In the same year Qutayba ibn Muslim campaigned against Shash and Farghāna, advancing as far as Khujanda and Kāshān, the two principal towns of Farghāna. This took place after he had finished with Sogd and had opened Samarkand. [He then pressed on through those regions, conquering as he went, until he reached Kabul, which he besieged and took.] (1)

The idol-worshippers confronted him in enormous hosts of Turks, but Qutayba met them at Khujanda and routed them time after time, [overpowered them, seized their lands, killed great numbers, captured others, and carried off vast amounts of booty]. (2)

Ibn Jarīr (3) relates that Sahbān Wāʾil, speaking of their battle at Khujanda [which lies close to the country of China], composed the following verses:

Ask the horsemen of Khujanda, beneath the keen, lofty blades, (4)
was I not the one who rallied them when they broke and fled, and who pressed on into the fray? (5)
Was I not the one who struck the captive’s crown (6) and who stood firm for the encounter? (7)
Yet you are the peerless chief of every branch of Qays, vast in generosity.
You outstripped Qays in liberality, and your father did likewise in days long past.
Your manliness is perfected; your majesty vies with the rugged mountains.
Indeed, the justice of your rule among them has become evident in every levy of wealth. (8)

Thus does Ibn Jarīr record these lines of Sahbān Wāʾil concerning this expedition. We have already cited, in Ibn al-Jawzī’s al-Muntaẓam (9), the report that Sahbān Wāʾil died during the caliphate of Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān, sometime after the year 50 AH. Allah knows best.