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The Khazar correspondence is an exchange of two Hebrew letters from the middle of the tenth century. Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a Jewish courtier at Córdoba, wrote to the Khazars. A ruler named Joseph answered him. The reply contains the longest Khazar account of how the ruling house came to Judaism.[1]

The letter

Hasdai was a Jewish vizier and the head of the customs under Abd al-Rahman III at Córdoba. His letter dates before 961, the year of the caliph’s death, and perhaps after 954.[2] He tells how he learned of the Khazars. Merchants from Khorasan told him that a kingdom of Jews called al-Khazar existed. He did not believe them, because he thought they wanted his favour. Then ambassadors from Constantinople arrived with gifts. They confirmed it and gave the name of the king, Joseph.[3]

The reply

Joseph styles himself king and son of a king. He traces his people to Japheth through Togarmah, and himself to the seventh of Togarmah’s ten sons, Khazar.[4] His reply tells how the Khazars came to the Jewish faith. Bulan, a wise king who feared God, banished the soothsayers and the idol-worshippers.[5] An angel appeared to him in a dream and told him that his prayers had been heard. Bulan won over the great prince, whom one translator glosses as the Beg, the military leader and co-ruler.[6] Envoys of the Byzantine and the Arab kings then sent gifts and wise men. Bulan had a Jewish sage brought, then questioned the Christian priest and the qadi, and each answered that the law of Israel was the better one. He said that he had chosen the law of Abraham. He circumcised himself and all his people.[7]

The reply adds that one of Bulan’s descendants, Obadiah, reorganised the kingdom and established the Jewish religion properly. He built synagogues and houses of study and brought in Jewish scholars, who taught him the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud and the order of prayer.[8] Only the reply reports this reform, and some scholars date it to about 800.[9] Others regard the figure of Obadiah as a later insertion.[10] The reply also lists the kings from Obadiah down to Joseph and says that no stranger may sit on the throne.[11]

Joseph describes his own position as well. He says that he lives at the mouth of the river and does not let the Rus who come in ships enter the Caspian Sea to reach the Muslims. He wages war on them. If he gave them any chance, they would lay waste the whole land of the Muslims as far as Baghdad.[11] A Khazar ruler writing to Hasdai about 960 thus reports a constant war with the Rus.[12] Of the three capital cities that Joseph names, the second holds Jews, Christians and Muslims, with many slaves of all nations.[13]

Transmission

The reply reached modern readers late and in two versions. The long version is in a Firkovich manuscript that is assumed to date from the thirteenth century.[14] The only known manuscript that holds both Hasdai’s letter and Joseph’s reply is at Christ Church, Oxford, where it is catalogued as MS 193. It contains the short version, which agrees closely with the printed text, and it is not old.[15] The earliest quotation comes from Judah ben Barzillai of Barcelona, who wrote between 1090 and 1105, cited parts of the reply and doubted that it is genuine.[16] In 1161 Abraham ibn Daud confirmed that King Joseph had written to Hasdai.[17] The text was first printed at Constantinople after 1577, and Buxtorf published it with a Latin translation in 1660.[18]

Authenticity

Doubt began early. Judah ben Barzillai already questioned the reply, and Buxtorf viewed the letters with great suspicion.[19] Later critics doubted the reply too. Steinschneider called it a later fabrication, and Poliak took the two letters for a work of the eleventh century written in the conventional form of letters.[20] Others find Hasdai’s letter genuine, on its acrostic of the name Menahem ben Saruq and on its style.[21] They find the reply genuine in the main, on its difference of style from the letter, on the way it spells Arabic words and on its place names.[22] A study of 2013 calls some of the sources on the Khazar conversion pseudepigraphic.[23]

The long version dates the conversion 340 years before the letter, which would be about 620.[24] Some scholars hold this to be impossible, because the tale has a Muslim judge in it and none could appear before 622, and they regard the figure as a late addition by a copyist.[24] Others see an error for 240 years, which gives about 720.[24]

Reliability

The tale of Bulan follows a pattern. A dream, a disputation among three faiths and the ruler’s choice recur in other accounts of rulers who changed their religion. For that reason the tale is a narrative, not a record.[25]

The reply and the Arabic geographers also disagree about the reach of the new faith. The reply says that Bulan and all his people were circumcised. Ibn Rusta and al-Istakhri confine Judaism to the ruler and his circle. Nothing in the reply speaks of a double kingship.[26] Whether the text speaks for the Khazar court of 960 depends on its authenticity, and that question is still open.

References

  1. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 144, 157–158
  2. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 143
  3. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 228
  4. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 229, 231
  5. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 229
  6. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Dunlop 1954, p. 154
  7. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 229–230
  8. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 230–231
  9. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 155, 195
  10. ^ Olsson 2013, p. 523
  11. ^ a b The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 231
  12. ^ Golden 1992, p. 243
  13. ^ The Khazar correspondence; Marcus 1938, p. 231–232
  14. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 131
  15. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 130–131
  16. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 132–133
  17. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 127
  18. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 126, 128
  19. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 126, 132
  20. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 137, 144
  21. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 133, 143
  22. ^ Dunlop 1954, p. 152–154
  23. ^ Stampfer 2013
  24. ^ a b c Dunlop 1954, p. 151
  25. ^ Olsson 2013
  26. ^ The Khazar correspondence

Literature

  • Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Jacob R. Marcus (ed., trans.), The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315–1791 (1938)
  • Sh. Stampfer, Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism? (2013)
  • J. T. Olsson, Coup d'État, Coronation and Conversion: Some Reflections on the Adoption of Judaism by the Khazar Khaganate (2013)
  • Golb; Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century (1982)
  • Kokovtsov, Evrejsko-xazarskaja perepiska (1932)

Articles resting on this source 6

Bulan · Conversion of the Khazars to Judaism · Joseph of Khazaria · Obadiah of Khazaria · The Khazar language · The Khazar–Ashkenazi hypothesis

Related

What links here4

States
Khazar Khaganate
Sources
Ibn Rusta · The Schechter letter
Controversies
The Khazar–Ashkenazi hypothesis

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “The Khazar correspondence.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/khazar-correspondence/

Last revised: 8 November 2026