Bulan

Bulan is the first king in the line of Khazar rulers that King Joseph sets out in his reply to Hasdai ibn Shaprut.^[1] In the reply, Bulan is the ruler who brought the Khazars to Judaism.^[2] No other account of the conversion gives him this name.^[3] Judah Halevi tells of a Khazar king who changed his faith and leaves him unnamed.^[4] In the Schechter Letter, the great prince of Khazaria, who has turned to Judaism, is renamed Sabriel and made king.^[5] Some scholars regard Sabriel as Obadiah. A second takes him for Bulan under a Hebrew name.^[6]

The account in Joseph’s reply

Bulan is wise and God-fearing. He drives the soothsayers and idol-worshippers out of the land.^[7] An angel appears to him in a dream and tells him that his prayers have been heard.^[8] Bulan first wins over the great prince of the Khazars. A modern account takes this prince, called a general in the two versions of the reply, for the Beg, the military leader and co-ruler.^[9] Then Bulan calls his ministers and the people together, and they accept the law.^[8]

The angel orders a house for God. Bulan marches against Rodlan and Ardill and finds treasure there. From it he has a tent, an ark, a lampstand, a table and altars made. Joseph writes that the objects are still kept.^[8] Some scholars identify this attack with the Khazar attack on Ardabil of 730.^[10]

The kings of Rome and of the Ishmaelites send envoys with gifts and wise men.^[7] Bulan has a Jewish sage brought to the court. He questions the priest first and the Muslim authority second, whom one translation calls the imam and the other the qadi. Each of them says that the law of Israel is the better one.^[11] Bulan concludes that he chooses the law of Israel, which is the law of Abraham.^[11] Both translations used here say that he was circumcised together with all his people.^[11] Ibn Rusta and al-Iṣṭakhrī describe the Khazars differently. In their accounts, the ruler and his court are Jews, and the rest of the Khazars follow another religion.^[12]

Date and identity

The long version of the reply puts the event 340 years before the letter, which gives about 620.^[13] That date cannot stand, because the story has a Muslim judge at the king’s court.^[13] One suggestion is that a copyist added the figure. A second suggestion is that 240 was meant, which gives about 720.^[13] Halevi’s Kuzari dates the conversion to the year 4500 of the Jewish era, which is about 740.^[14] A modern account of the conversion places it in the time of Hārūn al-Rashīd, 786 to 809.^[15] Another modern account interprets the two letters as two stages. In that case Bulan’s stage falls in the 730s and 740s.^[16]

The Georgian chronicle is said to give Bulkhan as the name of the Khazar commander in the raid of 730.^[17] If Bulan and Bulkhan are one man, the khagan took part in that campaign.^[17] The Georgian chronicle also names a Khazar general Bluč’an, in the story of the princess Susan. One dating puts this story about 800, and another puts it in the raid of 764.^[18] Omeljan Pritsak interprets Bulan as a military commander, a Beg and not a khagan. In his view, Bulan took up Judaism privately between about 730 and 740, after the campaign to Ardabil.^[19]

The name has several proposed meanings. Some scholars give “sage”, and others deny it. A second proposes a Turkish animal name such as “hawk” or “panther”.^[17] A third derives the name from the Turkic word bulan, “elk”, and takes it for a totemic name.^[20]

A debate of three faiths before the ruler is not told only here. The Kuzari and the Schechter Letter tell of a debate too, and Juwayni tells a similar story of the conversion of the Uigurs, an event of its own.^[21] Some scholars think that the reply is in the main authentic, with nothing decisive against its factual contents.^[22] Whether a king of this name lived, and when, remains open.

References

^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 229–231
^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 229–230
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 155, 158
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 155
^ The Schechter letter; Schechter 1912, p. 216
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 158
^ a b The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 229
^ a b c The Khazar correspondence
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 149
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 148
^ a b c The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 230
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 92, 104
^ a b c Dunlop 1954, p. 151
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 119
^ Golden 1992, p. 241
^ Mızrak 2023, p. 327
^ a b c Dunlop 1954, p. 161
^ Golden 1980, p. 171
^ Pritsak 1978, p. 274–275
^ Golden 1980, p. 170–171
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 154–158
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 153–154

Sources

Literature

Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
Omeljan Pritsak, The Khazar Kingdom's Conversion to Judaism (1978)
Jacob R. Marcus (ed., trans.), The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315–1791 (1938)
Peter B. Golden, Khazar Studies, Vols. I–II (1980)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Egemen Çağrı Mızrak, Hazar Kağanlığının Kutsal-İkili Yönetiminin Judaik Şifreleri (The Judaic Codes of the Khazar Qaganate’s Sacred Diarchy) (2023)
Solomon Schechter, An Unknown Khazar Document (1912)