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dence and ethics, accepted it very devoutly. The attack of Islam began in the year 645 A.D. and by 654 they had established some foothold in Afghanistan. Merv and Nishapur, Kirman and Zaranj had fallen into their hands. More invasions were being planned when the Afghans, under the leadership of Karan of Herat, attacked and turned the Arabs out of Nishapur. This precipitated the Arab invasion of Afghan soil which they called Khorassan. By 668 the Amawi caliphs of Baghdad had carried their invasion a step forward into Merv in northern Afghanistan. In 672 some fifty thousand Arabs were settled there to preserve the Arab influence which, however, was still limited to Merv and Nishapur. The rest of the country was under the rule of local Afghan leaders. Conditions remained much the same for over a hundred years. Neither the Arabs could complete their invasion of the entire country, nor could the Afghans throw out the foreign forces. In about 750 A.D. Abu Muslim Khorassani, with his 100,000-strong Muslim force, announced his kingdom and the end of Amavid rule. He was instrumental in bringing the Abbasids to power. However he was treacherously murdered by the second Abbasi Caliph. Once again the Arabs advanced into Afghanistan until in 826 Tahir, originally from Herat, upon appointment as governor of Khorassan, proclaimed himself the ruler of Khorassan. He thus became the first independent King of the Muslim Tahirid dynasty, ruling over Balkh, Takharistan, Merv, Herat, Nishapur, Kirman and Seistan. The Tahirids were overthrown by the Saffarids around 880 A.D. The Saffarids were instrumental in extending the religion of Islam and their rule over the greater part of Afghanistan and encouraged the Dari Persian, as against the Arabic language. The Saffarids in turn gave way to the Samanids of Balkh in 920 A.D., and the A colossal Buddha dominating the Bamyan Valley, which dates from the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. Samanids ruled until 1010 A.D. By this time in Ghazni a local government had been established by Alaptagin, a general who at one time was the governor of northern Afghanistan. His son-in-law Subuktagin extended his government to Kabul and from there to the shores of the Indus. Subuktagin secured the favour of the last kings of the Samanids in defending them against internal outbreaks, and thereby succeeded in securing a legal rule for himself in Ghazni. The famous Sultan Mahmood the Ghaznavi was Subuktagin's son, who added Baluchistan, Punjab, Multan, the greater part of Persia and later the dominions of the broken-down house of Saman, to his empire. Ghazni became a great and splendid city, a centre of culture and a cradle of literature and fine arts in his time. The Ghaznavids were followed by the Saljuks, a dynasty of Turks from Ghaz north of the Oxus. Tughral Saljuki, 63