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Coup d'etat, Coronation and Conversion: Some

Reflections on the Adoption of Judaism by the Khazar
Khaganate

J. T. OLSSON

Journal o f the Royal Asiatic Society / Volume 23 / Issue 04 / October 2013, pp 495 - 526
DOI: 10.1017/S1356186313000266, Published online: 29 July 2013

Link to this article: http://iournals.cambridae.ora/abstract S1356186313000266

How to cite this article:

J. T. OLSSON (2013). Coup d'etat, Coronation and Conversion: Some Reflections on the Adoption
of Judaism by the Khazar Khaganate. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 23, pp 495-526
doi: 10.1017/S1356186313000266

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 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion: Some

Reflections on the Adoption o f Judaism

by the Khazar Khaganate1

J . T. O L S S O N

“ T h e Turks w ill take control o f K u fa in southern Iraq and the Khazars the province o f al-
Jazira in northern Iraq” runs a popular hadlth o f the early ‘Abbasid Caliphate. T h e patently
false attribution to the Prophet notwithstanding, this hadlth suggests that the Khazars, a
militarised sem i-nom adic Turkic people securely established in their Khaganate north o f
the Caucasus M ountains, loom ed m enacing and large in the im agination — and fears — o f
their settled neighbours. This is hardly a surprise. T h e Khazars, w h o had em erged as the
hegem onic regional pow er after the fragmentation o f the G o k Turk Em pire, had grown
rich as intermediaries in a north-south trading network, and from the tributes derived from
their 25 subject peoples. T h ey employed a centralised fiscal administration w h ich allowed
them to maintain a standing arm y o fa t least ten thousand, w hose ranks could probably swell
tw o-or-three-fold w ith the retinues o f their notables and contributions from their subject
tribes, and were ensconced w ithin a network o f fortifications that provided them w ith a
degree o f internal stability and potential for aggressive campaigning highly unusual w ithin
other steppe polities.2
Aside from the m ilitary threat provided by this most durable o f steppe empires, w hich
constituted the most powerful West Eurasian steppe pow er from the late seventh century to
the m id tenth century, there were two peculiarities o fth e Khazar Khaganate that particularly
attracted the interest — and occasional unease — o f sedentary observers.3 First, Khazaria
developed a unique diarchic system o f governance in w h ich the office o f the Khagan, a

1 T h e creation o f this article owes a great debt above all to D r M ark W hittow, w ho first introduced m e to
the Khazar Khaganate. I am also extremely grateful to D r R om an Kovalev, D r Peter Golden, and D r Constantin
Zuckerm an for taking the time to reply to unsolicited queries. In particular, D r Zuckerm an was kind enough to
send me a copy o f an article o f his that I was having difficulty procuring.
2 For the portrayal o f Turks and Khazars in early Arabic literature see Y Frenkel, “ T h e Turks o f the Eurasian
Steppes in M edieval Arabic W ritin g” , in Mongols, Turks, Others, (eds.) R . Amitai and M . Biran (Leiden, 2005),
pp. 2 0 1—242. For general surveys o f Khazar history see P. Golden, “ Khazar Studies: Achievements and Perspectives” ,
in World of the Khazars, (eds.) P. Golden et al (Leiden, 2007), pp. 7—53 w hich gives an extremely useful overview
o f Khazar historiography, and D. M . D unlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (N ew York, 1967), w hich despite
its age provides an indispensible guide to the vast m ajority o f the written sources. O ther useful treatments are
provided by P. Golden, Khazar Studies: an historico-philological inquiry into the origins o f the Khazars, 2 vols (Budapest,
1980), K . A . Brook, The Jews of Khazaria, 2nd edition (Maryland, 2006), and the chapter on the Khazars in M ark
W hittow, The Making of Orthodox Byzantium (Basingstoke, 1996). For Khazaria’s fortifications see R . K . Kovalev,
“ W hat D oes Historical Numismatics Suggest about the M onetary Econom y o f Khazaria in the N inth Century? —
Question R evisited ” , Archivum Eurasiae Medii A evi [henceforth A E M A ], 13 (2004), pp. 97—128.
3 For an interesting new approach to the issue ofth e em ergence and foundation ofKhazaria, see C. Zuckerman,
“ T h e Khazars and Byzantium —T he First Encounter” , in World of the Khazars, pp. 399—432.

JR A S , Series 3, 23, 4 (2013), pp. 495-526 © The Royal Asiatic Society 2013
d o i:i0.i0 i7/Si356i86 3i300 0 26 6
496 J. T. Olsson

traditional Turkic institution that em bodied absolute authority deriving from both divine
mandate and m embership o fa charismatic clan, was stripped o fits temporal authority w hich
then passed to a Khazar king, w h o is usually term ed isad or beg in our sources. Dim inishing
earthly pow er was probably accom panied by increasing heavenly power, and the office o f
Khagan becam e entirely sacralised. This was manifested most clearly in the intensification o f
the intimate link between the health o f the Khagan and the prosperity o f the state. Perceived
weaknesses in the Khaganate suggested weakness in the Khagan, and vice versa, and in times
o f dire crisis the Khagan was rem oved from his office so that a m ore divinely-favoured
successor m ight restore good-fortune to Khazaria.4
T h e fullest reports on the Khazar diarchy are predominantly found in the works o f
M uslim geographers and travellers w ho, no doubt because o f the political situation in the
‘Abbasid Caliphate, were fascinated by the exact nuances o f the Khagan and kin g’s political
and religious authority, and w h o in any case had superior access to inform ation because o f
the greater extent o f the Islamic w orld ’s econom ic and diplomatic contacts w ith Khazaria.
H owever, the second o f the Khazar peculiarities is found in reports from as far afield as the
‘Abbasid Caliphate, Byzantium , U m ayyad Spain, and Western Europe. This was, o f course,
the conversion o f the Khazar elite to Judaism. W hile the emergence o f the Khazar diarchy
and the conversion to Judaism are inextricably entwined, it is the conversion itself - an
almost unprecedented event in w orld history - w h ich provides the main impetus for the
present study.5
As w e shall see, scholars w h o have contributed to the subject o f the Khazars’ conversion,
have based their arguments on a lim ited corpus o f textual, and m ore recently numismatic,
evidence, w hich, even at its most forgiving presents numerous difficulties. Taken together
these sources offer a cacophony ofdistortions, contradictions, vested interests, and anomalies
in some areas, and nothing but silence in others. It is probably w ith these frustrations in
m ind that Peter Golden, in i9 8 3 , published an article underlining exactly h ow little had
been firm ly established about the chronology, process, consequences, and motivations for
the Khazar conversion. G olden com piled a list o f over a dozen questions w h ich required new
answers in order to better understand the conversion o f the Khazars. A simplified version o f
this list could be reduced to ‘w h en ’ , ‘h o w ’ , and ‘w h y ’ the Khazars adopted Judaism. It is with
the first tw o o f these questions that this investigation is directly concerned. T h e ‘w h y ’ is, o f
course, unavoidable, but ow ing to its im portance in the w ider field o f steppe conversion it
shall receive a more systematic treatment in a subsequent article.6

4 As many observers have commented diarchic rule was hardly an innovation, however the clear division between
temporal and sacral offices was. For an example o f a more balanced diarchic system see Gardlzl’s description o f the
Magyars in w hich they are led by both a general and a vizier w ho jo intly exercised great authority: P. Martinez,
“ Gardrn’s Two Chapters on the Turks” , A E M A , 2 (1982), pp. 159—160. A n invaluable discussion o f the Khazar
diarchy is found in P. Golden, “ Irano-Turcica: T h e Khazar Sacral Kingship R evisited” , Acta Orientalia Academiae
Scientiarum Hungaricae, 60/2 (1997), pp. 1 6 1 —189, esp. pp. 170—1 7 1. Also C. Zuckerm an, “ On the Origins o f the
Khazar Diarchy and the Circumstances o f Khazaria’ Conversion to Judaism ” , in The Turks, Volume I: Early Ages, (ed.)
O. Karatay (Ankara, 2002), pp. 516—523.
5 W hile there are hints o f a few other ‘official conversions’ o f polities to Judaism these appear o f lesser
significance —and certainly left a much lesser im print on the historical record — than the Khazar conversion. See,
for example, P. Golden, “ T h e Conversion o f the Khazars to Judaism ” , p. 153
6 P. Golden, “ Khazaria and Judaism ” , A E M A , 3 (1983), pp. 12 7 —156.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 497

Already form ulated before G o lden ’s rallying cry but later refined to incorporate new ideas,
O m eljian Pritsak’s scenario for the conversion o fth e Khazars is w orthy ofattention. Based on
a notice in Judah H alevi’s theological polemic, the Kuzari (com posed ca. ii4 0 ) , w h ich states
that the conversion took place 400 years before H alevi’s time, a reference to the conversion
o f the Khazars in the reign o f Hariin al-R ash id (r. 786—809) in a w o rk o f the prolific
tenth-century Baghdadi scholar al-M as‘udi, and some diplomatic correspondence o f the late
830s and early 840s w h ich points to the increasing pow er o f the isad/beg, Pritsak posited a
three-stage conversion process. The first stage was the private conversion to Judaism by a
m em ber o f the isad/beg dynasty in about 730. This was followed by an official proclamation
in the reign o f Hariin stating that the clan had converted. Finally, sometime in the second
quarter o f the ninth century, the isad/beg forced the Khaganal dynasty to convert.7
In i9 9 5 Constantin Z uckerm an published an article w h ich attempted to shed new light
on the conversion process by focusing on an entirely different set o f textual sources, the
three ‘disputation accounts’ found in the V ita Constantinii, the Schechter D ocu m ent and
the R e p ly o f Joseph to Hasdai ibn Shaprut. Z u ckerm an argued that these accounts, w hich
all depicted theological debates at the Khazar court, described the same event. According
to his reading o f the Vita Constantinii the Khazars had not yet converted to a monotheistic
religion at the time o f Constantine’s mission —w h ich can be dated by independent evidence
to 86i —and so conversion must have occurred after this date. Z uckerm an ’s arguments soon
found a w illing supporter in Jonathan Shepard.8
In 2002, however, an article was published describing that am ong the many Khazar coins
discovered was a type bearing the Jew ish legend ‘M usa rasul A llah’ (Moses is the M essenger o f
God), w h ich could be securely dated to 837—38. R o m a n Kovalev, w h o used this numismatic
evidence to form ulate a new scenario for Khazar conversion, argued that the m inting o f
this Jew ish coinage required that both issad/beg and Khagan profess Judaism. M oreover, the
evidence that Pritsak had identified for the grow ing role o f the isad/beg from the late 830s
confirm ed K ovalev’s suspicion that it must have been in 837—38 that the Khazar king forced
through the Judaisation o f the Khagan and the Khazar elite. Kovalev’s arguments have since
been strongly supported by Peter G olden.9
Each o f these three approaches, however, is not entirely sufficient: Pritsak’s attempt to
form a coherent chronology from highly suspect evidence is laudable for its appreciation o f
the difficulties that a ruling dynasty w ould have experienced pushing through conversion but
it is untenable; Z uckerm an ’s reconciling o f the three ‘disputation accounts’ into one event
is noteworthy, but it places too m uch emphasis on the reliability o f the Vita Constantinii
and does not account for the new numismatic evidence; finally, Kovalev’s case based on the
Khazar Jew ish coins draws unsubstantiated conclusions from his evidence, fails to reconcile

7 For a succinct account o f this three-stage process see O. Pritsak, “ Turkological Rem arks on Constantine’s
Khazarian Mission in the Vita Constantini” , in Christianity Among the Slavs: The Heritage of Saints C yril and
Methodius, (ed.) R . F. Taft (R om e, 1988), pp. 295—298. For the older, two-stage, account see O. Pritsak, “ T he
Khazar K ingdom ’s Conversion toJudaism ” , Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 3/2 (1978), pp. 2 6 1—28 1.
8 C. Zuckerm an, “ On the Date o fth e Khazars’ Conversion to Judaism to and the Chronology o fth e R u s ’ O leg
and Igor” , Revue des Etudes Byzantines, 53 (1995), pp. 2 37—270 an d J. Shepard, “ T h e Khazars’ Formal Adoption o f
Judaism and Byzantium ’s N orthern Policy” , Oxford Slavonic Papers, 31 (1998), pp. 1 1 —34.
9 R . K . Kovalev, “ Creating Khazar Identity Through Coins: T h e Special Issue Dirhams o f 8 37/8” , in East
Central and Eastern Europe in the Early Middle Ages, (ed.) Florin Curta (Michigan, 2005), pp. 220—253. For G olden’s
support o f Kovalev’s thesis see his “ Irano-Turcica” , p. 183 and “ T h e Conversion o f the Khazars toJudaism ” , p. 156.
498 J. T. Olsson

the new numismatic evidence w ith the full corpus oftextu al sources, and ignores the lessons
that m ight be drawn from comparative examples o f steppe conversion. In the most general
o f terms then, previous treatments o f Khazar conversion have been content to establish a
date for conversion based upon a favoured selection o f the extant sources, and little attempt
has been made either to explore the events surrounding the Khazar conversion, or to see
how a particular scenario fits in w ith the rem aining evidence.
It w ould be easy, however, to erect a straw man by promising a radical reinterpretation
o f the evidence for the Khazar conversion, but this is simply not possible; a reasonably
limited body o f evidence coupled w ith extrem ely high interest has meant that almost every
plausible —and implausible —argument and counter-argum ent that can be drawn from the
sources has already been drawn. W hat this investigation intends instead is m odification and
re-elaboration as opposed to wholesale revolution. A re-exam ination o f the evidence for
the Khazar conversion com bined w ith the im plem entation o f a source-critical m ethodology
that engages —i f only to dismiss —both the textual and docum entary sources, w ill yield new
answers for the ‘w h en ’ and ‘h o w ’ o f Khazar conversion. In a m ore general vein, it is hoped
that the conclusions put forward here w ill not just be o f interest to Khazarologists, but w ill
prove useful for those interested in the broader areas ofsteppe historiography and conversion.

T h e W ritten Sources fo r the K h azar Conversion

T he evidence for the Khazar conversion form s a veritable kaleidoscope, w ith slight variations
in assemblage resulting in significant distortion in the pattern that emerges. G iven that the
present study aims first to deconstruct and then to reassemble the various sources in order
to build a new scenario for the Khazar conversion from the ground up, w e must begin with
a b rie f overview and critique o f the available evidence. 10

T h e V ita C onstantinii 1 1 : T h e V ita Constantinii is the first o f our ‘disputation accounts’.

T he narrative does not directly capture the Khazar conversion but it does provide a great
deal o f highly useful inform ation on the religious and political practices o f the Khazars in the
m id ninth century. It offers a hagiographic account o f the life and activities o f the Byzantine
missionary Constantine (d. 869), and was probably com posed shortly after his death.
T h e Vita recounts h ow envoys from Khazaria arrived at the court ofth e Byzantine emperor
M ichael III and announced themselves ready to convert from paganism to m onotheism. T he
envoys inform ed the Byzantine authorities that representatives from the Jew ish and M uslim
faiths were already m aking the case for their ow n religions, and asked that a learned scholar
be dispatched to the Khazar court to make the case for Christianity. D u e to the ‘love and
friendship’ held betw een Khazaria and the Byzantium , the Khazars w ould wait until the

10 An assessment o f the available sources is a common feature o f the secondary literature on the Khazar
conversion, and the reader is advised to consult Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars; Zuckerm an, “ On
the Date o f the Khazars’ Conversion” ; Golden, “ T h e Conversion o f the Khazars to Judaism ” ; and the relevant
historiographical articles in the World of the Khazars collection. T h e principal reason a reassessment is required is
because previous treatments have normally emphasised the utility o f a particular source as a control against w hich
the other evidence must be interpreted. We wish to stress, however, the limitations inherent within all o f the extant
sources.
11 T he description w hich follows is based on the translation by M . Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives (Michigan,
1983), pp. 23—97.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 499

Byzantine envoy had arrived and a disputation between the representatives o f the three
religions had taken place, before converting to the religion w h ich had made the most
convincing arguments.
Constantine volunteered to act as a religious ambassador for Byzantium , and travelled to
the city o f Cherson on the C rim ean Peninsula to prepare for the disputation by studying
H ebrew and debating w ith the locals. H e also had time to deter both a Khazar and a
H ungarian attack on Byzantine cities in the region. External evidence places Constantine in
C herson in early 86i and thus the subsequent jo u rn ey to the Khazar court must have been
made later in that year.12
As expected in a hagiographical w ork, Constantine successfully made the case for the
superiority o f Christianity in the disputation. T h e relevant part o f the narrative ends w ith
the baptism o f 200 Khazars, the recovery o f 200 Byzantine prisoners-of-war, and a vague
promise by the Khazar Khagan that he w ould soon convert to Christianity and that all o f
the Jew s and M uslim s in Khazaria w ould be put to death.
Zuckerm an has argued that the Vita Constantinii is a ‘first-rate historical docum ent’ , in
w h ich the only blatant factual distortion in the material on the mission to the Khazars was
the claim that the Khagan w ould convert and that the Jew s and M uslim s w ould be killed.
This allowed him to conclude that, since the rest o f the Vita is supposedly trustworthy,
conversion to any new religion could not have occurred until after the disputation had taken
place; that is sometime after 8 6 i.13 There are, however, a num ber o f problems presented both
by the account itself and Zuckerm an’s interpretation o f it. Indeed, Pritsak strongly argued
that the material on Khazaria could only be a later interpolation based on sources dating
from long before the latter ninth century. T h e Vita, he claimed, presents an anachronistic
picture o f Khaganal supremacy —in w h ich he is solely responsible for the negotiations w ith
Constantine —w h ich was decades out o f date. Pritsak’s reasoning for this conclusion was that
‘It is hardly possible that M ethodius, an experienced administrator, w ould have w ritten or
edited the chapters o f the V ita Constantinii based on unrealistic or inaccurate data’ .14
W hile Zuckerm an and Pritsak arrived at very different conclusions about the utility o fth e
Vita as a source for the Khazar conversion, they were both far too uncritical in their approach
to it. It is not intended as an ‘historical docum ent’ but a hagiographic one. T h e composers o f
the V ita claim that their account was based on Constantine’s theological writings w h ich had
been com piled into ‘eight discourses’ by his brother, M ethodius.15 This point is emphasised
by the fact that Constantine som ewhat conveniently refutes in turn the arguments o f the
iconoclasts, M uslim s, Sarmatians and Jew s. Indeed, despite the fact that w e are inform ed
that there was a M uslim delegation present at the Khagan’s court he does not engage them
in disputation —presumably this is because he had already outlined the argument to be used
against the ‘H agarites’ during an earlier set-piece debate. R ath er than serving as a factual
account o f Constantine’s life, the function o f the narrative in the V ita Constantinii was
instead two-fold: first, to give Constantine an appropriately interesting setting in w h ich to
present his theological arguments; and second, to present him in as ‘h o ly’ a w ay as possible

12 Zuckerm an, “ O n the Date o f the Khazars’ Conversion” , pp. 244—245.

13 Ibid, pp. 243—246.
14 Pritsak, “ Turkological R em arks” , p. 298.
15 Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives, p. 57.
500 J. T. Olsson

in order to cem ent his legitim acy as the founding father o f the M oravian C h u rch . 16 This
is not to say, however, that the description o f the saint’s adventures in Khazaria is entirely
fictitious; yet it is not the ‘first-rate historical docum ent’ w h ich has been postulated.

T h e R e p ly o f Jo sep h to Hasdai ibn Shaprut 1 7 : This letter purports to be from Joseph,

most probably the reigning Khazar king, and was w ritten in the 950s. It was com posed in
response to the inquiries o f the Jew ish first minister o f the U m ayyad Caliphate in Spain,
Hasdai ibn Shaprut, w ho, according to a num ber o fextan t texts and fragments from a number
o f other letters, made several attempts to gather inform ation on the Khazars.18 Assuming its
veracity, it was almost certainly produced by a scribe employed in the Khazar bureaucracy
and thus it represents a product o f the Khazar ‘Establishment’ . 19 T h e letter survives in both
a ‘lon g’ and a ‘short’ version o f w h ich it is unclear w h ich is the m ore authentic. However,
the same general conversion narrative is present in both versions.
T h e R e p ly indicates that Joseph was the descendant o f a pious king named Bulan, w ho
came to pow er some time after the foundation o f the Khazar state. Bulan was repeatedly
visited in his dreams by an angel w h o im plored him to accept the H ebrew Laws, but
Bulan argued that he needed the consent o f the ‘B ig C h ie f (the Khagan) before conversion
could take place. T h e angel subsequently appeared in the dreams o f the B ig C h ie f and the
conversion o f Bulan, the Khagan, and all o f the Khazars took place the next m orning.
T h e next few years under the new religion were marked by great victories and the
accumulation o f enorm ous wealth. However, this provoked the wrath o f both the K in g o f
the Arabs and the K in g o f Byzantium , w h o dispatched missionaries to contest the Khazars'
conversion to Judaism. B ulan sum m oned a Jew ish sage and a disputation was arranged so
that the merits o f the various religions could be debated. T h e disputation itself appears to
have been stage-managed by Bulan. Thus, for example, he sounded out the missionaries in
private before manipulating them into admitting the superiority o fth e Jew ish faith in public.

16 “ T h e Vita aimed chiefly at defending the Slavic alphabet and liturgy ju st introduced in M oravia, by
proving Constantine-Cyril to be a holy man and saint. Such an image o f Constantine was particularly needed for
M ethodius and his disciples in their struggle over the Slavic liturgy w ith the Bavarian clergy” - S. N ikolov, “ T he
M agyar connection or Constantine and M ethodius in the steppes” , Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2 1 (1997),
pp. 79—92. Another purpose o f the Vita was most likely a didactic one; it would serve as a handbook for the new
M oravian clergy o f the arguments that should be employed against rival faiths. T h e disputation narrative as a genre
o f Byzantine Christian w riting was well established. For an overview see J. T. Walker, The Legend of Mar Qardagh:
Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 2006), pp. 164—205. T he
idea o f the valiant Christian w ho argues for his faith at the majlis o f an unbeliever seems to have gained fresh
impetus in the eighth and ninth-centuries, especially in M uslim -occupied lands. It is not impossible that stories
Constantine heard on his travels to the ‘Abbasid Caliphate served as models for his own narration o f events. For
more on the literary development o f these disputation scenes see S. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque:
Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, 2007), esp. pp. 75—95. A n interesting attempt w hich seeks to
compare w hat a Christian missionary claims about the events at a disputation at a foreign court w ith what probably
happened is B. Kedar, “ T h e M ultilateral Disputation at the C ourt o f the Grand Qan M ongke, 12 5 4 ” , in The Majlis:
Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam, eds H . Lazarus-Yafeh et al., Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 4
(Wiesbaden, i999), pp. i6 2 —i8 3 . Kedar concludes that w hile the missionary’s description o fw h a t he claims to have
said is likely to have been fairly accurate, the description o f the events o f the disputation and the various responses
o f his adversaries was much less so.
17 For an English translation o f the ‘short’ manuscript see Letters of Jews Through the Ages, Vol. i, (ed.) F Kobler
(Tonbridge, 1952), pp. 97—1 1 5 . A thorough discussion o f the text is found in Dunlop, The History o f the Jewish
Khazars, pp. 12 5 —155.
18 See the discussion in N . Golb and O. Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century (London,
i982), pp. 79—82.
19 Shepard, “ T he Khazars’ Formal A doption” , p. i2.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 50 i

Follow ing this victory in the disputation, Judaism was proclaim ed w ith renewed vigou r and
certain customs —such as circum cision —were enforced. The narrative continues to explain
how generations later the Jew ish foundations o f the Khazar state w ere strengthened by a
certain K in g Obadiyah.
There are a num ber o f problems w ith this account. First, Zuckerm an has made a
com pelling case for at least one element o f the narrative — the pious K in g O badiyah —
as marking a later and entirely fabricated interpolation, and this, o f course, calls the veracity
o f the entire source into question.20 Second, D evin DeW eese has argued strongly that ‘We
w ill be led into absurdities i f w e hunt for a “ historical” core’ in conversion narratives,
and instead w e should concentrate our energies on investigating w hat these accounts tell
us about the communities in w h ich they were form ed’ . For DeWeese, certain elements
o f the Khazar narrative bear clear signs o f symbolic, rather than historical, resonance, and
they were introduced into the narrative in order that the converted com m unity m ight better
com prehend the process that had brought them into existence.2 1 Third, o f related concern is
the structural similarity o f this conversion narrative w ith others, for exam ple the conversion
o f the U ighur chief, B u q u Khan, to Buddhism in the account o f Ju w ayn i. 22 It is unclear
w hether the clear parallels betw een these accounts are the result o f coincidence, direct
imitation, or, perhaps, both o f the sources drawing on a com m on narrative prototype for
explaining religious conversion. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, the account contains a
num ber o f clearly implausible elements, ch ief am ong them the angel w h o brought religion
to the K in g and ‘B ig C h ie f.

T h e Schechter D o cu m e n t 2 3 : Dated to ca. 949 this letter records a version o f the Khazar
conversion from the perspective o f Khazar Jew s, probably tracing their Jew ish ancestry back
to before the conversion o f the Khazar elite.24 Similarly to the R e p ly o f Joseph, it seems that
this account was com posed in response to the w ide-ranging inquiries ofH asd ai ibn Shaprut.
This docum ent can be securely dated to the tenth century, as it has been shown to belong to
the same codex as an original letter from Provence w h ich was clearly intended for Hasdai.25
The narrative describes h ow Jew s came to Khazaria fleeing persecution and settled there,
partially assimilating w ith the inhabitants. Som etim e later a semi-Judaised w ar-leader named
Bulan was granted the office o f isad/beg and, influenced by his w ife ’s family, adopted a

20 Zuckerm an, “ O n the Date o f the Khazars’ Conversion” , pp. 248—250. W hile it is clear that the original
account has been the victim o f heavy distortion by later authors it seems likely that the general outline o f the
conversion narrative has been preserved intact. This conclusion arises on the basis o f similarities w ith the other
sources for the Khazar conversion, and because the narrative subtly conforms to what w e m ight expect from an
‘ official’ conversion narrative. See below for more on both o f these points.
21 D. DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde (Pennsylvania, 1994), esp. pp. 300—3 13 .
For DeWeese these symbolic elements are present in all conversion narratives, but w ith respect to the Khazars are
particularly prevalent in the ‘ Schechter D ocum ent’ .
22See Juwayni, History of the World Conqueror, trans.J. A . Boyle, vol. i (Manchester, 1958), pp. 53—6 1. Juw ayni’s
narrative o f Buqu K han’s conversion (who actually adopted Manichaeism rather than Buddhism) also features a
chief and his second-in-com m and adopting a new religion at the behest o f an apparition w hich appeared in their
dreams. Conversion brought them great victories, and their faith was confirm ed during a later disputation. T he
fact that the narrative in Juwayni is clearly a composite account o f a number o f different conversion narratives,
however, makes precise comparison difficult.
23A translation o f the Schechter D ocum ent is found in. Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents,
pp. 10 7—1 2 1.
24Ibid, p. 132 .
25 Zuckerm an, “ On the D ate” , p. 239.
502 J. T. Olsson

stricter and m ore observant form o f Judaism. T he rise o f a Je w to such a prom inent position
angered the kings o f Byzantium and Arabia and they sent scornful messages m ocking Israel.
It seems that this ignited hitherto suppressed disquiet amongst the Khazar aristocracy and
thus a disputation was arranged between representatives o f Judaism , Christianity, and Islam.
A t the court disputation, the victory ofJudaism was ensured w hen, at the crucial m oment,
a faction o f the Khazar ‘officers’ produced the necessary sacred texts w h ich had been kept in
a certain cave. T h e narrative informs us that after these texts had been explained the people
o f Khazaria returned toJudaism completely. Bulan was appointed king and renamed Sabriel
and the Khagan becam e a Jew ish judge.
Despite offering what m ight be considered a m ore plausible account o f the Khazar
conversion, DeW eese has argued that a num ber o f the elements in the narrative clearly tell
us m ore about the circumstances in w h ich the account was com posed rather than the time o f
their conversion. C h ie f am ong these ‘literary’ rather than ‘historical’ elements is the notion
o f the Khazars having ‘returned’ to Judaism com bined w ith the m o tif o f the religious books
in the cave. This was designed to boost the prestige o f the Khazar conversion by stressing
the notion that rather than a new event, the conversion was actually a return to an heroic
Jew ish past.26

K itab a l-K h azari 2 7 : T h e B o o k o f the Khazars was com posed ca. 114 0 by the Spanish R ab b i
Judah Halevi. It should be noted from the outset then, that the account is o f extrem ely late
provenance. M oreover, H alevi’s w o rk is perhaps the most openly distorted o f our conversion
traditions. The secondary title o f the treatise is ‘B o o k o f A rgum ent and Dem onstration in
A id o f the Despised Faith’ . H alevi wanted to show the theological superiority o f Judaism
at a time o f increasing hostility towards Jew s from Christian and M uslim populations, and
the conversion o f the Khazars was explicitly adapted to fulfil this function. A t the same
time, however, reference to some o f the features found in both the R e p ly o f Joseph and the
Schechter D ocu m ent indicates that H alevi had access to these sources, w h ile he m ay also
have had access to another text no longer extant. 28
H alevi’s account begins w ith an angel visiting the Khazar king and exhorting him to
change his ways. Thus the king sum m oned scholars from the Christian and M uslim faiths,
but ignored Judaism because adherents o f that religion ‘are o f low station, few in number,
and generally despised’ .
H owever, finding him selfunsatisfied w ith the cosm ological arguments ofC h ristian ity and
Islam the king decided to summ on a representative o f Judaism. A fter a long theological
discussion w ith a R a b b i he pronounced him self pleased w ith the answers o f the Jew ish faith.
A fter the disputation the Khazar ruler inform ed his vizier o f his discussions and together
they travelled to the mountains ofW arsan where they found a Jew ish com m unity in a cave.
H ere they embraced the religion and were circumcised, before they travelled back to the
Khazar court and gradually built up a faction in support o f conversion to Judaism. W hen the

26 DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion, pp. 300—3 13 .

27Judah Halevi, Book of Kuzari, trans. H . Hirschfield (N ew York, 1946). Also see Dunlop, T he History o f the
Jewish Khazars, pp. 1 1 6 —125.
28 S. Pines, “ A M oslem Text concerning the Conversion o f the Khazars to Judaism ” , Journal ofJewish Studies,
13 (1962), pp. 45—55.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 503

numbers o f their supporters had increased they induced the rest o f the Khazar population to
adopt the new faith.

Islam ic So urces: There are a num ber o f references to the conversion — or at least the
Judaization — o f Khazaria in the accounts o f M uslim geographers and travellers from
the beginning o f the tenth century. T h e three accounts w h ich provide the most detailed
inform ation on the conversion o f the Khazars are:

1. A n account by ‘A bd al-Jabbar Ibn M uham m ad al-H am dani, w h o was C h ie f Q adi in

R a y y at the beginning o f the eleventh century, describes how in the days o f the ‘Abbasids
a man came to the ‘great kin g’ o f the Khazars and managed to convert him. Following
the conversion the Khazars took upon themselves ‘the difficult (obligations enjoined by)
the law o f the Torah’ . A ccording to Pines however, w hile the account may be based on
an earlier source, it was clearly designed to fulfil the polem ical function o f presenting
voluntary Jew ish conversion as against coerced Christian conversion.29
2. A n account by the Spanish scholar A bu ‘U bayd al-Bakri (d. 1094) describes how the
Khazar king at first converted to Christianity before having second thoughts about
the decision. A disputation was arranged between a representative o f Judaism and
Christianity w here the form er appears to have been victorious. Still unconvinced
however, the king invited a M uslim representative to jo in the disputation but the Jew s
arranged to have him poisoned en route. W ithout the M uslim intervention the arguments
o f the Jew ish advocate were successful, and the Khazar ruler converted to Judaism .30 It
seems most likely that, based in Spain and thus w ith access to the ‘indigenous’ disputation
accounts, al-Bakrii’s narrative is an attempt to provide an acceptable explanation for the
lack o f M uslim success in the court disputation.
3. A l-M a s‘udi, w riting in the m id tenth century, describes conversion as occurring during
the reign o f Hariin al-Rashid. M oreover al-Dim ashqi (writing ca. 132 7 ), w h o may
have had access to a no longer extant w ork o f al-M as‘udi, narrates h ow in the days
o f Hariin the emperor caused the Jew s to emigrate. T h ey came to Khazaria, where
they found an intelligent but untutored race, and offered Judaism to the inhabitants
w h o subsequently converted. H owever, it is equally possible that the al-Dim ashqi was
confusing the persecution o f Jew s and their emigration to Khazaria by the Em peror
R om anos, as also described by al-M as‘udi, w ith the earlier events o f the conversion.31

There are also a num ber o f Arabic accounts w h ich w hile not touching on the conversion
process directly, do shed light on the political and religious structures in Khazaria and so are
useful for our investigation. Islamic geographers and travellers from the early tenth century
onwards began to report on Judaism w ithin Khazaria. M any o f these authors give slight
variations on the characteristics o f the Khazar diarchy and the spread o f Judaism, but in
general these sources agree that by the time that they w ere w riting Judaism was firm ly

29 Ibid.
30 Dunlop, The History of theJewish Khazars, pp. 90—9 1.
31 Golden, “ T h e Conversion o f the Khazars toJudaism ” , p. 144.
504 J. T. Olsson

established am ong the Khazar elite, and that a Jew ish Khazar king was the ultimate source
o f temporal authority in Khazaria. 32
It should be noted o f these M uslim accounts in general, however, that they are o f fairly late
com position, are highly partisan, and are based on the reports ofinform ants. M oreover, both
the geographies and the travellers’ accounts were as m uch for entertainment as edification;
their readers w ould have been attracted to tales o fth e unusual customs o fn o rth ern barbarians,
and it is likely that many aspects o f the narratives were exaggerated. 33

O ther Textual So urces: T h e most significant source in addition to main accounts and
the Islamic reports is probably the com m entary on the Gospel o f M atthew by Christian o f
Stavelot. H ere Christian reported that the Khazars ‘profess all dogmata ofJudaism . However,
the Bulgars, w h o are from those seven tribes, are now becom ing baptised’ . Khan B oris o f the
Bulgars first accepted baptism from Byzantine missionaries in 864 and so this notice seems
to place the conversion o f the Khazars around this date.34
A nother im portant source o f inform ation comes from three letters sent by Byzantine
Patriarchs to ecclesiastics on the C rim ean Peninsula.35 The first o f these was w ritten by
Patriarch Photios to a certain Antonios, Archbishop o f Bosporos/Kerch, around 864. The
letter does not directly m ention Khazaria, but Antonios is praised for ‘having captivated the
Jew s w h o live there unto obedience to C h rist’ .36 T he other two letters were w ritten by
Patriarch N icholas M ysticus to the Archbishop o f Cherson, probably in the early 920s, and
describe the Byzantine attempts to re-establish an ecclesiastical presence in Khazaria. 37

T h e N u m ism atic E v id e n ce and its P ro blem s 38

O f relatively recent identification, the ‘M oses’ coinage o f the Khazars appears to have
circum vented the gaps and contradictions in the textual record by offering undistorted,
docum entary evidence for the adoption o f Judaism. In a flurry o f innovative numismatic
activity reminiscent o f the Islamic coinage reforms o f the U m ayyad Caliph ‘A bd al-M alik,
the Khazars issued three w h olly new types o f coin in 837/8: one type nam ing the m int as the
‘Land o f the Khazars’ and providing an accurate date, another type containing a tribal or clan
marking —the tamgha - the exact m eaning o f w hich is unclear, and the final type bearing
the legend ‘M oses is the M essenger o f G o d ’ . These types are all connected by die-chain and
so almost certainly originated from the same m int and in the same year.

32 For the Islamic sources on Khazar Judaism see ibid, pp. 1 4 1 —149. For a slightly fuller explanation o f the
origin o f some o f these accounts see Golden, “ Irano-Turcica” , pp. 162—170.
33 For the blurred divide between the inform ative and the edifying in Islamic geographical works see, for
example, T. Zadeh, Mapping Frontiers Across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation, and the ‘Abbasid Empire (New
York, 2 0 11) , pp. 18—19, 182.
34See Golden “ T he Conversion o f the Khazars to Judaism ” , p. 139 for a discussion o f Christian o f Stavelot’s
Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam. Shepard has argued that the association o f this report on the conversion o f the
Khazars w ith current events in Bulgaria suggests that the Khazar adoption ofJudaism had taken place very recently:
Shepard, “ T h e Khazars’ Formal Adoption ofJudaism ” , p. 14.
35 For a discussion o f the letters see J. Howard-Johnston, “ Byzantine Sources for Khazar H istory” , in World of
the Khazars, (eds.) P. Golden et al (Leiden, 2007), pp. 170—17 1.
36 D. S. W hite, Patriarch Photios of Constantinople: his life, scholarly contributions, and correspondence together with a
translation o f fifty-two of his letters (Mass., 19 81), Letter 42.
37 Letters of Nicholas I, Patriarch of Constantiniople, trans. R . J. H . Jenkins and L. G. Westerink (Washington,
1973), Letters 68 and 102.
38T he numismatic case is found in Kovalev, “ Creating Khazar Identity Through C oins” , pp. 220—253.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 505

As w e have noted above, Kovalev has argued that these coins could not have been m inted
w ithout the consent o f the Khagan, and it is unthinkable that he w ould have authorised
the issue o f Jew ish coinage had he not been a convert himself. Thus, the coins point
to the Judaisation o f the Khazar elite by 837/8. I f the m inting o f this new coinage signalled
the fundamental transformation o f the Khazar state then the question as to w h y these coins
seem only to have been issued in a single year arises. Kovalev responded to this dilemma by
arguing that this numismatic reform ‘was probably a trial run that quickly proved to be a
futile venture’.39
There seem to be a num ber o f problems w ith the numismatic case, however, w hich
should lead to some hesitancy in accepting Kovalev’s conclusions wholesale. B efore looking
at the specifics o f the argument there are tw o general points to make. First, it is clear that
Kovalev approves o f numismatic evidence because it is an ‘unedited’ source. Indeed, w ith
the distorted, contradictory, and suspect textual evidence w e have already discussed it is easy
to see w h y unalterable docum entary evidence is given pride o f place. H owever, not only is
docum entary evidence limited in the conclusions it allows the historian to draw, but it has
no m ore inherent authenticity than textual sources.40 I f a num ber o f independent w ritten
accounts seem to suggest that the final stage o f conversion did not take place until the 850s
or 860s then what right do w e have to com pletely disregard this evidence? Surely a credible
scenario for the conversion o f the Khazars must draw upon as m uch o f the plausible evidence
as possible.
Second, the ‘simple conversion’ offered by Kovalev — in w h ich a com plete transition is
made from a Turkish Khaganate to a Jew ish diarchy in a single year — is not the kind o f
scenario w e find in comparable examples.
Conversion was often a difficult process, taking a num ber o f years, and characterised by
numerous setbacks. For example, the conversion o f B oris I o f Bulgaria led to an aristocratic
revolt and the massacre o f 52 boyar households, w hile despite elite and even royal conversion
from at least the early ninth century, the ‘official’ conversion o f the R u s ’ did not take place
until 988. Perhaps the most instructive example is to be found in the account o f Ibn Fadlan’s
jo u rn ey to the Volga Bulgars in 922. H e recounts events soon after his entry into the steppe
world: ‘T h e first o f the rulers and chiefs w h om w e m et was the little Yanal. H e had been a
convert to Islam, but they [his people] told him: “ I f thou acceptest Islam, then thou canst
not be our chieftain” ’ . It is quite possible then, that the conversion o f the Khazars was a
m uch m ore com plex affair than envisaged by the scenario that Kovalev proposes.41

39 For a similar example ofnum ism atic development in response to changing political realities am ong a medieval
steppe polity see T. S. N oonan, “ Volga Bulgharia’s Tenth-Century Trade w ith Samanid Central Asia” , A E M A , i i
(2000—2001), pp. 162—163. U pon completing their prolonged secession from Khazarian domination around 949/50
the Volga Bulgars dropped the designation Yaltawar from their coinage — the term for the ruler o f a subject tribe —
and replaced it w ith the names o f their rulers.
40 R o b ert Hoyland has persuasively argued that documentary evidence tends to force the historian to use his
or her own referents in its interpretation, in place o f referents w hich m ight have had some relevance to its creators.
See R . Hoyland, “ T h e C ontent and C on text o f Early Islamic Inscriptions” , Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam,
2 1/ 3 ( i 997 ), p. 9 7 .
41 For a variety o f reasons our sources tend to describe conversion as a deceptively simple process. This is largely
down to the nature o f the evidence. For example, conversion narratives told by a particular people about their
own experience and hagiographical texts understandably seek to gloss over any opposition to this development.
In the form er case, to emphasise the unity o f the post-conversion state, w hile in the latter case, to highlight the
miraculous achievements o f a saintly missionary. For an example o f both o f these trends in one account see the
506 J. T. Olsson

This point is further bolstered w hen w e consider that the ‘M oses’ coins w ere m inted only
in one year. Kovalev put forward three reasons w h y this m ight have been the case: first, that
they failed to achieve circulation w ithin Khazaria and thus did not achieve their ideological
function; second, that the R u s ’ traders could have been uncomfortable w ith these new coins;
and third, that the coins possibly provoked the antagonism o f the Islamic royal guard. We
shall deal w ith each o f these points in turn.
First, w h ile m uch o f the Khazar coinage was exported it seems implausible that w ith a
centralised taxation system and enterprising merchants there was no m onetary circulation
w ithin Khazaria.42 Coins are norm ally found in hoards deposited in dangerous times and,
as Kovalev has argued elsewhere, Khazaria was a remarkably peaceful and stable polity. This
m ight go some w ay to explaining w h y none o f the ‘M oses’ coins have turned up w ithin
form er Khazar territories.43 M oreover, i f w e are to accept that all o f the coins were exported
then the question arises as to w h y the Khazars bothered to design three new coins in 837/8
at all. Past experience w ould have taught the authorities that most o f their coinage ended
up being exported to the R u s ’ and it seems nonsensical that w ith this in m ind they w ould
have introduced ideological reforms on their coinage.
E ven in the unlikely event that the Khazars’ new coinage achieved no — or extrem ely
limited — internal circulation this was not a sufficient reason for ending their numismatic
experim ent. It seems most probable that a group must have objected to the coins. Kovalev
first argues that this group m ight have been the R u s ’ w h o w ould have been reluctant to
accept this m odified coinage, but this seems unlikely. There is no indication that these coins
were o f inferior quality to other Khazar issues, or that the R u s ’ w ould have objected to
the new religious content o f these coins, and, indeed, the fact that extant examples o f the
M oses coinage have been found as distant from Khazaria as Gotland, suggests that they were
quite possibly traded am ong R u s ’ merchants.44 It m ight be argued that such numismatic
discoveries as the ‘O ffa dinar’ indicate that Islamic coinage had a great deal o f prestige
throughout northern Europe, and thus that m odification w ould have been looked upon
unfavourably. H owever, the fact that on this same coin there are a num ber o f mistakes in the
script and that the title ‘O F F A R E X ’ is upside-down in relation to the Arabic suggests that
non-M uslim s had little idea o f w hat the inscriptions said. It is hard to believe then, that the

composite narrative ofV ladim ir’s conversion: The Russian Primary Chronicle, trans. S. H . Cross and O. P. Sherbowitz-
W etzor (Cam bridge Mass., 1973), pp. 96—1 1 3 . For the pre-conversion Christian tendencies in Russia see ibid and
D. Constantelos, “ T h e Conversion o f Russia to Christianity” , Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 33/4 (1988), pp.
363—385. For the conversion o f the Bulgars see S. Runcim an, A History of the First Bulgarian Empire (London, 1930).
For Ibn Fadlan’s report on Yanal see R . Frye, Ibn Fadlan’sJourney to Russia (Princeton, 2005), p. 37.
42 For a discussion o f the sources for Khazar taxation and trade see T. S. N oonan, “ Som e Observations on the
Econom y o f the Khazar Khaganate” , in World of the Khazars, (eds.) P. Golden et al (Leiden, 2007), pp. 207—244.
43 As o f 2004 164 837/8 type dirhams have been discovered, all o f them north o f Khazaria. However, Kovalev
has previously argued that the lack o f coins found in Khazar lands could “ be a sign o f a more developed local
econom y in w hich many coins circulated and where they could be readily used for a variety ofpurposes” . Kovalev,
“ W hat does historical numismatics suggest” , pp. 99, ii6 . Paradoxically then, it could actually be the high circulation
o f this coinage am ong the Khazars w hich explains our lack o f evidence for its circulation.
44 Kovalev, “ Creating Khazar Identity Through C oins” , p. 224. For an extremely detailed analysis o f the role
Khazaria played as an interm ediary in the substantial north-south trading network between northern Europe and
the Caliphate see T. S. N oonan, “ W hy Dirhams First R eached Russia: T h e R o le ofA rab-K h azar Relations in the
Developm ent o f the Earliest Islamic Trade with Eastern Europe” , A E M A , 4 (1984), pp. 1 5 1 —282.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 507

R u s ’ w ould have noticed or cared that the name o f one foreign prophet had been exchanged
for another.45
The other group Kovalev identifies as possibly objecting to the coins are the royal M uslim
guard. A ccording to al-M as‘udi these were M uslim immigrants from Khwarazm w h o served
in the royal arm y in return for religious freedom and possession o f the vizierate. The paucity
o f our sources means that it is not possible to definitively conclude that these immigrants
were not yet present in the early ninth century, but it seems unlikely. T h e Islamic guard
certainly seem to have been established by 9 13 , w hen they w ere apparently responsible for
a massacre o f R u s ’ raiders returning from M uslim lands, but apart from a few mentions o f a
M uslim ‘faction’ in our disputation accounts —w h ich was probably no m ore than a narrative
convention — there is no evidence for a M uslim royal guard in the early ninth century.
M oreover, the question m ight be asked that i f this Islamic guard had been so affronted by
the release o f Jew ish coins, then w h y had they perm itted the Judaisation o f the Khazar state
in the first place?46
The forgotten element in Kovalev’s scenario is the Khazars themselves. It is argued that
the Khagan was both relegated to subordinate status and forced to convert to Judaism in
837/8, possibly as a result o f the loss o f prestige caused by m ilitary defeats throughout the
830s, but this is hardly incontestable. First, i f this really was the transition to the fully-
fledged Khazar diarchy as described by the M uslim sources, then the Khagan could not
have had any input into the m inting o f coins. Indeed, he w ould have had no temporal
input whatsoever and so his conversion w ould not have been a necessary prerequisite o f the
‘M oses’ coinage.47 Second, it seems implausible that the Khazars —many o f w h om w ere still
adherents o f the Turkic Tengri cult even in the tenth century — w ould have imm ediately
acquiesced to the subjugation o f the traditional Khaganal pow er structures under a new
Jew ish leadership.48 Finally, conclusions drawn from the w ritten sources w ould suggest that
the ‘official’ Judaisation ofth e Khazar state took place shortly before the time ofC on stantine’s
disputation.49 It w ill be argued below then that the numismatic innovations o f 837/8, rather
than m arking the final conversion o f Khazaria, w ere instead the beginnings o f a prolonged
and difficult process.

M eth odological A p p ro ach to the K h azar Conversion

It m ight seem odd that for an investigation w h ich aims at a ‘positivist’ reconstruction o f the
Khazar conversion, so m uch time has been spent in highlighting the m anifold difficulties
presented by every available source o f evidence. E ven those sources w h ich present little in

45 For the ‘ O ffa dinar’ see C. E. Blunt, “ T h e Coinage o f O ffa” , in Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to
F M. Stenton on the Occasion o f His 80th Birthday 17 May 1960, (ed.) R . H . M . D olley (N orw ich, 19 6 1), pp. 50—5 1.
46 For al- M as‘uidii on the M uslim soldiers o f Khazaria see Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars,
pp. 204—2 1 1 .
47 For a number o f Arabic accounts on the purely ritual and ceremonial authority o f the Khagan see Golden,
“ Irano-Turcica” , pp. 16 3—170.
48 A ccording to the account o f Ibn Rusta: “ their [the Khazars’] supreme chief professes Judaism as does also
the Isad and those o f the leaders and great ones w ho sympathise w ith his inclinations. T h e rest o f them profess a
religion similar to that o f the Turks” . For the accounts o f the religious demographics o f Khazaria see Golden, “ T he
Conversion o f the Khazars toJudaism ” , pp. 142—149.
49 See the discussion below.
508 J. T. Olsson

the way o f obvious difficulties — such as the letters from Byzantine patriarchs - are only o f
limited value in the sense that they shed only the dimmest light on the conversion process.
The m ore informative the source, the less trust can be placed in its historicity. H owever, it
is by adopting an uncritical approach to a particular piece o f evidence —w hether the Kuzari
or the V ita Constantinii or the Khazar coinage — that previous treatments have failed to
satisfactorily explain the conversion o f the Khazars.
W hat w e intend to do here then, is to reject all o f the evidence that is not corroborated
— w hether in a specific or general sense — by an independent tradition or docum entary
evidence. O fco u rse, in reality this m ethodology is not entirely feasible; it is almost impossible
to know w hich o f our sources are entirely independent o f others, and the paucity o f our
evidence means that for som e events w e are left w ith only a single source. H owever, by
breaking the process dow n into stages w e can mobilise evidence w h ich is thematically
related — w h ich corroborates a particular stage in the conversion chronology — even i f it
is not exact parallel. M oreover, our arguments can be strengthened through source-critical
analyses and comparative examples. Despite the conjectural nature o f the task at hand, it is
hoped that the picture o f the Khazar conversion w h ich emerges from a careful assessment
o f all o f the relevant evidence, w ill seem m ore plausible than the accounts w h ich have gone
before.

T h e B ack g ro u n d to Conversion

The Emergence of Bulan

In the tw o ‘native’ accounts o f conversion the protagonist was a semi-Judaised w ar-

leader named Bulan w h o orchestrated the adoption o f the new religion. In the Schechter
D ocum ent, Bulan was a descendant o f Jew ish immigrants w h o had assimilated w ith native
Khazars. H e becam e ch ief o f the Khazar arm y after achieving notable victories until, some
time later, his heart was stirred to return to Judaism completely. B ulan was instructed
in Jew ish practices by his w ife and her fam ily and, later again, was responsible for the
conversion o f Khazaria.50 Similar features are found in the R e p ly o f Joseph. H ere Bulan is
again portrayed w ith pre-conversion m onotheistic tendencies. H e was wise and G od-fearing
and ‘H e rem oved wizards and heathens from the land and relied on G o d alone’ . A t some
point during his rule an angel appeared to him and asked him to convert. K n ow ing that
alone he w ould be unable to persuade his people o f the righteousness o f the angel’s message
he requested that the angel appear before the Khagan. T he next m orning all o f the Khazars
converted — albeit it seems only partially — and Bulan subsequently w o n great victories,
accumulated m uch wealth, and built the symbols ofJu d aism .51
T h e com m on feature o f the ‘pre-disputation’ section o f the tw o narratives is a sem i-
Judaised Khazar w hose political pow er was established and/or increased by successful military
leadership. There is a significant difference, however, in the chronology o f the events. The
Schechter D ocum ent presents the relatively simple narrative o f a semi-Judaised general
increasing his pow er so that he was later in a position to establish Judaism, w h ile the

50 Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents, pp. 107—109.

51 Kobler, Letters o f Jews Through the Ages, pp. 108—109.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 509

R e p ly o f Joseph portrays a ruler w ith pronounced m onotheistic tendencies w h o converts

his Khagan and his people w ith the help o f an angel, and subsequently achieves divinely-
ordained success. H owever, despite the differences the tw o accounts are not irreconcilable
and it w ould be impossible to definitively prove that they are independent reports. W hile the
R e p ly o f Joseph describes a ‘shallow’ conversion before the disputation —probably in order
to emphasise the early conversion o f the Khagan - and the Schechter D ocum ent does not
m ention the conversion o f anyone other than Bulan until after the disputation, and w hile
each o f the sources contain elements absent in the other w hich nevertheless find external
corroboration, it is difficult to argue that the very notion o f Bulan was not a popular oral
myth w h ich was subsequently m odified to achieve very different purposes by the respective
composers o f the two accounts.52 Therefore w e w ill have to investigate the two elements
com m on to both accounts to ensure the plausibility o f the narratives: first, the existence o f
a m ilitary com m ander w ielding increasing political pow er over Khazaria; and, second, the
semi-Judaised nature o f this figure.

The Ascendancy of the Khazar Isad/beg

In terms o f the other sources w h ich give a background to the conversion o f the Khazars,
the only one w h ich gives a reasonably similar scenario to the one found in the Schechter
D ocum ent and the R e p ly o f Joseph is al-H am dani’s account. H owever, each o f the three
main Islamic conversion narratives must be rejected as viable sources for the conversion
itself because, com posed centuries after the events they describe and suffused w ith partisan
agendas, they act as further distortions o f already highly problematic earlier accounts. The
other m ajor textual sources are o f little use for this early stage o f the conversion process.
We do have, however, the fragm entary pieces o f evidence used by a num ber o f scholars
in their discussion o f the development o f the Khazar diarchy in the 830s and 840s. U ntil the
beginning o f the ninth century our sources suggest that the Khagan was the sole executor
o f authority am ong the Khazars. In an eye witness report o f Khazaria in the m id-780s, for
example, it is the Khagan w h o is responsible for all negotiations w ith the renegade G eorgian
prince Narses and his retinue.53 M oreover, it also appears that the Khagan was in com m and
o f the Khazar campaigns against A rab-held D erbend in 798—99.54 In the late 830s, however,
a letter arrived at the Byzantine court addressed to the em peror Theophilos (r. 829—842)
from the Khagan and the pech (isad/beg) o f the Khazars.55
A particularly interesting notice is provided by the al-Masalik wa’l-mamalik (The B o o k o f
Itineraries and Kingdom s), the early geographical w o rk by Ibn Khurradadhbih. Containing
the supposedly eye-witness account o f Sallam the Interpreter, Caliph al-W athiq’s (r. 842—
847) envoy to the north, w e are presented w ith a series o f diplomatic exchanges w hich

52 For the agreement o f the Schechter D ocum ent’s description o f otherwise unknown Byzantine machinations
against Khazaria in the tenth-century w ith evidence derived from the Russian Primary Chronicle see C. Zuckerm an,
“ On the D ate” , pp. 254—270. For the correlation o f the econom ic data derived from the R e p ly o f Joseph w ith the
other extant sources see T. S. Noonan, “ T he Khazar Econom y” , A E M A , 9 (1995—1997), pp. 253—318 .
53 D. M . Lang, “ T h e M artyrdom o f Abo, T he Perfumer from Baghdad” , in Lives and Legends o f the Georgian
Saints, selected and trans. D .M . Lang (Oxford, 1976), pp. 1 1 4 —133.
54 Kovalev, “ Creating Khazar Identity Through C oins” , p. 2 3 i.
55 Howard-Johnston, “ Byzantine Sources for Khazar H istory” , p. 169. Also Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De
Administrando Imperio, (ed.) Gy. M oravcsik and trans. R . J. H . Jenkins (Washington, 1967), c. 42, pp. 183, 185.
510 J. T. Olsson

precede Sallam’s jo u rn ey through the Caucasus and into the steppe beyond. 56 T h e final
contact is w ith an individual w h o can be identified as either ‘Tarkhan, king o f the Khazars’
or ‘the Tarkhan o f the king o f the Khazars’ .57 Tarkhan is an Altaic term denoting a military
commander. W hile M inorsky suggested that this figure m ight have been a m ilitary governor
o f the Khazars based in the N orth Caucasus, in light o f w hat follows it makes m ore sense
to identify him w ith the isad/beg. 58 H owever, even i f the Tarkhan is not to be identified
w ith the isad/beg, he was still answerable to the ‘kin g’ and not to the Khagan. It should
also be noted that al-M uqaddasi (wr. ca. 985) suggests that p rior to Sallam’s mission al-
W athiq had already dispatched the famous astronomer al-Khw arazm i to the court o f this
Tarkhan. 59
A t some point during the com bined reigns o f Theophilos and al-W athiq (829—847) then,
the extant sources suggest that the Khagan lost his role as the sole w ielder o f political pow er
in Khazaria. Thus, i f w e couple this evidence w ith the numismatic reforms o f 838/9, a
convincing case begins to emerge for the late 830s and early 840s witnessing the political
ascendancy o f the Khazar isad/beg.

The Plausibility o f a Judaised Isad/beg

W hile the R e p ly o f Joseph describes the transformation o f B u lan ’s religious convictions

from vague m onotheism to Judaism, the Schechter D ocu m ent is far m ore ambiguous on
the issue: Bulan is initially described as a Je w but still needs to be instructed in the Jew ish
‘w ay o flife ’ by his w ife and her family. This situation is paralleled by the respective sources’
description o f the transformation o f the Khazars’ religious convictions. In the R e p ly o f
Joseph they are simply heathens w h o becom e Jew ish, w hile in the Schechter D ocum ent
Khazaria is confusingly described as being inhabited by both the descendants o f Jew ish -
Khazar assimilation, w h o retained some Jew ish practices and becam e ‘one people’ w ith the
Khazar gentiles, and by distinct Jew ish elements such as B u lan ’s w ife and her family. It
seems most likely that although there was some Jew ish-K hazar interm ingling, the ambiguity
in the account stems m ore from the attempt on the part o f its com poser to reconcile a
‘n e w ’ conversion toJudaism w ith an ‘ancient’ Jew ish past. This was designed to give greater
legitim acy to the Khazar conversion by presenting it as a ‘return’ to a natural state o f
affairs.60
Thus w hile the description o f Jew ish im m igration into Khazaria because o f persecution
by ‘idol-worshippers’ cannot be entirely discounted, the description o f ‘one people’ form ing

56 M . J. D e G oeje, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum [B G A ], vi (Leiden, 1889), w ith Sallam’s account

pp. 16 2 —17 0 . A n English translation is most conveniently found in E. van Donzel and A . Schmidt, Gog and Magog
in Early Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam’s Questfo r Alexander’s Wall (Leiden, 2010), pp. 12 2 —1 4 1. For a fascinating
discussion o f Ibn Khurradadhbih’s methods and motives see J. E. M ontgom ery, “ Serendipity, Resistance, and
M ultivalency: Ibn Khurradadhbih and his Kitab al-Masalik wa’l-mamalik” , in On Fiction and Adab in Medieval Arabic
Literature (ed.) P. F. Kennedy (Wiesbaden, 2005), pp. 1 7 7 —232. Also discussed in Golden, “ Irano-Turcica” , p. 17 9 .
57 M . J. D e Goeje, B G A , vi, p. 162.
58 V M inorsky, A History of Sharvan and Darband in the io th—i i th Centuries (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 100—10 1.
59 Al-M uqaddasi, The Best Divisions fo r Knowledge of the Regions, trans. B . Collins (Reading, 2001), p. 294.
60 For a discussion o f the ‘return’ m otif in the Khazar narratives see DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion,
pp. 305—307. Conversely, there is no hint o f a pre-conversion Jewish com munity in the R e p ly o f Joseph because
the function o f this narrative was to focus on the miraculous conversion o f Bulan in order to bolster the legitim acy
o f his descendants.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion

though interm arriage and the assimilation o f Jew ish customs am ong the Khazars is highly
exaggerated.61 H owever, it is probable that w hile the Khazars had not been semi-Judaised in
the w ay depicted in the narrative, significant Jew ish communities did exist w ithin Khazaria.
It seems most likely that the isad/beg w h o gained increasing pow er in the 830s emerged from
one o f these Jew ish com m unities.62
The evidence for Jew ish elements w ithin pre-conversion Khazaria is not exactly abundant,
but there is enough to tentatively suggest that Jew ish communities were to be found around
the B lack Sea area —particularly the C rim ean Peninsula —and in the Caucasus. In the first
instance, w e have a num ber o f archaeological finds from the first century onwards w hich
point to Jew ish settlement in a num ber o f C rim ean towns. Thus, for example, G reek marble
plaques inscribed w ith names such as ‘Yehudah’ and ‘E n o ch ’ have been found at a num ber
o f places — including Pantikapeum (Bosporos/Kerch) — dating from betw een the first and
third centuries, w hile a num ber o f accoutrements o f Jew ish worship have been found in
the same region, dated approximately to the sixth century.63 Despite a lack o f trustworthy
material evidence for Jew ish settlement after the sixth century there is no reason to think
that the Jew ish presence disappeared.
Fortunately, a w ritten source is able to supplement the material record by suggesting
that Jew ish settlement continued into the Khazar period. T h e Byzantine Chronicle o f
Theophanes Confessor, w hich describes events up until the year 8 13 and was com pleted
soon after this date, describes Jew ish settlement to the east o f the Sea o f Azov.64 The
inform ation is provided for the year 679—680 in an extended account o f the collapse o f
M agna Bulgaria and the subsequent migrations o f Bulgar tribes. W hile w e are not in a
position to ascertain the source o f Theophanes’ claim or its likely date o f com position, it
seems plausible to conclude that there was nothing incongruous in the early ninth century
about the notion that Jew s were living in the B lack Sea region.
Furtherm ore, w e learn from the V ita Constantinii that Saint Constantine was able to
learn H ebrew and read Jew ish scriptures in the C rim ean city o f Cherson in the early
860s.65 Golden has argued that this was a sign o f the spread o f Khazar Judaisation follow ing
the conversion o f the elite over two decades beforehand.66 However, G olden seems to
have the process the w rong w ay around. It was in fact the B lack Sea Jew ish communities,
w ith their long-standing settlement in the region, w h ich were responsible for the Khazar
conversion. This hypothesis is bolstered by the letter o f Photios to Archbishop Antonios o f
Bosporos/Kerch a few years after Constantine’s mission in w h ich the Patriarch congratulated
Antonios on ‘having captivated the Jew s w h o live there unto obedience to C h rist’ .67 There is
no hint in the letter that these Jew s were recent immigrants, nor recent converts to Judaism.

61 For Byzantine persecutions o f their Jewish population in this period see A . Sharf, Byzantine Jewry from
Justinian to the Fourth Crusade (N ew York, 19 7 1).
62 For the Schechter D ocum ent’s description o f the Jewish refugees entering Khazaria see Golb and Pritsak,
Khazarian Hebrew Documents, p. 107. For a discussion o f this see ibid, pp. 130 —1 3 1 .
63Brook, The Jews of Khazaria, pp. 88—89
64 The Chronicle of Theophanes, (trans. and ed.) H . Turtledove (Pennsylvania, 1982), p. 55.
65Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives, p. 43.
66 Golden, “ Irano-Turcica” , p. 18 2 .
67W hite, Patriarch Photios o f Constantinople, Letter 42.
512 J. T. Olsson

M oreover, it is difficult to believe that Antonios was given free reign to convert Jew s in one
o f Khazaria’s most im portant cities m ore than two decades after Judaism had been officially
established as the state religion. W hat Photios seems to be referring to instead were the
communities o f Jew s w h o had been settled on the C rim ean Peninsula for hundreds o f years.
In terms o f the evidence for Jew ish settlement in the Caucasus, there are a couple o f
indications. In the Kuzari, for example, it is claimed that the king and his vizier received
instruction from Jew s living in caves in the mountains ofW arsan .68 G olden has identified
Warsan as Varac‘an, an area both w ithin the Transcaucasian region o f the Khazar Khaganate
and traditionally associated w ith Jew ish settlement.69 T h e fact that H alevi precisely identified
the area suggests that he may have had access to a no longer extant source. M oreover,
garbled m edieval G eorgian traditions may suggest Jew ish contact w ith Khazars. T h e Kartlis
C xovreba, a composite w o rk w h ich cannot be firm ly dated, describes in anachronistic
terms how a Jew ish com m unity was established in a part o f G eorgia w h ich witnessed
numerous contacts w ith Khazars.70 Despite the paucity o f the evidence then, it is reasonable
to suggest that there may also have been Jew ish communities living inside or near Khazaria’s
Transcaucasian frontier.
Finally, in m ore general terms it is clear from the hagiographic account o f the m artyrdom
o f A b o that there were other m onotheistic communities living in Khazaria in the late
eighth century. This eye-witness report describes the ‘many towns and villages in that
northern land w h ich by the grace o f the H oly G host abide securely in the Christian faith’ .71
C onsidering that A b o was a refugee from G eorgia he is almost certainly describing that part
o f southern Khazaria north o f the Caucasus. W hile A b o ’s testimony is not corroborated
elsewhere, this is simply down to the fact that w e have so few sources for Khazar lands
in this period, and it seems extrem ely unlikely that the report is invented. Khazaria had a
long history o f military, econom ic, and diplomatic activity in Christian Transcaucasia and
it seems improbable that along such a fluid frontier Christians w ould not have settled in
Khazar lands.72 Despite the paucity o f our evidence then, there is every reason to accept
the Schechter D ocum ent’s admittedly distorted intimation o f Jew ish communities w ithin
Khazaria.
Therefore, w h ile it is impossible to prove the historical existence o f Bulan, it seems
entirely plausible that the description given in our conversion narratives, at least in terms
o f the general contours, is accurate. A n issad/beg almost certainly did achieve great political
pow er in the late 830s, and there is nothing in the evidence to suggest, a priori, that he could
not have em erged from the Khazarian Jew ish milieu.

68 Judah Halevi, Book o f Kuzari, p. 72.

69 Golden, “ Khazaria and Judaism ” , p. 139.
70 Shapiro argues: “ These garbled traditions cannot be dated . . . but there is perhaps a kernel o f truth in those
accounts w hich combine the arrival o f both Khazars and Jew s in Kartli” . Shapiro also argues that these Jewish
migrations may have been a result o f Heraclius’ persecutions in the 630s and 640s. See D. D. Y. Shapiro, “ Arm enian
and Georgian Sources on the Khazars: A R e-E valu atio n ” , in World of the Khazars, (eds.) P. Golden et al. (Leiden,
2007), pp. 320—324.
71 Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, p. 119 .
72 For a description o f this activity see, for example, N oonan, “ W hy Dirhams First R eached Russia” ,
pp. I 5I —282 .
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 513

The 830s

According to the Schechter D ocum ent, Bulan achieved pow er due to his m ilitary prowess:

T here was (at the time) no k in g in the land o f Qazaria; but rather w h o ev er w o u ld achieve
victories in w ar w o u ld they appoint over themselves as c h ie f officer o f the army. (Thus was it)
until the Jew s once w en t out w ith them to do battle as was their w o n t. O n that day a certain Jew
prevailed w ith his sword and put to flight the enem ies com e against Qazar. So the m en o f Q azar
appointed him over them as c h ie f officer o f the arm y according to their ancient custom . 73

Since w e have established that it is plausible that a Jew ish general could have taken control
o f Khazaria in the 830s it is time to look m ore closely at the conversion narratives. It is
described how Bulan was initially part o f an arm y o f Jew ish soldiers — probably as their
leader — but follow ing m ilitary success he was elevated to the position o f ‘ch ie f officer’ .
Presumably this institution was already well-established but Bulan was able to use his
unprecedented ascendency to establish a Jew ish monarchy, w h ich was confined to him self
and his descendants. The R e p ly o f Joseph also presents Bulan as victorious in w ar and the
founder o f a Jew ish royal dynasty, w h ile a num ber o f tenth-century Islamic sources describe
the Jew ish Khazar kingship.74 T h e question w h ich has to be raised then, is w hat conditions
resulted in the fortunes o f B ulan w axing so high, and those o f the Khagan so low, that a
fundamental transformation o f Khazaria’s pow er structures could be achieved?
We find agreement am ong a num ber o f Khazarologists that it was the m igration o f the
Magyars into Khazar territories in the 830s w h ich underm ined the prestige o f the Khaganal
dynasty and allowed for an ambitious general to take over.75 Similarly, historians o f the early
Hungarians, w hile being less interested in the institutions o f the Khazar state, have also
argued that the m igration o f the M agyars to the lands west o f Khazaria began around the
year 830 and resulted in raiding across the D o n .76 T h e debate over the m igration o f the
Magyars is beyond the scope o f this investigation, but Kristo, Kovalev and Zuckerm an base
their arguments on the first m ention o f the M agyars in the sources.77 There are three pieces
o f evidence w h ich point to a Hungarian invasion o f the Pontic Steppes in the 830s.78 First,
according to Sym eon Logothete, in 836 or 837 Byzantines fleeing from Bulgaria discovered
Magyars north o f the Danube. Second, an entry in the Annals o f B ertin for 839 — but
probably recording events a few years earlier — reports R u s ’ ambassadors unable to return
hom e via the B lack Sea, because the route was blocked by ‘prim itive tribes that were very

73Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents, p. 107.

74 T h e R e p ly o f Joseph gives a genealogic al list o f the Khazar kings from Bulan down to Joseph himself.
See Kobler, Letters of Jews Through the Ages, p. i i i . Zuckerm an has argued that some o f these names may be
interpolations but does not deny that a shorter list o f names was present in an earlier recension o f the source. See
Zuckerm an, On the Date of the Khazars’ Conversion, pp. 237—270. For M uslim statements on the Khazar kingship
see Golden, “ Irano-Turcica” , pp. I 6 I —I89.
75 See, for example, Kovalev, “ Creating Khazar Identity Through C oins” , p. 235, and C. Zuckerm an, “ Les
Hongrois au pays de Lebedia: U n e nouvelle puissance aux confins de Byzance et de la Khazarie ca. 836—889” , in
Byzantium at War (gth—i2 th c.), (ed.) K . Tsiknakis (Athens, 1997), pp. 5 1 —74. For an English summary o f Zuckerm an’s
arguments see “ On the O rigin o f the Khazar D iarchy” , pp. 519—5 2 1.
76 See, for example, G yula Kristo, Hungarian History in the Ninth Century (Szeged, 1996), esp. pp. 86 and 129.
77This is in contrast to theories that place the migration o f the Magyars much earlier. Zuckerm an argues: “ N o
speculative arguments can compensate for the total lack o f evidence, textual and archaeological alike, for an early
Hungarian presence alongside the Khazars” in Zuckerm an, “ On the Origins o f the Khazar Diarchy” , p. 520.
78Kristo, Hungarian History in the Ninth Century, p. 86.
514 J. T. Olsson

fierce and savage’. Third, in 839 the Byzantine Em peror Theophilos received a request for
help w ith the construction o f the Khazar fortress at Sarkel, w h ich was probably to serve
as a bulwark against marauding Magyars. M oreover, w e also have the report from the early
tenth-century M uslim geographer Ibn R usta, that ‘in the past’ the Khazars ‘built trenches
around themselves in fear o f the Magyars and others from the peoples neighbouring their
lands’ .79 T h e rise o f Bulan then, could conjecturally be explained by his ability to effectively
confront these M agyar incursions.
Golden, however, has rejected this hypothesis. H e has argued: ‘T h e dismantling o f the
western, Pontic zone o f Khazaria is conjecture . . . [and] T h e Peceneg invasion was far m ore
unsettling than w hatever earlier problems the Khazars may have had w ith the Hungarians . . .
Nonetheless, w e have no evidence that the Hungarians or Peccenegs were existential threats
to Khazaria that w ould produce, in essence, a restructuring o f the modes o f governance’ .80
W hile it is true that w e possess no direct evidence for M agyar conflict w ith Khazaria in this
period, it seems a reasonable hypothesis. M oreover, there was a transformation o f political
structures in Khazaria in this period, and som ething must explain this.
It can be suggested that instability caused by the M agyar m igration in the 830s was a
contributory factor to this political transformation, but that there were perhaps two other
forces at w ork. First, it can be tentatively hypothesised that Byzantium —w hether im perially
directed or on the initiative o f C rim ean governors —took advantage o f the M agyar invasion
to improve or secure its ow n position in the region. M ark W hittow has argued that the
letter addressed to Theophilos should not perhaps be taken at face-value.81 T h e letter asks
for Byzantine help in building a fortress and, i f w e pair it w ith the relevant passage in the
De Administrando Imperio, w e are inform ed h ow ‘ships o f w ar’ from the Byzantine navy were
dispatched under a certain Petronas to help construct Sarkel.82
W hittow has argued that this scenario is som ewhat incongruous. T h e Khazars had, for
instance, been responsible for constructing numerous and impressive fortifications in the
C rim ea since the eighth century, and, to take ju st one example, the citadel at Bosporos had
walls around 2.5 meters thick.83 M oreover, w h ile Sarkel was an impressive construction, it
was only one o f at least 24 fortresses guarding the principal river routes into Khazaria in the
north and the west, and was o f ‘characteristic’ Khazar design.84 Finally, Jam es M on tgom ery
has noted that in a similar request for a fortress from the Volga Bulgars to the ‘Abbasid Caliph,
the emphasis was on the Caliph underwriting Bulgar expenses rather than dispatching skilled
engineers.85 It seems highly likely then, that the technology to construct fortresses already
existed am ong the steppe peoples.

79M . J. D e Goege, B G A , vii (1892), p. 143.

80 Ibid, p. 180.
81 See W hittow, The Making o f Orthodox Byzantium, pp. 2 33—235.
82 Howard-Johnston, “ Byzantine Sources for Khazar H istory” , p. I6 9 and D e Administrando Imperio, c. 42,
pp. 183, 185.
83 T. S. Noonan, “ T h e Khazar-Byzantine World o f the C rim ea in the Early M iddle Ages: T h e R eligious
Dim ension” , A E M A , 10 (1998—1999), pp. 209, 2 17 .
84 Kovalev, “ W hat does historical numismatics suggest” , pp. 100—10 1 and W hittow, The Making of Orthodox
Byzantium, p. 234.
85J. E. M ontgom ery, “ Pyrrhic Scepticism and the Conquest o f Disorder: Prolegomenon to the Study o f Ibn
Fadlan” , in Problems in Arabic Literature, (ed.) M . M aroth (Piliscsaba, 2004), pp. 54—55.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 515

W hittow has suggested that instead o f a Khazar appeal for assistance, the Sarkel episode
was a cover-story for a Byzantine m ilitary expedition to capture the fortress w h ich had
gone horribly wrong. Similarly to the spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to seize the Iberian
city o f Ardanoutzin, as also described in the D e Administrando Imperio, a plausible story was
concocted to save face.86 O f course, it m ight simply be argued that Byzantium was offering
aid to Khazaria follow ing its difficulties throughout the 830s. H owever, this seems unlikely.
As w e shall see, Khazaria and Byzantium enjoyed hostile relations throughout the w h ole o f
the early ninth century, and i f the region really was overrun by ‘prim itive tribes that were very
fierce and savage’ then it is improbable that Petronas could have ‘made some ovens and baked
bricks in them ’ and spent time creating ‘m ortar out o f tiny shells from the river’ . M oreover,
w e are also inform ed by the De Administrando Imperio that soon afterwards Byzantine control
over Cherson was tightened w ith the installation o f a m ilitary governor and, presumably,
reinforcem ent by m ore troops. It seems m ore plausible then, that the Byzantines launched
an expedition to capture the already-established fortress at Sarkel in order to protect their
Crim ean and mainland possessions from M agyar —and R u s ’ - raids. I f the notice is fabricated
then the dating o f the expedition is uncertain but is most likely to have occurred in the late
830s or early 840s.87
The final contributory factor for Khazar instability in the 830s is a neglected notice from
a problematic A rm enian source. T he source describes how in the year 838—839 ‘a locust
came from the direction o f the Khazars, an extraordinary thing larger than a sparrow, and
it devoured part o f the land o f A lbania’ .88 Despite G o lden ’s insistence that there w ere no
‘existential threats’ to the position o f the Khagan in the 830s, ifw e add together a destabilising
Hungarian invasion, Byzantine raids north o f the B lack Sea, and a devastating famine in the
most productive Khazar lands (between the D o n and the Volga north o f the Caucasus) then
a significant cumulative case begins to appear for catastrophe in the Khazar realms.89 The
state had lost its form er prosperity and this had dire consequences for the position o f the
Khagan.

The Khagan’s Loss o f Prestige

A l-M a s‘udi provides an extended notice on the relationship o f the Khagan w ith Khazaria:

W h en the land o f the Khazars suffers from drought or a m isfortune befalls their cou n try o r they
face a w a r against other nations or som e other matter com es u pon them , the com m on folk and
the people o f distinction rush to the k in g o f the Khazars and say to him “ w e have seen a bad
om en in this X aq an and in his reign, w e foresee (no good) from him . K ill him o r hand him
over to us so that w e m ay kill h im ” . Som etim es, he hands him over to them and they kill him.

86 “ Later, w hen the Khazars had partially recovered from the crisis o f the late 830s and good relations between
Constantinople and A til were restored, a story was manufactured — convenient for both sides — o f a request for
friendly help” . See W hittow, The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, pp. 234—235. For Adanoutzin, see De Administrando
Imperio, c. 46, pp. 2 15 —224.
87D e Administrando Imperio, c. 42, pp. 183, 185.
88 M ovses Dasxuranci, The History of the Caucasian Albanians, trans. C. J. F. Dowsett (London, 1961),
pp. 2 17 —2 18 . For an idea o f some o f the problems w ith this source see Shapiro, “ Arm enian and Georgian Sources
on the Khazars” , pp. 3 I I —3I2.
89 For agricultural production in Khazaria see Noonan, “ Som e Observations on the Econom y o f the Khazar
Khaganate” , pp. 207—244.
5 i6 J. T. Olsson

Som etim es, he takes (the task) o f killing him upon him self. Som etim es, he shows him mercy,
defends him (saying) he is free o f offense, he justifies him (saying) there is no crim e w h ic h he
has com m itted. T h is is the custom ary practice o f the Khazars at this tim e. I have no know ledge
w h eth er this was the case in olden times o r i f it is an innovation.90

A similar account o f the spiritual link between the prosperity o f the Khazars and the health
o f the Khagan is found in a report by Ibn Fadlan. H ere it is claimed that Khagan is killed
after he has reigned for forty years because, according to his subjects: ‘This m an’s reason
has failed, and his m ind has becom e confused’ .91 Weakness in the Khagan meant weakness
in the Khaganate and vice versa. Faced w ith invasion and famine, it seems plausible to
suggest that the anger o f the Khazars fell on their Khagan in the 830s —perhaps leading to
his deposition but almost most certainly to his marginalisation and the creation o f a pow er
vacuum —leaving Bulan w ith the opportunity to launch a coup d’etat.
O f course, al-M as‘udI was unsure w hether this was an innovation or a long-standing
tradition and thus w e must be careful not to back-project this tenth-century account to
the 830s. H owever, it has been convincingly argued that the Khazar K hagan’s investiture
cerem ony reported by Islamic geographers in the tenth century was a direct continuation
o f Turkic royal rituals reported over three hundred years before in Chinese chronicles. Part
o f this cerem ony involved choking the Khagan w ith a silk scarf until he was close to death
and then asking him to name the length o f his rule. This again suggests the existence o f a
symbiotic relationship between the life o f the Khagan and the fortunes o f Khazaria. The
strangulation ritual gave the Khagan access to the spirit w orld so he could discover — and
inform his courtiers o f - the divinely-ordained length o f his rule. R e ig n in g beyond this
period w ould bring disaster to the realm. Despite the slight contradiction between the
sources on the length o f the Khagan’s rule their w ider im plication is clear: the Khagan was
the ultimate source for Khazaria’s fortunes — and misfortunes. It is impossible to establish
i f the notion o f Khaganal culpability for Khazar catastrophes was as fully-developed in the
ninth century as it w ould becom e in the tenth, but it seems likely that the prestige o f the
Khagan was so underm ined in the 830s that a powerful m ilitary leader could make a bid for
pow er.92
92

Preliminary Conclusions on the Rise of Bulan

N o w that this investigation has assessed the credibility o f the picture o f B u lan ’s early career
that emerges from our sources w e are in a position to present an overview o f our initial
conclusions. M uch o f w hat follows is conjectural, but it seems the most likely scenario based
on the evidence that w e possess.

90Golden, “ Irano-Turcica” , pp. 168—169.

91 Frye, Ibn Fadlan’sJourney to Russia, p. 77.
92 P. Golden, “ Imperial Ideology and the Sources o f Political U nity Am ongst the Pre-Chinggisid Nomads
o f Western Eurasia” , A E M A , 2 (1982), pp. 37—76. Another reason to suspect that this link existed in the early
eighth-century is because it was possibly one o f the reasons the isad/beg dynasty preserved the Khaganate. See the
discussion below.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 517

In the 830s Bulan was a young Jew ish m ilitary com m ander in com m and o fa largely Jew ish
contingent, probably stationed at one o f the many Khazar cities on the C rim ean Peninsula.93
A t some point in the 830s the Magyars made their m igration into the Pontic Steppes and
began raids on the western Khazar territories. Bulan emerged as a successful general able
to fend o ff these incursions. Indeed, he is most likely the ‘Tarkhan’ o f Ibn Khurradadhbih’s
account. In the late 830s Byzantium may also have campaigned in Khazaria but, more
significantly, a terrible famine struck the heart o f the Khaganate, w eakening the position
o f the Khagan still further. It is also probable that in Khazaria’s m ulti-ethnic confederation,
held together m ainly by the charisma o f the Khagan and self-interest, dissension broke out
in the central territories too.94 Taking advantage o f his grow ing follow ing and diminishing
support for the Khagan, and perhaps frustrated by the paralysis at the heart o f Khazaria,
Bulan took the opportunity to establish him self as the de facto head o f state in a coup d’etat.
This was marked by the m inting o f Jew ish coinage in 837/8 —most likely 838 i f w e trust the
exact dating o f the famine o f 838/9 in M ovses Dasxuranci’s chronicle - and was witnessed
by Sallam the Interpreter before or in 844.95
This scenario however, despite being m ore thoroughly elaborated than previous
investigations, is no different in its essential contours than form er findings.96 Yet, it is
the contention o f this investigation that this was not the culmination o f Jew ish conversion
in Khazaria but simply the start. Indeed, it is not clear by this point that any Khazar had
converted to Judaism at all. As w e shall see, it was not until the late 850s that the ‘official’
Judaisation o f the Khazar state began.

T h e Judaisation o f K hazaria

A bout the events o f the years between ca. 840 and 861 in Khazaria virtually nothing is
known. It seems probable that Bulan remained in pow er and spent the time consolidating
his position. H e is described in the Schechter D ocum ent and the R e p ly o f Joseph as being
the de facto ruler o f the Khazars at the time o f the disputation, and w h ile this is far from
infallible evidence it seems unlikely that he could have founded a dynasty o f Jew ish kings
simply by becom ing the ch ief m ilitary officer o f Khazaria in the 830s.97 Thus, i f the fact
that the Jew ish coinage was only m inted for a single year indicates that not all o f Khazaria’s
inhabitants w elcom ed a Jew ish ruler — as I have argued above — then Bulan had to find a
w ay to legitimise and cem ent his authority. H e eventually decided upon his coronation and
the Judaisation o f Khazaria.

93 For an overview o f the control o f the Khazars over the Crim ean Peninsula see Noonan, “ T h e Khazar-
Byzantine W orld o f the C rim ea in the Early M iddle A ges” , pp. 207—230. Gardlzl, w riting much later but utilising
earlier sources, describes how wealthy men in Khazaria had their own retainers and clients, and so it is possible that
some o f the Jew s w ho fought alongside him were his own troops. Martinez, “ Gardizi on the Turks” , p. 154.
94 For the ethnic diversity o f Khazaria see T. S. N oonan, “ Nom ads and Sedentarists in a M ulti-Ethnic Empire:
T h e R o le o f the Khazars in the Khazar Khaganate” , A E M A , 15 (2006—2007), pp. 107—124.
95 T he terminus ante quem for the beginning o f Sallam’s mission. See Zadeh, Mapping Frontiers Across Medieval
Islam, p. 7 I.
96 See, for example, Kovalev, “ Creating Khazar Identity Through C oins” , p. 233, w hich accepts that Bulan
may very well have been the isad/beg w ho took power in the 837/8.
97 For Bulan leading the disputation see Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents, pp. 109—13 and Kobler,
Letters of Jews Through the Ages, pp. 109—i i i .
5i 8 J. T. Olsson

The Fallacy of Conversion Only After 861

Zuckerm an has argued that the conversion o f the Khagan —and thus the ‘official’ conversion
o f Khazaria —did not take place until after the disputation o f 861. His conclusions are based
upon the letter from the Khagan to the Byzantine Em peror, supposedly preserved within the
Vita Constantinii, w h ich describes how, due to the ‘love and friendship’ between Khazaria
and Byzantium , the Khagan requested the dispatch o f a missionary to make the case for
Christianity before deciding upon a religion to replace paganism.98 There are, however, a
num ber o f reasons w h y w e should reject this part o f the V ita Constantinii.
First, and perhaps most obviously, w e can return to the issue that the Vita is not a historical
source. T h e disciples o f M ethodius w h o com posed the account were looking for both an
exciting and hagiographically-appropriate framing narrative for the theological disputation,
and the self-sacrificing Constantine m aking the perilous jo u rn ey to the court o f a barbarian
ruler in order to secure his conversion, served ju st this purpose. Thus, the notice cannot be
accepted until it finds corroboration elsewhere.
Second, evidence derived from both the Vita Constantinii itself and more generally on
Byzantine-Khazar relations in the early ninth century offers a very different picture to the one
o f ‘love and friendship’ in the report o f the letter. For example, the V ita depicts Constantine
deterring a Khazar attack on a ‘Christian city’ near C herson.99 W hile this may simply be
part o f the hagiographic effort to bolster the m issionary’s ‘saintly’ reputation by endowing
him w ith near-miraculous powers, it is still noteworthy that the account’s composers found
no paradox between a jo u rn ey to convert the Khazar Khagan and a Khazar general attacking
a Christian city. The city saved by Constantine was almost certainly one o f the Byzantine
towns o f the province o f Gothia w h ich had been, as the Life o f Joh n , Bishop o f Doros,
makes clear, a source o f conflict between the two states since the late eighth century.100
The V ita also adds that one o f the m ajor achievements o f the mission was the release o f
200 Byzantine prisoners-of-war. This is hardly suggestive o f amicable relations between
Khazaria and Byzantium . M oreover, as it has been argued above, it is entirely plausible that
the Byzantines made a failed bid to capture Sarkel in the late 830s. We must dismiss as a total
fabrication, therefore, the notion that the Khazars were patiently waiting for the arrival o f
their Byzantine allies before deciding upon their future religious affiliation.
Finally, another Byzantine source, the Life o f M ethodius, gives a very different reason
for the Byzantine mission. H ere it records that Constantine and M ethodius w ere dispatched
to Khazaria ‘because Jew s were there w h o were blaspheming the Christian faith beyond
measure’.101 Similarly to the saint’s earlier mission to the Caliphate then, Constantine was
sent to debate against those w h o were already firm in their convictions, not w ith any realistic
hope o f capturing Khazaria for Christianity.102

98 Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives, pp. 4 1, 43.

99 Ibid, pp. 43, 45.
100 Howard-Johnston, “ Byzantine Sources for Khazar H istory” , pp. I6 9 —I70.
101 Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives, p. 109.
102 Ibid, pp. 35—4 1. It has been argued elsewhere that the Byzantine mission o f 861 was prim arily diplomatic,
w ith Byzantium looking to secure peace and perhaps an alliance against common enemies, w ith the religious mission
being a secondary consideration at best. See, for example, Nikolov, “ T h e M agyar connection or Constantine and
M ethodius in the steppes” , pp. 79—92.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 519

W hat had the Khazars done to be accused ofgross blasphemy in the eyes o fth e Byzantine
Church? T h e available evidence w ould suggest that Bulan had enacted the first stage o f his
three-part plan to achieve the ‘official’ conversion ofK h azaria. First, a Jew ish monarchy was
established and the Khaganal dynasty was converted to Judaism. Second, the disputation o f
861 was deliberately rigged to achieve a public success for the new king and his religion.
Third, the position ofJudaism w ithin Khazaria was strengthened.

The First Stage o f Judaisation: The Coronation o f Bulan and the Conversion of the Khagan

It seems likely that the conversion o fth e Khaganal dynasty to Judaism took place soon before
861, and that it was accom panied by the establishment o f the hereditary office o f the Khazar
kings. This chronology is, o f course, directly contradicted by the Schechter D ocum ent,
w h ich describes how it was only after the disputation that the ‘m en o f the land’ appointed
the Khagan as ju d g e and B ulan as king.103 H owever, w hile the Schechter D ocu m ent in
general is a trustworthy source, it seems to have condensed the com plex events o f the 850s
and 860s into an easy-to-digest chronology. T he main problem w ith its scenario is that it
describes how the Byzantine Em peror and the ‘Abbasid Caliph sent messengers w ith ‘words
o f scorn against Israel’ , supposedly because Bulan had adopted a m ore orthodox form o f
Judaism .104 H owever, it makes little sense that Byzantium or the Caliphate w ould know or
care about the religious beliefs o f the Khazar ‘ch ief officer o f the arm y’ .
The R e p ly o f Joseph is equally unreliable on this point because it has a vested interest in
associating the Khagan w ith Judaism from as early a time as possible.105 H owever, here it
is reported that both B ulan becam e king and the Khagan converted to Judaism before the
disputation.106 Kovalev, as w e have noted, thinks that this happened in 838/9 but as w e have
already argued there is both no evidence for this, and the fact that the ‘M oses’ coins were
m inted only in one year suggests that B u lan ’s initially vigorous assertion ofJud aism needed
to be rethought, probably in light o f internal opposition from ethnic Khazars. It may be that
Judah H alevi was simply a m ore politically astute author than the composers o f the other
narratives, or he may have possessed a no longer extant source, but his description o f the
conversion process is the most plausible: ‘they [the king and his vizier] kept their conversion
secret, however, until they found an opportunity o f disclosing the fact gradually to a few
o f their special friends. W hen the num ber had increased, they made the affair public, and
induced the rest o f the Khazars to embrace the Jew ish faith’ .107 It almost certainly took Bulan
time to consolidate his hold over the Khazar state then, and it seems most plausible that it was
the elevation o f him self to the status o f Jew ish m onarch —and the consequent conversion o f
the Khagan —w h ich provoked the hostility o f Byzantium and the ‘Abbasid Caliphate shortly
before 861, as reported in the Life o fM eth od iu s and the Schechter D ocum ent.
Tentative evidence for this process comes from the admittedly problematic Vita
Constantinii. First, there is a hint that the notion o f a Jew ish m onarchy was a topical
subject in Khazaria in 861:

103 Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents, pp. i i i , 1 13 .

104 Ibid, p. 109.
105 See below.
106 Kobler, Letters of Jews Through the Ages, pp. 108—109.
107 Judah Halevi, Book of Kuzari, p. 72.
520 J. T. Olsson

H avin g boarded a ship, Constantine set out fo r the land o f the Khazars by w ay o f the M eotis Sea
and the Caspian Gates o f the Caucasus M ountains. T h e Khazars sent a cunning and resourceful
m an to m eet him , w h o entered into conversation w ith him and said to him : “ W h y do you fo llo w
the evil custom o f replacing one em peror w ith another o f a different lineage? W e do this only
according to lineage” .

T h e philosopher said to him : “ Y et in place o f Saul, w h o did nothin g to please H im , G o d chose

D avid, w h o was pleasing to H im , and D avid ’s lineage” . 108

Second, there are also strong suggestions that the Khagan and the Khazar court, as
described by the Vita Constantinii, had already been Judaised. Thus, for example, w h en C o n ­
stantine offered a toast in the name o f the Trinity, the Khagan replied ‘We say the same but
maintain the follow ing difference: you glorify the Trinity, w hile we, having obtained Scrip­
tures, O ne G o d ’ . M oreover, there were a num ber o f Jew s in the entourage o f the Khagan.109
It seems significant that the first debate Constantine had w ith an official representative o f
the Khazar governm ent was over dynastic rule. W hether raised first by the missionary or the
envoy, it was clearly a matter o f some contention, and the fact that Constantine answered
in terms o f O ld Testament models m ight indicate that the Khazar representative had first
used the example o f the Davidic m onarchy to support his ow n arguments for succession
w ithin a lineage. M oreover, w hile Pritsak has argued that the Khazarian episode in the Vita
is an eighth-century anachronism, there could hardly be a clearer indication o f the K hagan’s
conversion than his response to Constantine’s toast. T h e question w h ich arises, o f course, is
w hether w e can trust these reports. It is impossible to conclusively prove their veracity, but
the fact that the account’s report o f a letter to the Byzantines w h ich portrays the Khazars
as both pagans and allies is clearly a fabricated interpolation, and w h ich stands in direct
contrast to the V ita’s later description o f a Judaised Khagan, suggests that this latter part o f
the narrative was probably drawn from Constantine’s ow n writings, or at least M ethodius’
transmission o f them.
Overall then, the balance o f evidence w ould suggest that it was shortly before 86 i that
Bulan im plem ented the first step in a program m e designed to establish his lineage as the
Jew ish kings o f Khazaria. This involved both his coronation as m onarch and the foundation
o f a hereditary dynasty and the transformation o f the K hagan’s office into that o f a Jew ish
ju d g e.110

The Second Stage o f Judaisation: The Disputation o f 861

W hether B ulan conceived the disputation o f 86 i as part o f a sophisticated strategy to bolster

his ow n authority, or w hether he simply capitalised on the arrival o fth e Byzantine missionary
delegation, it appears that he used the debate to help cement the Judaisation o f Khazaria.
The disputation o f 86 i was stage-managed by the Khazar court, and the inevitable triumph
o f Judaism was used to bolster the prestige o f the new Jew ish political structures created by
Bulan.

108Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives, p. 45.

109Ibid, p. 47.
110 Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents, pp. i i i , 1 1 3 and fn. 74 above.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 521

Evidence for B u lan ’s manipulation o f proceedings abound. In the R e p ly o f Joseph it is

described how, because o f the king’s fame, envoys arrived from the lands o f Byzantium and
the Caliphate, each accom panied by wise m en to invite him to their respective religion.
A Jew ish sage was sum m oned and the three ‘refuted the arguments o f the other, w ithout
agreeing on one poin t’ . A t this juncture the king suspended proceedings and spent the next
two days sounding out the opinions o f the Christian and M uslim envoys on Judaism. O n the
third day, he resumed the disputation in the presence o f ‘all his barons and his people’ and
asked the Christian and M uslim representatives to choose between the religion o f their rival
and Judaism. T h ey both declared that Judaism was the superior religion. Then, the K ing
declared: ‘Y ou have now confessed w ith your ow n m outh that the Israelitish religion is the
best and the truest. I have chosen it, as it is the religion o f Abraham ’ .111
It m ight be expected that w e should im m ediately dismiss this evidence. T h e K in g ’s
sounding-out o f the representatives, w hile a slightly ignoble activity that seems out o f place
in a conversion narrative, serves the narrative function o fallo w in g the Christian and M uslim
envoys to explain, in detail, w h y Judaism was the superior religion. This is precisely what
was required in an ‘official’ conversion narrative, as it reinforced the prestige and legitim acy
o f the tenth-century Jew ish elite.
However, a similar impression o f events is given in the Schechter Docum ent. H ere it
is described how the ‘words o f scorn’ from the Byzantine and Arab envoys ‘influenced
the hearts o f the officers adversely’ . In response Bulan convened a disputation o f M uslim s,
Christians, and Jew s. In this scenario the M uslim s and Christians accepted the veracity o f
Jew ish claims ‘but there also occurred a disagreement between them ’. A t this point, the
‘officers o f Khazaria’ intervened, and had the ‘books o f the Torah o f M oses’ brought to the
disputation. A fter the Jew ish sages explained the books the people o f Khazaria embraced
Judaism .112
A gain it m ight be argued that the agenda in this narrative is too pronounced for the
evidence to be considered authentic. T h e fact that the Jew ish position triumphs after the
Torah o f M oses is brought from a certain cave to the disputation m ay w ell be designed to
bolster the case for conversion not being a radical departure from paganism, but a ‘return’
to Khazaria’s lost Jew ish past.113 H owever, could there not be a kernel o f historical truth,
present in both the R e p ly ofJoseph and the Schechter D ocum ent, in the idea that the central
authorities ensured the victory ofJudaism ? A fter all it is probable that a few years before the
disputation a Jew ish kingship had been established and the Khaganal dynasty converted. It
seems beyond the boundaries o f possibility that a Christian m issionary could have received
a fair hearing in this environment.
In the Islamic w orld w here disputations at a ruler’s majlis were popular and formalised, it
was possible for some writers to talk o f ‘terror sessions’ w here a disputant was summ oned
to a debate that had been rigged against him from the outset. A subcategory o f these ‘terror
sessions’ were the ‘sessions o f high officials’ and, according to one Islamic scholar, ‘One
should also beware o f discussing theology in the “ sessions o f high officials” , w here the

111 Kobler, Letters of Jews Through the Ages, pp. 1 1 0 —i i i .

112 Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents, pp. 109, i i i .
113 D. DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion, pp. 305—307.
522 J. T. Olsson

participants seek to be diverted by w hat they hear, and do not grant the two opponents
equal sympathy or equal opportunity to be heard. Participation in such a session is either
folly and subjection to humiliation or an incentive to anger and a source o f depression’ .114
O f course, w e are not in a position to prove that Constantine was subjected to the Khazar
equivalent o f a ‘terror session’ . The nature o f our ‘disputation accounts’ w ould naturally
om it any hint o f coercion. Constantine, as a saintly missionary, was under an obligation to
describe his encounter as a success, w hile the two Khazar accounts, despite allowing for
B u lan ’s superior intellect to trium ph over the representatives o f Christianity and Islam, were
hardly going to admit to the envoys enjoying anything other than courteous treatment.115
Yet, w hile the Khazar sources are not forthcom ing, tactics ofintim idation and humiliation
were com m on strategies employed by the people o f the steppe against sedentary envoys. In
a couple o f highly stimulating articles Jam es M ontgom ery has explored the idea that some
o f the disturbing practices recorded in Ibn Fadlan’s account o f the Caliphal embassy to the
Volga Bulgars in 922, were deliberately designed to scare him. Thus, for example, after
m aking excuses for the absence o f 4,000 dinars prom ised to the Bulgar ruler, Ibn Fadlan was
told the story o f a man from Sind w h o was executed by the Bulgars for being too clever.116
M ontgom ery has also suggested that Ibn Fadlan’s famous description o f a V ikin g burial,
w h ich contains a scene in w h ich a slave girl is gang-raped and ritually murdered, m ight
have been the product o f R u s ’ psychological warfare against the M uslim delegation, possibly
because ‘they may not have taken too kindly to the prospect o f a M uslim satellite kingdom
in Volga B ulgaria’ .117 We may also note that some centuries later threats and humiliations
were often inflicted by the M ongols on participants in religious disputations. Indeed, Peter
Jackson has remarked that ‘ . . . w e cannot discount the possibility that one purpose [o f the
disputations] was entertainment —that the public religious disputation, in other words, was
the intellectual counterpart o f the bloody gladiatorial conflicts the M ongols staged between
captured enemy soldiers’.118
A ccepting that, at the very least, the disputation could have been rigged against
Constantine m ight also help to make sense ofso m e ambiguities w ithin the Vita Constantinii.
For example, it presents a virtually unrecognisable picture o f pow er relations in Khazaria to
the extent that Pritsak thought it was actually based upon an eighth-century source. Thus,
the Khagan is presented as the sole arbiter o f authority w hile Bulan, i f he is indeed the figure
o f ‘first counsellor’ , is made to attack the Jew ish position.119 H owever, there is one passage
w h ich m ight shed light on this problem:

114 S. Stroumsa, “ Ibn al-R aw andi’s su’ adab al-mujadala: the R o le o fB a d M anners in M edieval Disputations” ,
in The Majlis; Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam, (eds.) H . Lazarus-Yafeh et al., Studies in Arabic Language
and Literature 4 (Wiesbaden, 1999), pp. 60—76.
115 It is clear from the example o f W illiam o f R u b ru ck —w ho w rote an upbeat account o f what had been an
extremely hostile reception at the court o f Batu Qan — that Christian missionaries — and their disciples — had an
obligation to record their disputations as successes. See Kedar, “ T h e Multilateral Disputation at the C ourt o f the
Grand Qan M ongke, 1254 , pp. 162—183.
116 J. E. M ontgom ery, “ Travelling Autopsies: Ibn Fadlan and the Bulghar” , Middle Eastern Literatures, 7 / 1
(2004), pp. 3—32.
117 M ontgom ery, “ Pyrrhic Scepticism and the Conquest o f D isorder” , pp. 43—89.
118 P. Jackson, “ T h e M ongols and the Faith o f the Conquered” , in Mongols, Turks and Others, (eds.) R . Amitai
and M . Biran (Leiden, 2005), p. 254.
119 Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives, p. 61.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 523

A n d pointin g his fin ger at the K hagan and his first counsellor, the Philosopher said: “ Ifso m eo n e
says: ‘T h e first counsellor cannot entertain the K h a gan ’ , but furtherm ore says: ‘T h e latter’s lowest
slave can entertain the K hagan and render h o n o u r unto h im ’ , w h at are w e to call him , tell me,
insane o r sensible?” 120

Constantine simply used the first counsellor’s relationship w ith the Khagan as a metaphor
to shed greater light on a theological problem, but his choice specifically to utilise the
first counsellor in the exam ple —and im plicitly compare him to the lowest o f slaves — may
perhaps suggest that the saint was not on the best o f terms w ith him. It is possible that out
o f resentment at his unfair treatment in the disputation as rigged by Bulan, he decided to
relegate the Jew ish king to an inferior position behind the Khagan and, furtherm ore, to
m aliciously portray him denouncing Judaism.
Constantine’s arguments at the disputation o f 86 i , then, were doom ed to failure from
the outset. H eld in front o f the Khazar elite, they w ere most likely used as an opportunity
to publicly underm ine Christianity — and possibly Islam - and display the superiority o f
Khazaria’s new religion. T h e very fact that the disputation scene is a central part o f both o f
the Khazar conversion narratives highlights the ideological advantages for the new Jew ish
regim e w h ich could be derived from such a public triumph. T h e doubts expressed by
the ‘Khazar officers’ , as described in the Schechter D ocum ent, could be put to rest in an
emphatic validation o f Khazaria’s Judaisation.

The Third Stage o f Judaisation: Reinforcing the Position ofJudaism

A fter the establishment o f the Jew ish kingship, and its ideological reinforcem ent follow ing
the disputation, it is probable that B ulan m oved on to the final stage o f Khazar Judaisation.
This final stage is, however, extrem ely conjectural as, w ith the exception o f the R e p ly o f
Joseph and the Schechter D ocum ent, w e have absolutely no direct evidence for affairs in
Khazaria from 86 i to the early tenth century.
A ccording to the R e p ly ofJoseph, follow ing the disputation the Khazars were circumcised
and began to observe the laws o f the Torah. Later, a certain Obadiah ‘invigorated the
kingdom and established religion. H e built temples and house o f study, gathered many
learned Israelites, and gave them m uch silver and gold. T h ey interpreted for him the Bible,
the M ishnah and Talmud and the w h ole prayer b o o k ’ .121 In the Schechter D ocu m ent it is
described how ‘the Jew s began to com e from Baghdad and from Khorasan, and from the
land o f Greece, and they strengthened the m en o f the land, so that (the latter) held fast to
the covenant o f the “ Father o f a M ultitude” ’ .122
This is exceedingly fanciful. As Zuckerm an has pointed out, Obadiah is a later
interpolation and w h ile perhaps another king undertook the reforms credited to him , it
seems m ore likely that this description was added by the Spanish Jew s w h o transmitted the
Schechter D ocum ent and w h o must have thought that the initial conversion o f the Khazars
was not ‘Jew ish ’ enough. M oreover, it is clear from tenth-century Islamic sources that not
all o f the Khazars becam e Jew ish and, in fact, the Khaganate allowed its inhabitants to com e

120Ibid, p. 47.
121 Kobler, Letters of Jews Through the Ages, p. i i i .
122 Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents, p. i i i .
524 J. T. Olsson

under the jurisdiction o f Christian, Islamic, Pagan and Jew ish courts depending on their
beliefs.123
N onetheless, a few sources o f evidence m ight suggest increasing Judaisation after 86 i .

First, w e have Christian o f Stavelot’s notice w h ich indicates that around 864 he had got w in d
o f religious change in Khazaria. This could refer to the creation o f the Jew ish monarchy
and the conversion o f the Khagan before 861, or it m ight equally refer to a m ore emphatic
assertion ofJu d aism follow ing the disputation. Second, in an admittedly ambiguous report
on the Khazars, probably dating to the early years o f the tenth century, Ibn al-Faqlh states
that ‘all o f the Khazars are Jew s. B ut, they have been Judaised recently’ .124 His report could
possibly reflect an earlier one that captured the ‘official’ conversion o f the Khaganate. Third,
and w ith slightly m ore credibility, w hile in ca. 864 Archbishop Antonios was converting Jew s
in the Khazar city o f B osporos/Kerch, in the early 920s Patriarch N icholas M ysticus was
corresponding w ith the Bishop o f Cherson in an effort to extend Byzantium ’s ecclesiastical
reach into Khazaria.125 It is clear that the Byzantine C h u rch ’s position in Khazaria had
been lost in the intervening years and w h en w e com bine this w ith N icholas’ hope that
the salvation o f the Khazars ‘may finally be re-established’ , it is clear that by the early
tenth century the Byzantine ecclesiastical presence north o f the B lack Sea had contracted
to an isolated outpost, and was not operating in Khazar cities as it had in the time o f
A ntonios.126
W hile it is highly unlikely that Khazaria ever attempted a systematic programm e o f
Judaisation - except perhaps at the highest levels o f the state - it w ould make a great deal
o f sense for the establishment o f a Jew ish m onarchy to have been accom panied by the
curtailing o f external religious influence. Bulan w ould not have m inded that some o f his
subjects were Christian, but he w ould have balked at them offering prayers for the health
o f the Byzantine emperor.127 Similarly, official Islamic missions from the ‘Abbasid Caliphate
seemed to involve recognition, on the part o f the convert, o f subordination to the Caliph
in Baghdad.128 A ccepting the political or religious claims o f foreign rulers over portions o f
Khazaria’s inhabitants w ould have underm ined B u lan ’s attempts to create a strong Jew ish
monarchy.
O n the balance o f the available evidence then, it w ould appear that shortly after 864 Bulan
had taken the project to Judaise Khazaria as far as he intended. A Jew ish m onarchy had been
established, unconvinced aristocrats had been brought onside by the public demonstration
o f Judaism ’s theological superiority, and the destabilising influence o f Byzantium and the
Caliphate’s religious activities had been restricted. It was only then that the long and difficult

123 Dunlop, The History o f the Jewish Khazars, p. 93; Golden, “ T he Conversion o f the Khazars to Jud aism ” ,
p. 145.
124 Golden, “ T h e Conversion o f the Khazars toJudaism ” , p. 142.
125 Howard-Johnston, “ Byzantine Sources for Khazar H istory” , pp. 170—1 7 1.
126 See W hite, Patriarch Photios o f Constantinople, Letter 42 and Letters of Nicholas I, Patriarch of Constantiniople,
Letters 68 and 102. A Byzantine list o f bishoprics loosely dated to the eighth or ninth-centuries contains an
ecclesiastical province roughly coterminous w ith Khazaria, but this probably dates to before the mid ninth-century.
Howard-Johnston, “ Byzantine Sources for Khazar H istory” , pp. i 7 i —i7 2.
127 Byzantine religious interference in Alania may have sparked the Byzantine-Khazar conflicts described in
the Schechter Docum ent. See Golb and Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents, p. 136.
128 Frye, Ibn Fadlan’sJourney to Russia, p. 46.
 Coup d ’etat, Coronation and Conversion 525

process w h ich had begun in the 830s w ith a coup d’etat, continued in the 850s w ith a
coronation, and was com pleted — at least in this incarnation —in the 860s w ith the official
conversion o f Khazaria, came to an end.

Final R eflections on the K h azar Conversion: T h e U tility o f the K hagan

M u ch o f w hat has been argued above is simply a m odification o f w hat has com e before, an
attempt to fill in the blanks and to lend slightly m ore substance to the conjectural arguments
w hich, due to the nature o f our source material, are inevitable in Khazar historiography.
T hrough a comprehensive analysis o f the evidence that w e have described —and, it is hoped,
proved plausible — the seizure o f pow er by Bulan in the 830s due to the loss o f faith in
the divine-favour o f the Khagan, his consolidation o f pow er through the 840s and 850s
until his coronation as a Jew ish m onarch and the conversion o f the Khagan, and, finally,
the bolstering o f this new office though the victory o fJu d aism at the disputation o f 861
and the subsequent curtailing o f foreign religious influence. This scenario seems possible
both in terms o f extant evidence and in light o f the difficulties faced in other cases o f early
m edieval steppe conversion. W h en w e speak o f the conversion o f the Khazars, however,
w e should rem em ber that it was not a ‘mass conversion’ as described for other conversions,
but a Judaisation o f the Khazar elite designed to establish and reinforce a new Jew ish
leadership.
W ith this consideration in mind, w e can pose one o f the questions raised by the scenario
proposed above: i f Bulan was responsible for a coup d’etat that eventually led to the
establishment o f a Jew ish monarchy, w h y did he and his successors retain the institution
o f the Khaganate?
In simple terms it seems that retention o f the Khaganate was both necessary and
convenient. Despite the nom inal conversion o f the Khagan to Judaism, it is clear from
the tenth-century M uslim accounts that the Khaganal office preserved, and had probably
developed to an even greater extent, its traditional Turkic sacral and ritual elements. The
Khagan was com pletely sacralised and tabooised, and he preserved an intimate spiritual bond
w ith the fortunes o f Khazaria. In a state whose inhabitants were still m ostly adherents
to the Tengri cult, the Jew ish m onarchy had no choice but to keep this unifying
institution.129 Thus, according to al- M as’udl, even though the Khagan possessed no
temporal authority, ‘the sovereignty o f the Khazars is not secured by their K in g save by
the Khagan being w ith him in the capital and his castle’ .130 This is also w h y the R e p ly
o f Joseph recounts how the Khagan was also visited by the angel that had com e to Bulan
and was thus converted very soon afterwards; the Khaganal office needed to be tied to
the ‘Jew ish project’ as tightly as possible, because otherwise the Khagan could offer a
dangerous source o f autonom ous —traditional Turkic —political and religious authority. B y
accepting Judaism however, the Khagans acknowledged the political supremacy o fth e Jew ish
monarchy.

129 Golden, “ Irano-Turcica: T h e Khazar Sacral Kingship R evisited” , pp. 1 6 1 —189 and Golden, “ Imperial
Ideology and the Sources o f Political U nity Am ongst the Pre-Chinggisid Nom ads ofW estern Eurasia” , pp. 37—76.
130 Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars, pp. 207—208.
526 J. T. Olsson

This arrangement, however, was not inconvenient for the Jew ish kings. B u lan ’s successors
suffered a variety o f m ilitary defeats and rebellions, yet by preserving the Khaganate they
could insulate the Jew ish m onarchy from loss o f prestige and authority. D ecline in Khazaria’s
fortunes could be blamed squarely on the shoulders ofth e Khagan, and discontented elements
could be appeased through his deposition or execution. This political m odel w ould have
protected the Jew ish monarchs from the very set o f circumstances w h ich had allowed them
to usurp the K hagan’s authority in the first place. jto25@ herm es.cam .ac.uk
J. T. O lsso n