Note 26 — Chapter VI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS IN EUROPE UNDER THE TURKS.

The progress of Islam in Transoxania was certainly very slow: some of the inhabitants accepted the invitation of ʻUmar II (A.D. 717–720) to embrace Islam,26 and large numbers were converted through the preaching of a certain Abū Ṣaydā who commenced this mission in Samarqand in the reign of Hishām (724–743),27 but it was not until the reign of Al-Muʻtaṣim (A.D. 833–842) that Islam was generally adopted there,28 one of the reasons probably being the more intimate relations established at this time with the then capital of the Muhammadan world, Bag͟hdād, through the enormous numbers of Turks that had flocked in thousands to join the army of the caliph.29 Islam having thus gained a footing among the Turkish tribes seems to have made but slow progress until the middle of the tenth century, when the conversion of some of their chieftains to Islam, like that of Clovis and other barbarian kings of Northern Europe to Christianity, led their clansmen to follow their example in a body.