60 CHAPTER 1
Khazar shad changed his title. The account of Constantine Porphyrogenitus
that mentions the khagan and pekh of Khazaria from the 830s is used to deter-
mine the time this change occurred—at the end of the eighth or the beginning
of the ninth century.180
There is a certain discrepancy regarding the evolution of the shad title
towards bek. In the steppe states of the Early Middle Ages, the shads had to be
“princes by blood”, i.e. they belonged to the khagan dynasties. Thus, the cus-
tomary transition was from shad, as well as from yabghu, to khagan. In other
words, the shad title was of much higher rank than that of the bek, and in
the case of Khazaria there is no reason to believe that the vicegerent and the
khagan belonged to the same family.181
According to P. Golden, the reasons for the transition from shad to bek are
unclear.182 Ts. Stepanov believes that “the military commander of the Khazars
pointedly changed his title from shad to the neutral, but polysemantic (and
perhaps due to that quite convenient) beg/bak that stemmed from the Iranian
bhaga, originally meaning “God”, “distributor of goods/riches; wealthy”, which
subsequently transformed into “lord, master, governor” [.. .] this change is
symptomatic in light of the drastically diminished military activity of the
khagan during this period [.. .] The new position of the bek in the khaganate
allowed for his gradual transformation into an actual king, his power becoming
hereditary, as evidenced by Joseph’s Reply”.183
M. Artamonov stresses that only Ibn Rustah uses the title shad (Isha) in
reference to the khagan’s vicegerent. He accentuates on the affiliation of the
shads to the khagan dynasties in the steppe world, concluding that a title with
such a meaning was unknown among the Khazars. The scholar considers the
title an anachronism that was unrelated to the state system of Khazaria. The
title of the Khazar khagan’s vicegerent was bek. Alternatively, a transition from
shad to bek did not take place.184
Indeed, the account of Ibn Rustah stands alone, since in the first half of the
eleventh century Gardizi simply repeats it (although his version of the title is
Ishad/Abshad, not Isha) and the interpretation of Ansa, mentioned in Hudud
180 Dunlop 1967, 104–109; Zakhoder 1962, 204–206; Golden 1980, 99–100; Novosel’tsev 1990,
137–140; Stepanov 2003a, 220.
181 Golden 1980, 41, 99, and 163; Masao 1981, 53.
182 Golden 1980, 99.
183 Stepanov 2003a, 220–221; on the interpretation of the beg/bak title, see also Novosel’tsev
1990, 140, according to whom the reference to this title for the period between the ninth
and the tenth centuries is one of the oldest regarding the “Turkic-speaking world”.
184 Artamonov 1962, 280–281.