58 CHAPTER 1
The common view is that during the ninth century and especially during the
tenth century, Khazaria went through a transition from diarchy to monocracy.
This unanimity seems strange, since the only accounts depicting the Khazar
khagan in the role of a sacral ruler without any actual power (or those that deal
with the Khazar diarchy) stem from the tenth century. But to what extend do
the Arabo-Persian authors convey the actual situation in Khazaria? It is possi-
ble that the accounts of the Khazar dual kingship reflect not the Khazar nobil-
ity’s notions of power, but those of the population that it ruled. The influence
of Judaism, as we shall see later on, can be traced not only towards the gradual
establishment of a monocracy (regardless of whether it was the khagan or his
vicegerent that got deprived of power). It is worth wondering how the khagan
was perceived in view of the Judaic understanding of kingship. A diarchy
such as the Khazar one, with a clear distinction between the authority of
the military-administrative and religious powers, could be associated with the
issue of the royal and priestly powers. The question, then, is how the Judaic and
pagan notions of power merged and what outcome did their interaction lead
to. Of importance is not only the time when the Khazar nobility converted to
Judaism, but also whether the institution of the co-ruling king had previously
existed in some form in Khazaria. In other words, the solution to the problem
of the role and influence of Judaism on the establishment of the ruling institu-
tion in Khazaria is whether a king figure existed—during the Judaization or
before it—alongside the khagan.
The time of Khazaria’s Judaization has generated an extensive amount of lit-
erature but not a commonly accepted view. It is quite impossible to present in
detail here all the scientific theories on this matter. Suffice it to say, three peri-
ods are examined. The Khazar sources allow for the assumption that in the first
half of the seventh century (the 630s and 640s), Judaism was adopted by Bulan
who, from his position of a khagan or bek, succeeded in convincing his co-ruler
to do the same. Al-Masudi mentions that Judaism was adopted in Khazaria
during the time of Harun Al-Rashid (786–809). This account can be linked to
the reforms of Obadiah, which are discussed in the Khazar Correspondence. It
is presumed that Obadiah imposed Rabbinic Judaism in Khazaria. Based on
the information gleaned from the Life of St. Cyril the Philosopher, which does
not permit any conclusions regarding the Judaic faith of the Khazar khagan,
C. Zuckerman places the adoption of Judaism directly after 860.176
176 Dunlop 1967, 86–91, 102, 116–121, 151, and 170; Artamonov 1962, 266–267, 276–280, and 332–
333; Golden 1980, 134 and 2003, no. 3, 134–135; Pritsak 1981b, no. 11, 270–278; Vernadskii
1997, 298; Zuckerman 1995, 238–250; Noonan 2001, 77.