Obadiah of Khazaria

Obadiah is a Khazar king who appears only in the reply of King Joseph to Hasdai ibn Shaprut.^[1] The reply makes him a descendant of Bulan.^[2] The long version calls him a king “from his grandchildren”, and the short version calls him one of Bulan’s descendants.^[2]

The reform in Joseph’s reply

The reply calls Obadiah righteous and upright. It says that he renewed the kingdom and established the law as it should be.^[1] He built synagogues and houses of learning. He gathered many sages of Israel and paid them with silver and gold. They explained to him the twenty-four books of the Bible, the Mishnah and the Talmud, and the order of prayers.^[3]

In the list of kings that the reply gives, Obadiah stands second, after Bulan. Hezekiah and Manasseh follow him, and then Hanukkah, who is called Obadiah’s brother.^[2] The list ends with Joseph.^[3] The letter says that no stranger may sit on the throne, and it names the succession from father to son.^[3]

Date and meaning

No other source mentions Obadiah.^[4] Some scholars date the reform to about 800.^[5] A modern account places the adoption of Judaism by the khagan and the ruling elite in the time of Hārūn al-Rashīd, 786 to 809.^[6] Another modern account understands the two letters as a conversion in two stages and places the second stage, under Obadiah, near the time of Hārūn al-Rashīd.^[7]

Omeljan Pritsak draws a two-stage picture. In the first stage, Bulan, a military commander, took up Judaism privately. In the second, between 799 and 809, the Beg Obadiah made the conversion official.^[8] Pritsak adds that the Beg then forced the khagan to follow him.^[9]

Mikhail Artamonov read Obadiah as a nobleman who took the real power and left the khagan a ceremonial figure.^[4] A later account holds that Artamonov read far more into the events than the sources warrant.^[4] On this view the reply makes Obadiah a descendant of Bulan or of his co-ruler and mentions no civil strife at his accession.^[10] Constantine Zuckerman has called the passage on Obadiah a later insertion.^[11]

The reform appears in one letter, whose authenticity is itself debated. Where it fits in the history of the Khazar conversion therefore remains open.^[12]

References

^ a b The Khazar correspondence
^ a b c The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 230–231
^ a b c The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 231
^ a b c Golden 1980, p. 133
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 170
^ Golden 1992, p. 241
^ Mızrak 2023, p. 327–328
^ Pritsak 1978, p. 278
^ Pritsak 1978, p. 278–280
^ Golden 1980, p. 134
^ Zuckerman 1995
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 154

Sources

The Khazar correspondence

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, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Peter B. Golden, Khazar Studies, Vols. I–II (1980)
Egemen Çağrı Mızrak, Hazar Kağanlığının Kutsal-İkili Yönetiminin Judaik Şifreleri (The Judaic Codes of the Khazar Qaganate’s Sacred Diarchy) (2023)
M. I. Artamonov, История хазар (1962)
Constantin Zuckerman, On the Date of the Khazars’ Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the Rus Oleg and Igor (1995)