Khazar Correspondence

The Khazar Correspondence is a set of documents, which are alleged to date from the 950s or 960s, and to be letters between Hasdai ibn Shaprut, foreign secretary to the Caliph of Cordoba, and Joseph Khagan of the Khazars. The Correspondence is one of only a few documents attributed to a Khazar author, and potentially one of only a small number of primary sources on Khazar history.

The authenticity of the correspondence has been challenged, on the grounds that it has little in common with the otherwise attested chronology, language, borders and economy of the Khazars at the time.

Ostensibly it gives both account of the Khazar conversion to Judaism and of its progress in subsequent generations, as well as potentially showing that within a generation of the fall of the Khazar empire in 969, the Khazar state was still militarily powerful and received tribute from several polities.[1]

  1. ^ The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315-1791, (New York: JPS, 1938), 227-232

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