The Muslim conquests of Afghanistan began during the Muslim conquest of Persia as the Arab Muslims migrated eastwards to Khorasan, Sistan and Transoxiana. Fifteen years after the battle of Nahāvand in 642 AD, they controlled all Sasanian domains except in Afghanistan. Fuller Islamization was not achieved until the period between 10th and 12th centuries under Ghaznavid and Ghurid dynasties who patronized Muslim religious institutions.
Yazdegerd III was the last Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 632 to 651. His father was Shahriyar and his grandfather was Khosrow II.
The Hephthalites, sometimes called the White Huns, were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries CE, part of the larger group of the Iranian Huns. They formed an empire, the Imperial Hephthalites, and were militarily important from 450 CE, when they defeated the Kidarites, to 560 CE, when combined forces from the First Turkic Khaganate and the Sasanian Empire defeated them. After 560 CE, they established "principalities" in the area of Tokharistan, under the suzerainty of the Western Turks and of the Sasanian Empire, before the Tokhara Yabghus took over in 625.
Peroz III was son of Yazdegerd III, the last King of Kings of Sasanian Iran. After the death of his father, who legend says was killed by a miller at the instigation of the governor of Marw, he retreated to territory under the control of Tang China. He served as a Tang general and the head of the Area Command of Persia (波斯都督府), an exiled extension of the Sasanian court established by and under the suzerainty of Tang China. Most of what is known of Peroz III is recorded in the Old Book of Tang and the New Book of Tang.
Chaghaniyan, known as al-Saghaniyan in Arabic sources, was a medieval region and principality located on the right bank of the Oxus River, to the south of Samarkand.
Abū Ḥafṣ Qutayba ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ Muslim ibn ʿAmr al-Bāhilī was an Arab commander of the Umayyad Caliphate who became governor of Khurasan and distinguished himself in the conquest of Transoxiana during the reign of al-Walid I (705–715). A capable soldier and administrator, he consolidated Muslim rule in the area and expanded the Caliphate's border to include most of Transoxiana. From 705 to c. 710, he consolidated Muslim control over the native principalities of Tokharistan and conquered the principality of Bukhara, while in 710–712 he conquered Khwarizm and completed the conquest of Sogdiana with the capture of Samarkand. The latter opened the road to the Jaxartes valley, and during the last years of his life Qutayba led annual campaigns there, extending Muslim control up to the Fergana Valley and parts of Chinese Turkestan.
Zunbil, also written as Zhunbil, or Rutbils of Zabulistan, was a royal dynasty south of the Hindu Kush in present southern Afghanistan region. They ruled from circa 680 AD until the Saffarid conquest in 870 AD. The Zunbil dynasty was founded by Rutbil, the elder brother of the Turk Shahi ruler, who ruled over Hephthalite kingdom from his capital in Kabul. The Zunbils are described as having Turkish troops in their service by Arabic sources like Tarikh al-Tabari and Tarikh-i Sistan.
The Muslim conquest of Transoxiana or Arab conquest of Transoxiana were the 7th and 8th century conquests, by Umayyad and Abbasid Arabs, of Transoxiana, the land between the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers, a part of Central Asia that today includes all or parts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Al-Harith ibn Surayj was an Arab leader of a large-scale social rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate in Khurasan and Transoxiana. Harith's rebellion began in 734 and represented the grievances of both the local Arab settlers as well as the native Iranian converts, who were not recognized as equal to the Arab Muslims, against the Umayyad regime. Harith based his revolt on religious grounds and won over a large part of both the Arab settlers and the native population, but failed twice to capture the provincial capital of Marw. The rebellion was finally suppressed by Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri in 736. Along with a few supporters, Harith escaped capture and allied himself with the heathen Türgesh. Harith accompanied the Türgesh qaghan Suluk in his invasion deep into Arab-held territory, which was decisively beaten back in the Battle of Kharistan in 737. With Türgesh power collapsing thereafter, Harith remained in Transoxiana supported by the native princes. Asad's successor, Nasr ibn Sayyar, campaigned against Harith and his native supporters, but eventually, hoping to use him to bolster his position in the Arab inter-tribal rivalries, Nasr secured for Harith a pardon from the Caliph. Harith returned to Marw in 745. Soon however he raised a sizeable armed force and challenged Nasr's authority, until he was killed in a clash with his ally Juday al-Kirmani in 746. His revolt weakened Arab power in Central Asia and facilitated the beginning of the Abbasid Revolution that would overthrow the Umayyads.
Divashtich, was a medieval Sogdian ruler in Transoxiana during the period of the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. He was the ruler of Panjikant and its surroundings from ca. 706 until his downfall and execution in the autumn of 722.
The Principality of Chaghaniyan, known in Arabic sources as al-Saghaniyan, was a part of the Hephthalite Confederation from the 5th to the 7th century CE. After this, it was ruled by a local, presumably Iranian dynasty, which governed the Chaghaniyan region from the late 7th-century to the early 8th-century CE. These rulers were known by their titles of “Chaghan Khudah”.
The Principality of Khuttal was a local Iranian dynasty, which ruled the Khuttal region from the early 7th century to 750. The rulers of the region were known by their titles of “Khuttalan Shah”, “Khuttalan Khudah”, and “Shir-i Khutallan”. The capital and residence of the rulers was in Hulbuk, close to the city of Kulob.
The Muslim conquest of Khorasan, or Arab conquest of Khorasan, was the last phase of the heavy war between the Arab Rashidun caliphate against the Sassanid Empire.
Harev, was a Sasanian province in Late Antiquity, that lay within the kust of Khorasan. The province bordered Kushanshahr in the west, Abarshahr in the east, Marv in the north, and Sakastan in the south.
The Nezak Huns, also Nezak Shahs, was a significant principality in the south of the Hindu Kush region of South Asia from circa 484 to 665 CE. Despite being traditionally identified as the last of the Hunnic states, their ethnicity remains disputed and speculative. The dynasty is primarily evidenced by coinage inscribing a characteristic water-buffalo-head crown and an eponymous legend.
The Turk Shahis or Kabul Shahis were a dynasty of Western Turk, or mixed Turko-Hephthalite, origin, that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa to Gandhara in the 7th to 9th centuries AD. They may have been of Khalaj ethnicity. The Gandhara territory may have been bordering the Kashmir kingdom and the Kannauj kingdom to the east. From the 560s, the Western Turks had gradually expanded southeasterward from Transoxonia, and occupied Bactria and the Hindu-Kush region, forming largely independent polities. The Turk Shahis may have been a political extension of the neighbouring Western Turk Yabghus of Tokharistan. In the Hindu-Kush region, they replaced the Nezak Huns – the last dynasty of Bactrian rulers with origins among the Xwn (Xionite) and/or Huna peoples.
The term Iranian Huns is sometimes used for a group of different tribes that lived in Central Asia, in the historical regions of Transoxiana, Bactria, Tokharistan, Kabul Valley, and Gandhara, overlapping with the modern-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzebekistan, Eastern Iran, Pakistan, and Northwest India, between the fourth and seventh centuries. They also threatened the Northeast borders of Sasanian Iran and forced the Shahs to lead many ill-documented campaigns against them.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khāzim al-Sulamī was the Umayyad governor of Khurasan between 662 and 665 and again in late 683, before becoming the nominal Zubayrid governor of the same province between 684 and his death.
The Tokhara Yabghus or Yabghus of Tokharistan were a dynasty of Western Turk–Hephtalite sub-kings with the title "Yabghus", who ruled from 625 CE in the area of Tokharistan north and south of the Oxus River, with some smaller remnants surviving in the area of Badakhshan until 758 CE. Their legacy extended to the southeast where it came into contact with the Turk Shahis and the Zunbils until the 9th century CE.
Zhulād of Gōzgān was a ruler of the mid-7th century CE, in the region of Guzgan in northern Afghanistan, then part of Tokharistan. His name "Zhulad" suggests Iranian ethnicity, but his territory was nominally under the control of the Western Turks until 657 CE, after which the Western Turks submitted to the Chinese Tang dynasty, letting their territories become protectorates of the Chinese. Administratively and militarily, Zhulād of Gōzgān was a vassal of the Turk Yabghus of Tokharistan, themselves a nominal protectorate of Tang China.
. Time of Nezak Tarkhan, circa 700 CE.