| The Khazar Empire The Khazars, who some believe to be the progenitors of most Ashkenazi Jews, settled in Europe between the Caucuses and the Volga. The Khazarian Empire lasted from the 7th to the 9th centuries AD, and significantly shaped the future of medieval and modern Europe. The main thing that distinguished the Khazars was their empire. The Turks made up the vast majority of the people that lived in between the Black Sea and the Caspian, where great armies of Muslims and Europeans as well as Eastern tribes, confronted each other. The Khazars effectively built a blockage to prevent further Muslim encroachments from the Middle East against Europe, and also to prevent hordes of tribal groups such as Bulgars, Magyars and Pechenegs as well as Vikings and Russians, from crossing into Byzantium. There isn’t a tremendous amount known about this ancient group of people, so we have to rely on the few tidbits that exist, many of which are published in Arthur Koestler’s Thirteenth Tribe. Beside this book, we have the History of the Jewish Khazars, by Dunlop, from 1954, which has some good info as well, some of which is cited by Koestler. According to Dunlop: “The Khazar country…lay across the natural line of advance of the Arabs. Within a few years of the death of Muhammad (AD 632) the armies of the Caliphate, sweeping northward through the wreckage of two empires and carrying all before them, reached the great mountain barrier of the Caucasus. This barrier once passed, the road lay open to the lands of Eastern Europe. As it was, on the line of the Caucasus the Arabs met the forces of an organized military power which effectively prevented them from extending their conquests in this direction. The wars of the Arabs and the Khazars, which lasted more than a hundred years, though little known, have thus considerable historical importance. The Franks of Charles Martel on the field of tours turned the tide of Arab invasion. At about the same time the threat to Europe in the East was hardly less acute… The victorious Muslims were met and held by the forces of the Khazar kingdom… It can…scarcely be doubted that but for the existence of the Khazars in the region north of the Causasus, Byzantium, the bulwark of European civilization in the east, would have found itself outflanked by the Arabs, and the history of Christendom and Islam might well have been very different from what we know.” (28) According to Artomonov, in Studies in Ancient Khazar History: “Khazaria was the first feudal state in Eastern Europe, which ranked with the Byzantine Empire and the Arab Caliphate… It was only due to the powerful Khazar attacks, diverting the tide of the Arab armies to the Caucasus, that Byzantium withstood them…” (29) Finally, another quote of the same opinion, by a reputable Professor of Russian History at the University of Oxford, Dimitry Obolensky: “The main contribution of the Khazars to world history was their success in holding the line of the Caucasus against northward onslaught of the Arabs.” (30) |
Around the year 740 AD, the king, his court and their military advisors were faced with a dilemma which was gaining pressure on the kingdom. It seems they were forced to choose a religion of the masses to follow otherwise one would be chosen for them. The great powers of Europe were now Christianized Byzantium with Charlemagne, and the Muslims, followers of Mohammed, both of which were dominating the world. The most reasonable choice for them, for some reason, appeared to be to choose Judaism. Probably due to the history of the majority of the settlers in the area. In another book cited by Koestler, by Dr. Antal Bartha, on the Magyar Society during that time period, Bartha states: “Our investigations cannot go into problems, pertaining to the history of ideas, but we must call the reader’s attention to the matter of the Khazar kingdom’s state religion. It was the Jewish faith which became the official religion of the ruling strata of society. Needless to say, the acceptance of the Jewish faith as the state religion of an ethnically non-Jewish people could be the subject of interesting speculations. We shall, however, confine ourselves to the remark that this official conversion – in defiance of Christian proselytizing by Byzantium, the Muslim influence from the east, and in spite of the political pressure of these two powers – to a religion which had no support from any political power, but was persecuted by nearly all – has come as a surprise to all historians concerned with the Khazars, and cannot be considered as accidental, but must be regarded as a sign of the independent policy pursued by that kingdom.” (31) The Caliph Marwan II attempted to enter into a series of negotiations with the Khazar Kagan, in some cases betraying him with lies and deceit. Attempts were made by Marwan to force the Khazars into a Muslim worship, but it appears they didn’t succeed, or they stopped trying to convert them after several failed attempts. The possible reason for Marwan’s lack of sincere effort to conquer the Khazars were the battles he was engaged in on other sides to keep the Caliphate from breaking up. (32) (28) The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage, Arthur Koestler, 1976 (Modern Reprint), p. 13-14; Dunlop, D.M. (1954), The History of the Jewish Khazars, Princeton, pp. ix-x (29) ibid, p. 30; Artomonov, M.I. (1962) Studies in Ancient Khazar History (In Russian) Leningrad (30) ibid, p. 31; Obelenski D. (1971), The Byzantine Commonwealth - Eastern Europe 500-1453 (London) p. 172 (31) Thirteenth Tribe, p. 15; “The Magyar Society in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries, ” (Bartha A. (1968) A IX-X Szazadi Magyar Tarsadalom (Hungarian Society in the 9th to 10th Centuries) Budapest, p. 35 (32) ibid. p. 30 |