The Khazar court took up Judaism. The ruler, the royal house and the elite were Jewish in the tenth century, while the rest of the Khazars kept other faiths.[1] When this happened, how it happened and how far it reached are disputed. The accounts that tell the story contradict each other.[2] The Byzantine sources curiously say nothing about the religious question in Khazaria.[3]

The sources

The earliest witnesses describe the Khazar court as Jewish while the people kept other faiths. Ibn Rusta says that the khagan, the Isha and the notables profess Judaism, but that the rest of the Khazars “are of a faith similar to that of the Turks”.[1] Masʿūdī writes in the 940s that the king, his court and all Khazars of his race practise Judaism.[4] He says that it has been the dominant religion of the state since the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid, who ruled from 786 to 809.[4] For the conversion of the princes he refers to earlier works of his own and does not tell it.[5] This is taken to place the conversion of the king in Harun’s reign.[6] The work in which he told it at length is lost.[6]

Al-Iṣṭakhrī counts the Jews as the smallest group, since most of the people are Muslims and Christians, “though the king and his court are Jews”. He adds that the khaganate is never given to anyone but a Jew.[7] Ibn Faḍlān reports that the king ordered the minaret of the main mosque of his capital destroyed in 922 and the muezzins killed, after Muslims had pulled down a synagogue.[8] The king added that he would have destroyed the mosque itself, had he not feared that every synagogue in the lands of Islam would be destroyed in return.[9] His informants were not prejudiced in favour of the Khazars.[10]

Extent

Some scholars hold that the khagan, the ruling elite and the inner core of the tribes took up Judaism, probably in its rabbinic form.[1] Muslims were perhaps the largest group in the cities, Christians the second, and the Jews and Judaised Khazars the smallest. The Jewish communities of the Crimea were substantial and influential. Beyond this, the evidence does not go.[3] The Hebrew alphabet was used in Khazaria beside variants of the Turkic runic script.[3] The law courts reflected the mixture, with seven judges.[3] In Masʿūdī’s list two judged for the Muslims, two for the Khazars, by the Torah, two for the Christians, by the Gospel, and one for the Slavs, the Rus and the other pagans.[11]

There is no sign that Judaism became a state religion.[6] Nonetheless, contemporaries, among them Jews in Spain and Egypt, identified Khazaria with Judaism. After the conversion only members of the royal clan who had taken it up could become khagan, it seems. The office of vizier went to the Muslim guard from Khwarazm.[6] The old rule of broad tolerance in a nomad state was not changed by the conversion.[6]

The stories of the conversion

Four accounts tell how it happened. They differ in nearly every detail.[2]

In the reply of King Joseph to Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a Jewish courtier in Spain, the king Bulan is visited by an angel in a dream.[12] A general, perhaps the Beg, stands beside him in the story.[13] The kings of the Byzantines and of the Arabs send envoys.[14] Bulan has a Jewish sage fetched and questions first the priest and then the qadi, a Muslim judge.[15] He says that he has chosen the law of Israel, the law of Abraham, and circumcises himself and his people.[16] One of his descendants, Obadiah, then reorganised the kingdom, built synagogues and houses of study and brought in Jewish scholars.[17] The long version of the reply dates this 340 years before the letter, which would be about 620.[18] A Muslim judge appears in the story, so the date cannot be right.[18]

A second account is a Hebrew document found in Cairo, the Cambridge or Schechter document. In it Jews arrive early, apparently from Armenia, and mix with the Khazars.[19] The Khazars have no kings, only elected commanders, and a Jew becomes commander.[19] The kings of Macedon and of Arabia send messengers who speak against Israel.[20] Wise men of Israel, Greece and Arabia then argue before the princes, and dissension remains.[21] Books of the Law come from a cave in the valley of Tizul, and the Jewish leader is renamed Sabriel and made king over the Khazars.[22] The document also says that the office of khagan arose only after the conversion, when a wise man was named judge and called Khagan.[22] One standard history calls this wrong, since khagans existed long before.[23]

A third account is the Kuzari of Judah Halevi, written in 1140.[24] In it the king hears an angel say that his way of thinking pleases the Creator, but not his way of acting. He questions a philosopher, a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew. Then he and his commander go to the mountains of Warsān, are circumcised in a cave and keep the matter secret until they win the rest of the Khazars.[25] Halevi says the convert lived four hundred years before his time, and the dialogue names the year 4500 of the creation. This gives about 740.[26]

The Arab writer al-Bakrī tells of a king who was first a pagan and then a Christian and chose Judaism after a debate between a bishop, a Jew and a Muslim scholar, whom the Jew poisoned. The later writer al-Dimashqī says that Jews expelled by the emperor in the days of Harun came to the Khazars and offered them their religion.[27]

Dates

There are six views of the date.

One view dates the first step to about 740, on Halevi’s year 4500.[28] One standard history holds it more probable that Jewish influence began to be felt before the middle of the eighth century than that it began only after 860, though a rigorous demonstration is hardly possible.[29] Omeljan Pritsak proposes two stages. In the first a commander called Bulan took up Judaism privately between 730 and 740.[30] In the second the beg Obadiah made the step official between 799 and 809.[30]

A second view holds to the reign of Harun al-Rashid, between 786 and 809, on the word of Masʿūdī.[1]

A third view points to special coins of 837 and 838 as evidence for the 830s.[31] R. K. Kovalev regards them as an official Khazar issue. They name the “land of the Khazars” as the mint, and a few pieces carry the legend “Moses is the messenger of God” in place of the name of Muhammad.[31] Whether the Khazars struck coins of their own is itself still debated.[32]

A fourth view sets the conversion after 861.[33] C. Zuckerman and J. Shepard rely on the mission of Constantine and on a Latin notice of about 864 that already calls the Khazars circumcised.[33]

A fifth view sees a long process. J. T. Olsson takes the coins of 837 and 838 as the start of a difficult change that led, in the late 850s, to the official step.[34] He calls it a conversion of the elite and not a mass conversion.[34]

A sixth view denies the event. M. Gil and Sh. Stampfer hold that it never took place. Stampfer finds the sources contradictory, in part wrongly attributed to their alleged authors, and without information in other areas.[35] Alex M. Feldman rejects this view and defends the textual and archaeological evidence for a Khazar Judaism.[36]

The mission of 860 and 861 and the notice of 864

The life of Constantine, who was later called Cyril, tells of the mission to the Khazars in 860 and 861.[37] In it the Khazar envoys say that the Jews urge them to take up their faith, and the Muslims do the same. The khagan receives Constantine, and Jews take part in the debate. In the end the Khazars answer that whoever wishes may be baptised, and that those among them who bow to the west, pray as Jews or keep the faith of the Saracens will soon be put to death by them. About two hundred are baptised.[38] Zuckerman and Shepard conclude from this that the conversion came later. Others hold that the Jews were a decisive force at the court, though the life gives no direct sign that the conversion had already taken place.[39]

A Latin commentary on Matthew is ascribed to Christian of Stablo, and some scholars date it to about 864 or somewhat earlier.[40] It says that among Gog and Magog, the peoples of the Huns, who are called Gazari, one people, the strongest of those whom Alexander had shut in, is already circumcised and observes all of Judaism.[40] It is the earliest western notice.[40]

Reasons

After the short-lived forced conversion of the khagan to Islam in 737, the religious question came to the fore among the Khazar elite.[3] Judaism did not entail even nominal subordination to the caliph or the Byzantine emperor, so there may have been an element of political expediency in the choice. The impact of charismatic persons and local communities cannot be ruled out.[3] Pritsak points to long-distance merchants as the carriers of the new faith.[41] He also asks why the conversion went unmentioned not only in Jewish writing of the time but also in Byzantine and Muslim writing.[42]

Excavations in the Khazar lands have found almost no objects or gravestones with distinctly Jewish symbols.[43]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Golden 1992, p. 241
  2. ^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 116–163
  3. ^ a b c d e f Golden 1992, p. 242
  4. ^ a b al-Masʿūdī; al-Masʿūdī 1863 (MDCCCLXIII auf dem Titelblatt), p. 8
  5. ^ al-Masʿūdī; al-Masʿūdī 1863 (MDCCCLXIII auf dem Titelblatt), p. 9
  6. ^ a b c d e Sinor 1990, p. 266
  7. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 92, 98
  8. ^ Ibn Fadlan; Canard 1958, p. 148–149
  9. ^ Ibn Fadlan; Canard 1958, p. 149
  10. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 109
  11. ^ al-Masʿūdī; al-Masʿūdī 1863 (MDCCCLXIII auf dem Titelblatt), p. 11
  12. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Dunlop 1954, p. 154–155
  13. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Dunlop 1954, p. 154
  14. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 229
  15. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 229–230
  16. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 230
  17. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 230–231
  18. ^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 151
  19. ^ a b The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 213
  20. ^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 214
  21. ^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 214–215
  22. ^ a b The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 215–216
  23. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 159
  24. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 116
  25. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 117–118
  26. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 116, 119
  27. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 89–90
  28. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 119
  29. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 115
  30. ^ a b Pritsak 1978, p. 274–278
  31. ^ a b Kovalev 2005, p. 220–253
  32. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 270
  33. ^ a b Zuckerman 1995; Shepard 1998
  34. ^ a b Olsson 2013, p. 495–526
  35. ^ Gil 2011; Stampfer 2013
  36. ^ Feldman 2022
  37. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 267
  38. ^ Kantor 1983, p. 42–63
  39. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 195–196
  40. ^ a b c Dunlop 1954, p. 121
  41. ^ Pritsak 1978, p. 281
  42. ^ Pritsak 1978, p. 267–271
  43. ^ Stampfer 2013

Sources

Literature

  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)
  • Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
  • Omeljan Pritsak, The Khazar Kingdom's Conversion to Judaism (1978)
  • J. T. Olsson, Coup d'État, Coronation and Conversion: Some Reflections on the Adoption of Judaism by the Khazar Khaganate (2013)
  • R. K. Kovalev, Creating Khazar Identity through Coins: The Special Issue Dirhams of 837/8 (2005)
  • J. Shepard, The Khazars' Formal Adoption of Judaism and Byzantium's Northern Policy (1998)
  • Constantin Zuckerman, On the Date of the Khazars’ Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the Rus Oleg and Igor (1995)
  • Sh. Stampfer, Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism? (2013)
  • M. Gil, Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism? (2011)
  • Alex M. Feldman, The Monotheisation of Pontic-Caspian Eurasia from the Eighth to the Thirteenth Century (2022)
  • M. Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes (Vita Constantini, Kap. 8–11, S. 42–63) (1983)
  • Peter B. Golden; Haggai Ben-Shammai; András Róna-Tas (ed.), The World of the Khazars (2007)
  • al-Masʿūdī; C. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille (trans.), Les Prairies d’or, Bd. II (Texte et traduction) (1863 (MDCCCLXIII auf dem Titelblatt))
  • M. Canard, La relation du voyage d'Ibn Fadlān chez les Bulgares de la Volga (1958)
  • Jacob R. Marcus (ed., trans.), The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315–1791 (1938)
  • Solomon Schechter, An Unknown Khazar Document (1912)

Related

What links here10

States
Khazar Khaganate
Conflicts
Arab–Khazar Wars (642–737)
Battles & Events
Battle of Ardabil (730) · Campaign of Marwan (737) · Kabar Revolt · Mission of Constantine to the Khazars (860–861)
Peoples
History of the Turkic peoples
Sources
The Khazar correspondence · The Schechter letter
Controversies
The Khazar–Ashkenazi hypothesis

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Conversion of the Khazars to Judaism.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/conversion-of-the-khazars/

Last revised: 8 November 2026