Etymology
Gyula Németh, following Zoltán Gombocz, derived ''Khazar'' from a hypothetical *Qasar reflecting a TurkicLinguistics
Determining the origins and nature of the Khazars is closely bound with theories of their languages, but it is a matter of intricate difficulty since no indigenous records in the Khazar language survive, and the state wasHistory
Tribal origins and early history
The tribes that were to comprise the Khazar empire were not an ethnic union, but a congeries of steppe nomads and peoples who came to be subordinated, and subscribed to a core Turkic leadership. Many Turkic groups, such as the Oğuric peoples, including Šarağurs, Oğurs,Rise of the Khazar state
An embryonic state of Khazaria began to form sometime after 630, when it emerged from the breakdown of the largerKhazar state: culture and institutions
Royal Diarchy with sacral Qağanate
Khazaria developed a Dual kingship governance structure, typical among Turkic nomads, consisting of a ''shad/bäk'' and a ''qağan''. The emergence of this system may be deeply entwined with the conversion to Judaism. According to Arabic sources, the lesser king was called '' îšâ'' and the greater king ''Khazar xâqân''; the former managed and commanded the military, while the greater king's role was primarily sacral, less concerned with daily affairs. The greater king was recruited from the Khazar house of notables (''ahl bait ma'rûfīn'') and, in an initiation ritual, was nearly strangled until he declared the number of years he wished to reign, on the expiration of which he would be killed by the nobles. The deputy ruler would enter the presence of the reclusive greater king only with great ceremony, approaching him barefoot to prostrate himself in the dust and then light a piece of wood as a purifying fire, while waiting humbly and calmly to be summoned. Particularly elaborate rituals accompanied a royal burial. At one period, travellers had to dismount, bow before the ruler's tomb, and then walk away on foot. Subsequently, the charismatic sovereign's burial place was hidden from view, with a palatial structure ("Paradise") constructed and then hidden under rerouted river water to avoid disturbance by evil spirits and later generations. Such a royal burial ground ('' qoruq'') is typical of inner Asian peoples. Both the îšâ and the xâqân converted to Judaism sometime in the 8th century, while the rest, according to the Persian travellerRuling elite
The ruling stratum, like that of the later Činggisids within theDemographics
It has been estimated that 25 to 28 distinct ethnic groups made up the population of the Khazar Qağanate, aside from the ethnic elite. The ruling elite seems to have been constituted out of nine tribes/clans, themselves ethnically heterogeneous, spread over perhaps nine provinces or principalities, each of which would have been allocated to a clan. In terms of caste or class, some evidence suggests that there was a distinction, whether racial or social is unclear, between "White Khazars" (ak-Khazars) and "Black Khazars" (qara-Khazars). The 10th-century Muslim geographerEconomy
The import and export of foreign wares, and the revenues derived from taxing their transit, was a hallmark of the Khazar economy, although it is said also to have producedKhazars and Byzantium
Byzantine diplomatic policy towards the steppe peoples generally consisted of encouraging them to fight among themselves. TheArab–Khazar wars
During the 7th and 8th centuries, the Khazars fought a series of wars against theKhazars and Hungarians
Around 830, a rebellion broke out in the Khazar khaganate. As a result, threeRise of the Rus' and the collapse of the Khazarian state
By the 9th century, groups of Varangian Rus', developing a powerful warrior-merchant system, began probing south down the waterways controlled by the Khazars and their protectorate, theAftermath: impact, decline and dispersion
Although Poliak argued that the Khazar kingdom did not wholly succumb to Sviatoslav's campaign, but lingered on until 1224, when the Mongol invasion of Rus', Mongols invaded Rus', by most accounts, the Rus'-Oghuz campaigns left Khazaria devastated, with perhaps many Khazarian Jews in flight, and leaving behind at best a minor rump state. It left little trace, except for some placenames, and much of its population was undoubtedly absorbed in successor hordes. Al-Muqaddasi, writing ca.985, mentions Khazar beyond the Caspian sea as a district of "woe and squalor", with honey, many sheep and Jews. Kedrenos mentions a joint Rus'-Byzantine attack on Khazaria in 1016, which defeated its ruler Georgius Tzul. The name suggests Christian affiliations. The account concludes by saying, that after Tzul's defeat, the Khazar ruler of "upper Media", Senaccherib, had to sue for peace and submission. In 1024 Mstislav of Chernigov (one of Vladimir's sons) marched against his brother Yaroslav with an army that included "Khazars and Kassogians" in a repulsed attempt to restore a kind of "Khazarian"-type dominion over Kyiv. Ibn al-Athir's mention of a "raid of Faḍlūn the Kurd against the Khazars" in 1030 CE, in which 10,000 of his men were vanquished by the latter, has been taken as a reference to such a Khazar remnant, but Vasily Bartold, Barthold identified this Faḍlūn as al-Fadhl ibn Muhammad, Faḍl ibn Muḥammad and the "Khazars" as either Georgian people, Georgians or Abkhaz people, Abkhazians. A Kievian prince named Oleg of Chernigov, Oleg, grandson of Jaroslav was reportedly kidnapped by "Khazars" in 1079 and shipped off toReligion
Tengrism
Direct sources for the Khazar religion are not many, but in all likelihood they originally engaged in a traditional Turkic form of religious practices known asChristianity
Khazaria long served as aJudaism
The conversion of the Khazars to Judaism is mentioned in external sources and it is also mentioned in the Khazar Correspondence, but doubts of its authenticity persist. Hebrew documents, whose authenticity was long doubted and challenged, are now widely accepted by specialists as either authentic or as reflecting internal Khazar traditions. Archaeological evidence for conversion, on the other hand, remains elusive, and may reflect either the incompleteness of excavations, or that the stratum of actual adherents was thin. Conversion of steppe or peripheral tribes to a Universalism, universal religion is a fairly well attested phenomenon, and the Khazar conversion to Judaism, although unusual, would not have been without precedent. The topic is emotionally charged in Israel, and a few scholars, such as Moshe Gil (2011) and Shaul Stampfer (2013) argue that the conversion of the Khazar elite to Judaism never happened. Jews from both the Islamic world and Byzantium are known to have migrated to Khazaria during periods of persecution underHistory of discussions of Khazar Jewishness
The earliest surviving Arabic text that refers to Khazar Jewishness appears to be that which was written by Ahmad ibn Rustah, ibn Rustah, a Persian scholar who wrote an encyclopedic work on geography in the early tenth century. It is believed that ibn Rustah derived much of his information from the works of his contemporary Abu Abdallah Jayhani, Abu al Jayhani based in Central Asia. Christian of Stavelot in his Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam (c. 860–870s) refers to ''Gazari'', presumably Khazars, as living in the lands of Gog and Magog, who were circumcised and ''omnem Judaismum observat''—observing all the laws of Judaism. New numismatic evidence of coins dated 837/8 bearing the inscriptions ''arḍ al-ḫazar'' (Land of the Khazars), or ''Mûsâ rasûl Allâh'' (Moses in Islam, Moses is the messenger of God, in imitation of the Islamic coin phrase: ''Muḥammad rasûl Allâh'') suggest to many the conversion took place in that decade. Olsson argues that the 837/8 evidence marks only the beginning of a long and difficult official Judaization that concluded some decades later. A 9th-century Jewish traveller, Eldad ha-Dani, is said to have informed Spanish Jews in 883 that there was a Jewish polity in the East, and that fragments of the legendary Ten Lost Tribes, part of the line of Tribe of Simeon, Simeon and half-line of Tribe of Manasseh, Manasseh, dwelt in "the land of the Khazars", receiving tribute from some 25 to 28 kingdoms. Another view holds that by the 10th century, while the royal clan officially claimed Judaism, a non-normative variety of Islamisation took place among the majority of Khazars. By the 10th century, the Khazar Correspondence, letter of King Joseph asserts that, after the royal conversion, "Israel returned (''yashuvu yisra'el'') with the people of Qazaria (to Judaism) in complete repentance (''bi-teshuvah shelemah'')." Persians, Persian historian Ibn al-Faqih, Ibn al-Faqîh wrote that "all the Khazars are Jews, but they have been Judaized recently". Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Ibn Fadlân, based on his Caliphal mission (921–922) to the Volga Bulğars, also reported that "the core element of the state, the Khazars, were Judaized", something underwritten by the Karaite Judaism, Qaraite scholar Jacob Qirqisani, Ya'kub Qirqisânî around 937. The conversion appears to have occurred against a background of frictions arising from both an intensification of Byzantine missionary activity from the Crimea to the Caucasus, and Arab attempts to wrest control over the latter in the 8th century CE, and a revolt, put down, by the Kabar, Khavars around the mid-9th century is often invoked as in part influenced by their refusal to accept Judaism. Modern scholars generally see the conversion as a slow process through three stages, which accords with Richard Eaton's model of syncretic ''inclusion'', gradual ''identification'' and, finally, ''displacement'' of the older tradition. Sometime between 954 and 961, Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Ḥasdai ibn Shaprūṭ, from al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), wrote a letter of inquiry addressed to the ruler of Khazaria, and received a reply from Joseph (Khazar), Joseph of Khazaria. The exchanges of this Khazar Correspondence, together with the Schechter Letter discovered in the Cairo Geniza and the famous plato nizing dialogue byIslam
In 965, as the Qağanate was struggling against the victorious campaign of the Rus' prince Sviatoslav, the Islamic historian Ibn al-Athîr mentions that Khazaria, attacked by Oghuz Turks, the Oğuz, sought help from Khwarazm, Khwarezm, but their appeal was rejected because they were regarded as "infidels" (''al-kuffâr'':pagans). Save for the king, the Khazarians are said to have converted to Islam in order to secure an alliance, and the Turks were, with Khwarezm's military assistance, repelled. It was this that, according to Ibn al-Athîr, led the Jewish king of Khazar to convert to Islam.Genetics
Nine skeletons dating to the 7th–9th centuries excavated from elite military burial mounds of the Khazar Khaganate (in the modern Rostov Oblast, Rostov region) were analyzed in two genetic studies (from 2019 and 2021). According to the 2019 study, the results "confirm the Turkic roots of the Khazars, but also highlight their ethnic diversity and some integration of conquered populations". The samples did not show a genetic connection to Ashkenazi Jews, and the results do not support the hypothesis of Ashkenazi Jews being descendants of the Khazars. In the 2021 study the results showed both European and East Asian paternal haplogroups in the samples: three individuals carried Haplogroup R1a, R1a Y-haplogroup, two had Haplogroup C-M217, C2b, and the rest carried haplogroups Haplogroup G2a, G2a, Haplogroup N-M231, N1a, Haplogroup Q-M242, Q, and Haplogroup R1b, R1b, respectively. According to the authors, "The Y-chromosome data are consistent with the results of the craniological study and genome-wide analysis of the same individuals in the sense that they show mixed genetic origins for the early medieval Khazar nobility".Claims of Khazar ancestry
Claims of Khazar origins for peoples, or suggestions that Khazars were absorbed by them, have been made regarding theCrimean Karaites and Krymchaks
In 1839, the Crimean Karaites, Karaim scholar Abraham Firkovich was appointed by the Russian government as a researcher into the origins of the Jewish sect known as the Karaite Judaism, Karaites. In 1846, one of his acquaintances, the Russian orientalist Vasilii Vasil'evich Grigor'ev (1816–1881), theorised that the Crimean Karaites were of Khazar stock. Firkovich vehemently rejected the idea, a position seconded by Firkovich, who hoped that by "proving" his people were of Turkish origin, would secure them exception from Russian anti-Jewish laws, since they bore no responsibility for Christ's crucifixion. This idea has a notable impact in Crimean Karaite circles. It is now believed that he forged much of this material on Khazars and Karaites. Specialists in Khazar history also question the connection. Brook's genetic study of European Karaites found no evidence of a Khazar or Turkic origin for any uniparental lineage but did reveal the European Karaites' links to Egyptian Karaites and to Rabbinical Jewish communities. Another Turkish Crimean group, theUse in antisemitic polemic
According to Michael Barkun, while the Khazar hypothesis never played any major role in anti-Semitism generally, it has exercised a noticeable influence on American antisemites since the Immigration Act of 1924, restrictions on immigration were imposed in the 1920s. Maurice Fishberg and Roland B. Dixon's works were later exploited in racist and religious polemical literature, particularly in literature which advocated British Israelism, both in Britain and the United States. Particularly after the publication of Burton J. Hendrick's ''The Jews in America'', (1923) it began to enjoy a vogue among advocates of immigration restriction in the 1920s; racial theorists like Lothrop Stoddard; antisemitic conspiracy-theorists like the Ku Klux Klan's Hiram Wesley Evans; a certain type of anti-communist polemicist like John O. Beaty and Wilmot Robertson, whose views influenced David Duke.. Cf. Wilmot Robertson ''Dispossessed Majority''(1972) According to Yehoshafat Harkabi (1968) and others, it played a role in Arab Anti-Zionism, anti-Zionist polemics, and took on an antisemitic edge. Bernard Lewis, noting in 1987 that Arab scholars had dropped it, remarked that it only occasionally emerged in Arab political discourse. It has also played some role in Soviet antisemitic chauvinism and Slavic Eurasian historiography; particularly, in the works of scholars likeGenetic studies
The hypothesis of Khazarian ancestry in Ashkenazi has also been a subject of vehement disagreements in the field of population genetics, wherein claims have been made concerning evidence both for and against it. Eran Elhaik argued in 2012 for a significant Khazar component in the paternal line based on the study of Y-DNA of Ashkenazi Jews using Caucasian populations—Georgians, Armenians and Azerbaijani Jews—as proxies. The evidence from historians he used has been criticised by Shaul Stampfer and the technical response to such a position from geneticists is mostly dismissive, arguing that, if traces of descent from Khazars exist in the Ashkenazi gene pool, the contribution would be quite minor, or insignificant. One geneticist, Raphael Falk (academic), Raphael Falk, has argued that "national and ethnic prejudices play a central role in the controversy." According to Nadia Abu El-Haj, the issues of origins are generally complicated by the difficulties of writing history via genome studies and the biases of emotional investments in different narratives, depending on whether the emphasis lies on direct descent or on conversion within Jewish history. The lack of Khazar DNA samples that might allow verification also presents difficulties.In literature
The ''Kuzari'' is an influential work written by the medieval Spain, Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (c. 1075–1141). Divided into five essays (''ma'amarim''), it takes the form of a fictional dialogue between the pagan king of the Khazars and a Jew who was invited to instruct him in the tenets of the Judaism, Jewish religion. The intent of the work, although based on Ḥasdai ibn Shaprūṭ's correspondence with the Khazar king, was not historical, but rather to defend Judaism as a revealed religion, written in the context, firstly of Karaite challenges to the Spanish rabbinical intelligentsia, and then against temptations to adapt Aristotelianism and Islamic philosophy to the Jewish faith. Originally written in Arabic language, Arabic, it was translated into Hebrew by Judah ibn Tibbon. Benjamin Disraeli's early novel Alroy (1833) draws on Menachem ben Solomon's story. The question of mass religious conversion and the indeterminability of the truth of stories about identity and conversion are central themes of Milorad Pavić (writer), Milorad Pavić's best-selling mystery story ''Dictionary of the Khazars''. H.N. Turteltaub's ''Justinian'', Marek Halter's ''Book of Abraham'' and ''Wind of the Khazars'', and Michael Chabon's ''Gentlemen of the Road'' allude to or feature elements of Khazar history or create fictional Khazar characters.Cities associated with the Khazars
Cities associated with the Khazars includeSee also
* History of Kiev * List of Khazar rulers * List of Jewish states and dynasties * List of Turkic dynasties and countries * Red Jews *Notes
Footnotes
Resource notes
Citations
Bibliography
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