166 CHAPTER 3
most common along the Don and the Severski Donets.72 The other route,
through which dirhams minted mostly in Asia reached Khazaria, is not con-
nected with the Radhanites. The information about it is provided by Ibn
al-Faqih.73 It can be concluded that the Radhanites traded until the mid-ninth
century and did not use all the land routes between Europe and Asia.
According to T. Noonan, since “the Rādhāniyyah do not appear to have
been mentioned in later sources, it is possible that the emergence of the
Rūs-Khazar-Islamic trade starting in the late eighth-early ninth centuries
somehow disrupted and perhaps even replaced this northern route of the
Rādhāniyyah”.74 In J. Shepard’s view, the arrival of the Magyars in Central
Europe disrupted the trade relations between the eastern and the western
part of the continent, which affected the activity of the Radhanites.75 The
defeat of the Magyars by Otto I in 955 and the subsequent efforts by Byzantine
and German missionaries opened up opportunities for steady trading with
Central Europe via the Danube.76
A. Novosel’tsev, in whose opinion trade in the Khazar Khaganate lay solely
in the hands of the Jewish merchants, does not believe that the Khazars had
any direct trade relations with Western or Central Europe. He justifies his
assertion with the difficulties with the establishment of a connection between
the Khazar ruler Joseph and Hasdai ibn Shaprut who learned about Khazaria
only shortly before he wrote his letter (probably in the 950s).77 V. Petrukhin is
of a similar point of view. According to him, the Khazar Khaganate was iso-
lated from the Judaic communities outside the Byzantine Mediterranean. This
is supported by the correspondence between Joseph and Hasdai ibn Shaprut,
which became possible after the Rus’ Princess Olga established relations with
Western Europe during the 950s. Kievan Rus’ isolated rather than connected
the Khazars with Western Europe.78
The theory, intrinsic to Soviet science, according to which “the rulers of Itil
grew rich precisely due to trade with the world centers of slavery Baghdad and
72 Kalinina 1986, 79.
73 Kalinina 1986, 81–82.
74 Noonan 1992, 250. In Kalinina’s opinion, the excerpt on the Rus’ merchants in the work of
Ibn Khordadbeh possibly indicates that in the Eastern European lands trade was handled
not by the Radhanites, but by the Rus’ (Kalinina 2000, 113). According to Pritsak 1981a, 25,
the Radhanite commercial activity in Europe spanned the years between 750 and 830.
75 Shepard and Franklin 2000, 135.
76 Shepard and Franklin 2000, 215; see also Simeonova 2006, 136–137.
77 Novosel’tsev 1990, 115.
78 Petrukhin 2005, 76.