The Conversion of the Khazars: a preliminary critical evaluation of the

account of Yehudah Ha Levi in the Kitab al Khazari

By A. G. Newstead

The episode of the conversion of the Khazars, a Turkish people from the Volga-
Caucasus region, between the 7th and 10th centuries CE, might have been quietly
forgotten were it not for the account given by medieval Spanish Jewish physician,
poet, and philosopher Yehudah Ha Levi (c.1075 CE-1141 CE) in his book Kitab al
Khazari. The book, originally written in Arabic, was translated shortly after its
composition into Hebrew by Judah ben Tibbon, who called it the Sefer Ha Kuzari. In
the hands of Ha Levi, the conversion of the King Bulan to Judaism became a vehicle
for vindicating traditional rabbinic Judaism in the face of contemporary competing
religious movements, both within Judaism (e.g. Karaism) and without (e.g.
Aristotelianism as conceived by Muslim writers). Although such an episode might
seem too convenient to Ha Levi s ideological purposes to be anything other than a
pleasant fiction, there is abundant documentary evidence that such a religious
disputation did in fact take place during the 10th century. Analysis of these
documents puts the date of the central events much later than Ha Levi s suggested
date of 740 CE. The documentary evidence further suggests that rabbinic Judaism
appeared in Khazaria some two hundred years after the Khazars initial acceptance
of Judaism under the leadership of Bulan, and that even at its height, Judaism never
fully encompassed Khazar society. The documents also challenge Ha-Levi s
interpretation of the significance of the Khazar s conversion, by offering political,
geographical and economic reasons for conversion rather than (or in addition) to the
inherent attractiveness of the Jewish faith. By juxtaposing the account of Ha Levi and
the external documentary evidence, we can gain a more accurate idea of the
polemical aims of Ha Levi s work. It will be left to the reader to decide whether the
presence of non-religious motives in the Khazar s conversion undermines Ha Levi s
claims about the significance of the conversion event.

What can be inferred about Ha Levi s aims from the text of the Kuzari itself? How
does this perspective influence his portrayal of the Khazars conversion? Once we
have answered these two questions we will be in a position to answer a third and a
fourth question: How and why does Ha-Levi s account differ from that given in the
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documents? Is the ideological perspective attributed to Ha Levi on the basis of

internal evidence (the text of the Kuzari) consonant with that derived from external
evidence (the documents)? Our method, then, shall be to procede from a general
sketch of the purposes of the Sefer ha Kuzari to an analysis of Ha Levi s remarks on
the Khazars. Then, by looking at other documents for evidence of non-religious
motives for conversion, we will see what Ha Levi omits from his account, and see if
this alters our view of his account.

The subtitle of the book the Kuzari , “ ”ook of “rgument and Demonstration in
“id of the Despised Faith , suggests that the book is part of the apologetic genre,
aimed at defending the religion of the Jews against its opponents. In the opening of
Book I of the Kuzari, the rabbi says I was asked to state what arguments and replies
I could bring to bear against the attacks of philosophers and followers of other
religions and also against those who attacked the rest of Israel I . “s the remark
suggests, the rabbi felt that traditional (rabbinic) Judaism was threatened from
without and from within. From within, classical rabbinic Judaism was threatened by
the rise of the Karaites, a sect which rejected the divine origin of oral law and
engaged in speculative and often highly analogical readings of the Tanakh. Book III
of the Kuzari is directed at Karaism in part and takes the orthodox rabbinical line
that the laws of the Talmud are divine laws revealed by God and therefore not to be
tampered with by constructivist interpretations. From without, classical Judaism was
challenged by orthodox Christianity, Islam, and the Aristotelian philosophy as
interpreted by muslims. In Book II, there are some indirect attacks on Christianity
and Islam. The Christian doctrine of the trinity is said to undermine the unity of
God, a key Jewish belief. Ha Levi argues that the Jews preserve the principle of the
unity of God and do not take anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the
Pentateuch literally, as some muslims had alleged. Christian asceticism is opposed to
the goal of drawing near to God, which can be accomplished, Ha Levi urges, by
delighting in his creation. Furthermore, Ha Levi contends that prophecy pertains to
the early inhabitants of Palestine and rejects the notion that the prophet of Islam is a
true prophet. Further criticism of those who worship the wood cross and the
stone the Kaaba are found in ”ook IV, but one cannot expect these criticisms to be
fair or even-handed in a work of religious apologetics.

By far the most significant external threat to Judaism as a religion was the one most
congenial to Jewish thinkers: the rationalist movement in Islamic theology known as
the Kalam (dialectics), which was infused with the teachings of Aristotelian
philosophy, complete with the notion of a disinterested God and the principle that
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the world had existed from all eternity. ”ook I contains Ha Levi s attempt to
neutralize the threat to the Jewish system of belief posed by the teachings of
Aristotelian philosophy. A bit oddly, Ha Levi claims that one may believe that the
world was created by God, and that Adam and Noah were among its first
inhabitants while still also believing in the existence of previous worlds. Moreover,
Ha Levi attempts to persuade readers that if they are true believers (and no one was
openly atheist at the time) then they should accept the superiority of prophecy to
speculative reason. The notion of a God who takes no interest in his creation makes
prophecy improbably, since prophecy is a sign of divine interest in human affairs
(I:62-72). In Book V, Ha Levi rounds out the discussion with a refutation directed
against the mutakallim, the practictioners of kalam. He defends free will and the moral
responsibility of human beings while maintain that God does determine the general
nature of the world. However, for Ha Levi, it is up to human beings to make certain
choices.1

The general orientation of Ha Levi s work is to defend his particular variety of

religious faith against the challenges of sceptical philosophy. However, he does so
by removing faith from the realm of reason and assigning it to a supra-rational
relam, that proceeds by revelation and intuition, rather than reason. Ha Levi seems
to have believed that because faith operates by a hermeneutic logic entirely different
from that used by philosophy, it need not answer philosophical doubts. It is very
much a pre-Enlightenment, non-rationalist work in which reason has only a small
part in forming a system of beliefs.

Ha Levi s ethics is marked by separatism where rationalism would have led him to
formulate principles that there were equally applicable to all. In particular, for Ha
Levi the Jews are a chosen people and especially singled out by their role as (biblical)
prophets:

Those, however, who become Jews do not take equal rank with born
Israelites, who are specially privileged to attain to prophecy, whilst the
former can only achieve something by learning from them, and can only
become pious and learned, but never prophets. (Book I: 115)

Converts to the Jewish religion, in particular, have a secondary status according to

Ha Levi, because they lack the requisite historical connection to the people whom

This accou t of the historical co te t of the Kuzari is largel culled fro Hirschfeld’s i troductio to his
1

translation of the work (see H. Hirschfeld, Kitab al Khazari, New York: Bernard Richards, 1927, pp.7-13).
 4

God chose to be a special object of his concern. The separatism in the ethics
espoused by Ha Levi is particularly apparent in this passage:

The Khazar: If this be so, then your belief is confined to yourselves?

The Rabbi: Yes, but any Gentile who joins us unconditionally shares
our good fortune, without however being quite equal to us. If the
Law were binding on us only because God created us, then the white
and black man would be equal, since He created them all. But the
Law was given to us, because we are the cream of mankind.

The Khazar: I see thee quite altered, O Jew, and thy words are poor
after having been so rich. (Kuzari Book I, Heinemann ed., p.35)

The Khazar understandably expresses his dislike of this view; the unthinking
separatism2 of the times is much apparent in this exchange. Yet Ha Levi mitigates the
blow a little by allowing the Khazar to criticise the views of the rabbi.

II

Ha Levi s few historical remarks about the Khazars conversion are confined
primarily to the preface of Books I and II of the Kuzari. In Book I, a certain kind of
the Khazars, named Bulan, is troubled by his dream in which an angel tells him,
Thy way of thinking is pleasing to God, but not thy way of acting I . Formerly a
zealous practicioner of the Khazar religion, Bulan began to question what his beliefs
should be. He turned to a rabbi with some reluctance only after finding incredible
the explanations he receives from a philosopher, a Christian, and a Muslim. This
happened, Ha Levi says, about four hundred years ago I putting the date of
”ulan s conversion in the first half of the 8th century.

In ”ook II, Ha Levi refers to the history of Khazars and tells how the Khazarian
king and his prime minister travelled to the mountains of Warsan where they
found a cave in which some Jews used to celebrate the Sabbath . There, they were
circumcised and converted. Moreover,

They kept the nature of their conversion secret, however, until they
found an opportunity of disclosing the fact gradually to a few of their

2
It is well to consider that the separatism evident in this text is not to be identified with modern racism; it is a
religious and doctrinal discrimination against non-members of the religion; it is based on the grounds of
religion rather than race. The question of the relation of this separatism to racism is too complex and
controversial to be pursued here.
 5

special friends. When the number had increased, they made the affair
public, and induced the rest of the Khazars to join the Jewish faith.
( Kuzari, II:1).
According to Ha Levi s account, the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism was a
gradual one, radiating outward from the king to his associates, filtering down from
there to the rest of the Khazars II . “s the religion was offered to the Khazar
people the king made sure that the proper institutions were in place for a Jewish
education by hiring rabbis from other lands and building a synagogue. The end
result was a society that honoured and cherished those born Israelites who lived
among them II .

III

Ha Levi gives the impression that at its height, Khazar society was fully Jewish.
Muslim writers from the period, however, paint a more minimal picture of the
influence of Judaism on Khazar society. According to Masudi in his Muruj al-Dhahab
(Meadows of God), (written circa 943-947 CE), Judaism was confined to the Khazar
king, his attendants and the upper classes (Dunlop translation, 1954, p.89). Istrakhi,
the younger contemporary of Masudi, explicitly states that the Jews remained a
minority in the Khazar kingdom:

Their king is a Jew. It is said that his attendants number about 4 men.
The Khazars are Muslims., Christians and Jews and among them are a
number of idolaters. The smallest group is the Jews, most of them being
Muslims and Christians, though the King and his court are Jews. Istrakhi,
translation in Dunlop 1954, p.92)

The Muslim writers agree with Ha Levi on the one point that the Khazar society was
tolerant to the Jews. Masudi and Istrakhi convey the ecumenical spirit of Khazar
society by describing its legal sysem. Co-existing with the Turkish practices is a court
consisting of seven judges appointed by a king, with two representatives each of the
monotheistic faiths, and one pagan representative (Dunlop translation, 1954, p.93).

Ha Levi extols the tolerance towards Jews in Khazaria but does not explain, as many
other earlier document do, that Khazaria was doubtless a place of refuge for Jews
fleeing persecution elsewhere. Located between the Christian Byzantine empire and
the Islamic empire (the Ummayid caliphate in Syria and to a somewhat lesser extent
the later Abassid empire centred on Baghdad), it was in a strategic position to absorb
Jewish refugees from either empire. The author of the Cambridge Document tells of
 6

the persecution in the wicked days of Romanus . He says it happened in the days
of my lord, the king Joseph and thereby reveals perhaps by his deferential reference
to King Joseph, that he is a subject of the king (Schechter 1912, p.217).

Writing in Baghdad at around 929 CE, Saadia Gaon mentions a Jew who emigrated
to Khazaria, presumably to escape the subordination of Jews under Sassanian
empires (Baron 1957, p.201). There is also a letter from a certain leader in Cordoba,
Spain addressed to a royal female figure, which contains a plea for the protection of
Byzantine Jews. It has been suggested that this letter is from Hasdai ibn Shaprut, the
leading statesman and physician under Abd al-Rahman III during the last two
decades of his reign as caliph of Cordoba (c.940-960). The suggested addressee is
Empress Helena (Golb 1983, p.80).

Besides being a haven for Jewish refugees, there were economic and geopolitical
factors that predisposed the Khazars leader to convert to the Jewish religion.
Judaism was the only (western) monotheistic faith whose acceptance did not entail
being subordinate to a bordering empire (Baron 1957, p.198). The author of the
Cambridge Document, says that the conversion of the Khazars was preceded by the
rise of a popular Jewish military general (Schechter, p.213). Finally there were many
Jewish merchants who passed through Khazaria in their travels along the Raddanite
trade route stretching from Spain to China. “n excerpt from Ibn Khurradadhbih s al
Masalik wa’l Mamalik (circa 8-9th century CE) testifies to this fact:

As for their overland itinerary—those that set out from

Spain or the Land of the Franks can cross over to the further
Sus [Berber, southwestern region of Morocco] to Tangier,
and then across to Ifriqiya [Tunisia], Egypt, Ramle,
Damascus, Kufa, Baghdad, Basra, Ahwaz, Far, Kirman,
Sind, India and finally China. Sometimes they take the land
behind the Byzantine empire through the land of the Slavs to the
Khamlij, the capital of the Khazars. Then they cross the Sea of
the Jurjan [the Caspian] toward Balkh and Transoxaia.
From there they continue to Yurt and Tughuzghuzz and
finally to China. [my italics, translated and quoted in
Stillman 1979 , p.164]

He also mentions in his account of the return routes home from China that some
go straight to Constantinople to sell their merchandise to the ”yzantines Stillman
1979, p.163). Together these facts suggest another possible mechanism underlying
 7

the Khazars conversion to Judaism. The increased contact of Khazars with Jews
due to trade was an economic necessity that led to a process of cultural assimilation.

Ha Levi fails to mention at last the economic and political factors relevant to the
conversion of ”ulan and his Khazar followers. The omission suits Ha Levi s
ideological ends perfectly.

Ha Levi conflates the conversion of the Khazar King Bulan with the wider adoption
of rabbinic Judaism. Both the author of the Cambridge Document and Ha Levi refer
to a cave in which the embrace of Judaism by the Khazar king and his vizier took
place. The author of the Cambridge Document locates this cave in the valley of
Tizul, while Ha Levi describes it as being in the mountains of Warsan . They
might be describing the same place. But they cannot be describing the same time.
The author of the Cambridge Document states that until this moment in the cave,
under the reign of Joseph s father “aron, the Khazars were without Torah and
scripture (Schechter, p.213). Ha Levi makes the cave incident synonymous with
with the conversion of the Khazars to rabbinic Judaism and has this episode occur
under the reign of King Bulan. However, if rabbinic Judaism did not emerge until
the reign of Obadiah, as correspondence between King Joseph and Hasdai ibn
Shaprut suggests, then the conversion episode does not illustrate the appeal of
rabbinic Judaism that Ha Levi hopes to demonstrate. The conversion episode would
be good to illustrate the potential appeal of the Jewish religion in general, but not
the Rabbanite version in particular.

Did Ha Levi ignore this fact or was it inaccessible to him? The earliest manuscript
we have of the correspondence between Hasdai and Joseph dates from the 16th
century, which Isaac Akrish found in Cairo and brought back to Constantinople to
publish in his work Kol Mervasser (Golb 1983). Om this basis, the 17th c. German
translator and editor of the Kuzari, Johannes Buxtorf the younger, claimed that the
Hasdai-Joseph correspondence was a 16th century forgery (Dunlop 1954, p.126).
However, in addition to Ha Levi, his contemporaries Abraham Ibn Daud and Judah
ben Barzillai also mention the Khazars as Jewish proseltyes in their Sefer ha Kabbalah
and Sefer ha Ittim, respectively. It seems highly improbable that all these pre-16th
century references were interpolated by Akrish.

Another way in which the fact that the Khazars only belatedly adopted rabbinic
Judaism undermines Ha Levi s account is that it opens up the possibility that the
Khazars were Karaites. To be sure, ignorance of rabbinic Judaism need not imply
allegiance with Karaism. Surely if the Khazars were Karaites, then the 10th century
 8

defenders of Karaism, such as Kirkisani, would have made use of this fact. Yet no
10th century Karaite writer ever portrays the Khazars as Karaites, while Abraham
ibn Daud states that Khazars in Toledo, Spain assured him that their remnant was
of the Rabbanite persuasion .3

Thus it seems that Ha Levi s ideological motive is to promote the cause of the
Rabbanites. To be sure, the presence of non-religious motives on both the part of the
Khazars and Ha Levi does not necessarily render the conversion episode insincere.
It is possible that the event was over-determined both by the Khazars attraction to
the Jewish religion and its coincidence with their strategic self-interest.

What comparison of Ha Levi s account with other early documents does show,
however, is that the existence of the peculiar Jewish-run kingdom of Khazaria was a
source of pride to the Rabbinite Jews in Spain. Moreover, it is notable that the
Khazars chose to adopt the Jewish religion without force. Neither the attempts of the
Byzantines nor the Arabs to convert the Khazars to their respective Christian and
Islamic faiths lasted for any significant time. This case of a relatively large scale
peaceful conversion is relatively rare, and points to the distinctive character of
Khazaria at a time when faiths made for empires.

References

Ankori, Zvi. (1959). Karaites in Byzantium, New York: Columbia Press.

Baron, S. (1957). A Social and Religious History of the Jews. New York Columbia.
Dunlop, P. (1954). A History of the Jewish Khazars. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Golb, N. (1983). Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the 10th Century. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Ha Levi, Judah. Kitab al Khazari—translated and abridged as Kuzari, in H. Lewy, A.
Altmann, and I. Heinemann, (editors), Three Jewish Philosophers, Atheneum,
New York, 1969.
Hirschfeld, H. (1927) Kitab al Khazari, New York: Bernard Richards.
Schechter, S. (1912). An unknown Khazar Document. Jewish Quarterly Review, pp.182-
219.

3
I follow Zvi Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium, (New York: Columbia Press, 1959) here, esp. pp.66-67. This
particular quote from Abraham ibn Dadu is also from Ankori and his translation.
 9

Stillman, N. (1979). The Jews of Arab Lands—A History and a Source Book, Jewish
Publication Society of America.