The Khazars, the Jewish Empire, by Cesar Leo Marcus
The Khazars were a large trading empire in the 7th century that included present-day Ukraine, Crimea, southern Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
Origin
It is proven that they were part of the Aketzali Empire, in the 5th century, from which they separated when this empire was dominated by the Western Turkic Khanate.
From there they founded their own empire, which led them to conquer neighboring Bulgarian, Caucasian and Slavic tribes, adopting agricultural and commercial practices, which allowed them to become a strong commercial center, greatly facilitated by their geographical position.
The conquered territory connected the Far East with the Byzantine Empire, through which the Slavic, Byzantine and Arab tribes of the Caliphate had to pass, whose caravans had to pay customs duties, which contributed to the prosperity of the Khazar empire.
Ottomans
In the year 644 the Caliph Umar ordered his troops to expand towards the Caucasus, and in the year 652 the battle of Balanjar was fought, where the Khazars rejected the invasion and killed the Arab commander, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Rabiah. This defeat withdrew the Ottoman troops, who gave up their advance towards Khazarian lands.
Byzantines
The relationship between the Khazars and the Byzantine Empire was excellent, for example two of its emperors (Justinian II and Constantine V), married Khazar women, even the Khazars helped Emperor Heraclius militarily in his campaign against the Sassanids.
Tengrism
The Khazars knew of Christianity and Islam through their interaction with Byzantines and Arabs, as well as A2
their dealings with merchants, but they did not adopt either religion. His original religion was Tengrism, an animistic religion that worshiped the “God of Heaven”, based on the spirit of nature and veneration of ancestors.
Judaism
In the 8th century, many Jewish settlers, expelled by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, were very well received and integrated into the Khazarian lands, to such an extent that the Khazar king Bulán converted to Judaism in the 9th century, to later convince the a large part of his people to follow him, then Judaism was adopted as the official religion, being the first (and only) Jewish empire, this decision led the Khazarian Empire to face the Byzantine (Christian) and Ottoman (Muslim) Empires, it is important clarify that the Khazars tolerated other religions and all beliefs coexisted peacefully in their kingdom.
End of the empire
In the 10th century (year 965), Sviatoslav I, Grand Prince of Kiev, commanding the East Slavic tribes, united under Kievan Rus, launched a campaign against the Khazars, whom he defeated, destroying their culture, to such an extent. point that the written information about this town is obtained from Byzantine and Arab sources.
Ashkenazi Jews
To explain the importance of the Khazarian Empire, we must clarify that the Jews of the Diaspora are divided between Sephardim and Ashkenazi, the former coming from the Iberian Peninsula (Sefarad is Spain) and the latter from the Eastern Caucasus.
Thanks to current DNA studies, we can know that Ashkenazi Jews are direct descendants of the Khazars, and the Yiddish language spoken by them was born in that area.
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