever strength you have, exert it. They looked into their matter and said: It is only We are coming from our lowly people, and they will not find our presence, and we are the kings concerned with this matter, so choose the sons of the kings and the people of help from among the young men of your kings, so let them go out until they come to the army of Qutaybah, so let him stay the night, for he is busy besieging Al-Saghd. So they did and assigned the son of Khaqan over them, and they marched and they agreed that the army would stay the night.
When Qutayba reached the news, he elected the people of help, the bravest, and the most prominent people. Shu’bah bin Dhahir and Zuhair bin Hayyan were among those who were elected, and they were four hundred. He said to them: Your enemy has seen God’s affliction with you and His support of you in your struggle and multiplication. For all of this, God will grant you victory over them. So they agreed to deceive your raids and your homes. They chose their masters and kings, and you are the masters of the Arabs and their knights, and God has favored you with His religion, so you performed a good test for God for which you deserve to be rewarded, while defending your most noble ones.
He said: Qutaybah placed eyes on the enemy until, when they approached him as much as they would reach his army at night, he brought in those whom he had elected, spoke to them and urged them, and appointed Salih bin Muslim over them, so they left the army at sunset, so they walked and encamped two farsangs from the army on the path of the people who had been described to them. Then Salih dispersed his horses, and laid an ambush on his right and an ambush on his left, until after half the night or two-thirds of the night had passed, the enemy came in a group, haste, and remained silent, while Salih was standing on his horses. When they saw him, they attacked him until, when the spears clashed, the two ambushes were drawn to the right and to the left. We only heard Pride, we have never seen a people who were stronger than them.
He said: A man from Al-Barajim said: Zuhair or Shu’bah told me: We will disagree over them by stabbing and beating them. Under the night, I noticed Qutaibah, and she had struck a blow that I liked. I was looking at Qutaibah and said: How do you see my mother and father being killed? He said: Shut up, may God knock your jaw out. He said: So we killed them, and none of them escaped except the fugitive, and we set up the looting and beheaded until morning, then we went to the army, and I have never seen a group come with anything like what we brought. There is not a man among us except a head hanged known by his name, and a prisoner in prison. He trusted him, and Qutaybah intended to take them by surprise at night, as they wanted to do, so he succeeded in implicating them.
Thus, in all their wars in the first century, Muslims showed the greatest superiority in military planning and field confrontations.
