158 CHAPTER 3
Ibn Rustah and Ibn Fadlan explicitly state that the Rus’ merchants accepted
only silver coins for their wares,37 the appearance of dirhams with the names
of the Bulgar trade centers (Bolgar and Suwar) on them indicates the places
where those exchanges might have taken place. Volga Bulgaria had a lot of sil-
ver concentrated in its territory that was mostly intended for export. This was
a necessary condition for the emergence and subsequent existence of an inter-
national trade center.38 The coins are a sign of the increased self-confidence of
the rulers of Volga Bulgaria. If they wanted to emphasize their prestige, coin
minting would have had a bigger impact in the Islamic world and among the
Rus’ than among the Khazars. Insofar as copies of Abbasid coins were minted
in Khazaria during the ninth century to be used in the international com-
mercial exchange,39 the practice of the Volga Bulgars is nothing new, only the
amounts were much larger. However, the scope of Eastern trade during the
first half of the tenth century was much bigger, compared to the ninth century.
Usually, the strained relations between the Volga Bulgars and the Khazars
are viewed on the basis of Ibn Fadlan’s work, in which the Bulgar ruler Almish
asked the Caliph for money to build a fortress to protect him from Khazaria.40
But Almish himself pointed out that he was capable of building the fortress
with his own funds. By asking for money he was actually seeking the approval
of the Caliph in Baghdad.41 In any case, the mission of Ibn Fadlan did not bring
him such an approval.
What relation could the Khazar khagan have had to the coins of the Volga
Bulgars, and to their adoption of Islam, since the Samanids were probably the
main partner of Khazaria in the tenth-century Eastern trade? Moreover, the
problems, created by the Deilemites, for example, were equally frustrating
for Khazaria, the Samanids and the Caliph in Baghdad. Al-Masudi explicitly
states that many Muslim traders and tradesmen settled in Khazaria because
of its safety and order. He thus complements the account of Al-Istakhri who
37 Quoted from Shepard and Franklin 2000, 96.
38 Shepard and Franklin 2000, 96.
39 Kropotkin 1967, 120–121; see also Kovalev 2005a, 220–251. According to Kovalev 2005a,
225–226 and 238, the Khazar coins appeared due to the decline in the production of dir-
hams during the 820s, the desire to attract Rus’ merchants, as well as to provide coins for
the population and visitors of the khaganate. An exception should, of course, be made for
the special emission of 837/8, since it was linked to the ideology of power. The Khazars
minted close imitations of Islamic dirhams up to the very end of the ninth century.
40 Kovalevskii 1956, 121.
41 Kovalevskii 1956, 141. On the relations between Volga Bulgaria and Khazaria and on the
possibility of a military conflict between them regarding the adoption of Islam, see
Stepanov 2006.