Abū Ḥafṣ Qutayba ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ Muslim ibn ʿAmr al-Bāhilī (Arabic: أبو حفص قتيبة بن أبي صالح مسلم بن عمرو الباهلي; 669–715/6) 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.

To increase his strained manpower, Qutayba initiated the wide-scale levy of native Khurasani and Transoxianian soldiers who fought alongside the Arab Muslim troops. Following Walid's death, Qutayba, insecure of his position under the new regime, rebelled but failed to secure the support of his army, and was killed. Most of his conquests in Transoxiana were lost in the years after his death; only in the 740s was the Muslim position restored to the line reached by Qutayba, and only after the Battle of Talas in 751 did the region come solidly under Muslim control.

Qutayba was born in 669 CE in Basra, to an influential family of the Bahila tribe. His father, Muslim ibn ʿAmr, had enjoyed the favour of the Umayyads, but fought for their enemy Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr at the Battle of Maskin during the close of the Second Muslim Civil War. He was killed in the fighting, but while he lay wounded he obtained assurances of safety for Qutayba from Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. Qutayba rose at first as the protege of Anbasa ibn Sa'id, but was noticed by the powerful governor of Iraq and the East, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, during the suppression of the revolt of Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath in 700/701. Under al-Hajjaj's patronage, he took Rayy from the rebel Umar ibn Abi'l-Salt in 701, and became the city's governor.

Then, in late 704 or early 705, Abd al-Malik appointed Qutayba as governor of Khurasan in succession to al-Mufaddal ibn al-Muhallab. The choice of Qutayba, who hailed from the relatively weak Bahila tribe, was intended by al-Hajjaj to heal the destructive feud between the South Arab or "Yemeni" (Azd and Rabi'ah) and North Arab (Qaysi) tribal confederations in Khurasan by providing a governor who did not belong to either. The Bahila were neutral between the two groups, but generally allied themselves to the Qays, thus furthering al-Hajjaj's policy of emasculating Azdi power, which had been dominant in Khurasan during the governorship of al-Mufaddal's brother, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab. Furthermore, as Qutayba lacked a strong tribal base of his own, he could be expected to remain firmly attached to his patron.

Qutaybah mentioned his father, his tribe, and his homeland, praising himself in one of his speeches to the people of Khorasan, and reminding them that he was Iraqi in lineage and inclination, as he said, "Trace my lineage and you will find me Iraqi on my mother's side, Iraqi on my father's side, Iraqi by birth, Iraqi in my inclination, opinion, and religion.

Qutayba would spend the next ten years of his life in Central Asia, consolidating and expanding Muslim rule there. In this endeavour, both his military and diplomatic and organisational abilities came him in good stead; most importantly, he was able to enlist the support of the local Iranian population and the powerful dihqan (the Iranian "gentry") class.

The Arabs had reached Central Asia in the decade after their decisive victory in the Battle of Nihavend in 642, when they completed their conquest of the former Sassanid Empire by seizing Sistan and Khurasan. The first Arab attacks across the Oxus ranged as far as Shash (Tashkent) and Khwarizm, but they were little more than raids aiming at seizing booty and extracting tribute, and were interrupted by the intertribal warfare that broke out in Khurasan during the Second Fitna (683–692). Subsequent governors, most notably Sa'id ibn Uthman and al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra, made attempts to conquer territory across the river, but they failed. The native princes, for their part, tried to exploit the Arabs' rivalries, and with the aid of the Arab renegade Musa ibn Abd Allah ibn Khazim, who in 689 seized the fortress of Tirmidh for his own domain, they managed to eject the Arabs from their holdings. Nevertheless, the Transoxianian princes remained riven by their own feuds, and failed to unite in the face of the Arab conquest, a fact which would be suitably exploited by Qutayba after 705. The international situation was also favourable to Qutayba. Tang China was weakened, and the Second Turkic Khaganate (682–744) was embroiled in warfare with the Türgesh Khaganate (699–766).

The first task which Qutayba set himself was the suppression of the rebellion in Lower Tokharistan. This was accomplished swiftly in spring 705, with the reconquest of Balkh. One version of events holds that the city surrendered peacefully, but another suggests it was violently captured, which seems likely as the city is mentioned as ruined a few years later. Qutayba then secured the submission of the local princes in the upper Oxus valley, most notably of Tish, king of al-Saghaniyan, who invited Qutayba to aid him in his dispute with the ruler of nearby Akharun (or Akhrun) and Shuman, in the northern mountainous districts of Tokharistan. After extensive negotiations led by Sulaym the Persian, the tarkhan Nizak, ruler of the Hephthalite principality of Badghis, surrendered to Qutayba, and pledged to accompany him in his expeditions.