Day of Thirst The " Day of Thirst " ( Arabic : " Yawm al - ' Atash " ) is the name traditionally given in Arabic historiography to a battle fought in 724 between the Turkic Turgesh khaganate and the Umayyad Caliphate on the banks of the river Jaxartes , in Transoxiana ( Central Asia ) . It led to the collapse of Muslim rule over much of the region , which until 740 remained disputed territory , with both the Arabs and the Turgesh claiming sovereignty over it . Background . The region of Transoxiana ( Arabic : " Ma wara ' al - nahr " ) had been conquered by the Umayyad leader Qutayba ibn Muslim in the reign of Al - Walid I ( r . 705 – 715 ) , following the Muslim conquests of Persia and Khurasan in the mid - 7th century . 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 Turgesh vassals for military aid against the Caliphate ' s governors . The Turgesh responded by launching a series of attacks against the Muslims in Transoxiana , beginning in 720 . These incursions were coupled with uprisings against the Caliphate among the local Sogdians . 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 , although Umayyad control over the Ferghana Valley was not restored . Expedition against Ferghana and the " Day of Thirst " . 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 expedition faced difficulties in the campaign ' s early stages , with the news that al - Kilabi was to be removed from office at the accession of a new Caliph , Hisham ibn Abd al - Malik . Nevertheless , al - Kilabi was then urged to proceed with the campaign , before his dismissal would take effect . Learning of al - Kilabi ' s dismissal , 4 , 000 Yemeni troops refused to march , but the Muslim officer Nasr ibn Sayyar , remaining loyal to al - Kilabi , was sent against them with an armed force , defeating the mutiny and forcing the disenchanted soldiers to rejoin the army . Al - Kilabi led his army along the Jaxartes valley to Ferghana , and laid siege to it while devastating the surrounding countryside . At this point , the Umayyad army became aware that the Turgesh " khagan " Suluk was advancing against them with a stronger military force . Abandoning their camp , the Muslim army retreated so hastily towards the south that it was claimed they covered a distance in one day that equaled three days of normal travel . During the retreat , which continued for eight days , they were harassed by Turgesh cavalry and were forced to destroy all their baggage , allegedly worth one million " dirham s " . Nine days after the retreat began , the Arabs reached the Jaxartes . There they found a massed force of their enemies waiting , comprising troops of the Turgesh , Shash , Farghana , and the remnants of the Sogdian rebellion . After a difficult struggle , the Arabs managed to break through the enemy coalition ' s lines and cross the Jaxartes , reaching the relative safety of Khujand . There , the governorship was formally transferred to Abd al - Rahman ibn Na ' im al - Ghamidi , who led the remnants of the army back to Samarkand . Aftermath and impact . The defeat of the Arab army , and the casualties suffered , were a catalyst for the almost complete collapse of Muslim rule in Transoxiana over the next years . In the words of the British scholar H . A . R . Gibb , " it was practically the last aggressive expedition of the Arabs into Transoxania for fifteen years , but of much greater importance was the blow which it struck at Arab prestige . The roles were reversed ; from now onwards the Arabs found themselves on the defensive and were gradually ousted from almost every district across the Oxus . " The new Umayyad governor , Asad ibn Abdallah al - Qasri , campaigned incessantly over the next few years , but without achieving any major result . Asad also tried to secure the cooperation of the local elites by abolishing for a time the payment of taxes by the native converts ( " mawali " ) , but this policy was opposed by the Khurasani Arabs themselves , and was reversed by Asad ' s successor Ashras ibn Abdallah al - Sulami . This led to a general uprising of Transoxiana in 728 , and with Turgesh military aid the Arabs were evicted from almost the entire region . 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 Turgesh khaganate into civil wars after the murder of Suluk in 738 .