Tag Archives: gokturks

The Arrival of Khazarians on the Steppes and Their Conversion to Judaism

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Episode 17: The Khazar Khagans

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

This lecture mainly concerns the conversion by the Khazars to Judaism in the late 8th and early 9th century and their role in the Byzantine wars against the Arab Caliphate.

According to Harl, the Khazars were semi-nomadic peoples descended from the western Gökturks who established a major commercial empire in the late 6th century AD. The Khazars were heavily involved in providing amber, fur and Slavic slaves to Arabs trading on the northern branch of the Silk Road. This brought them into continual contact with Jewish banking and merchandising houses that stretched from Muslim Spain across North Africa, Egypt and Syria.

The Khazars formed major alliances with the eastern Gökturk Khanate and the Byzantines in attacking Sassanid Empire.* In 705 AD, the Khazars also helped Justinian II regain his throne after he was overthrown in a civil war.

Muslim armies first became a threat to the Byzantine empire in 634 AD, after they crossed from the Arabian Peninsula into Syria (then a Byzantine province). Muslim armies eventually overthrew the Sassanid Empire, as well as Byzantine-controlled Syria, Egypt and North Africa.

The western Gökturks allied with the Byzantine empire against the Muslim Caliphate, while the Eastern Khanate remained under Chinese control. Eventually the entire European steppes would come under Muslim control.

At the end of the 9th century the Magyars, who spoke Finno-Ugrian, migrated to Hungary; the Pechunecs migrated to the south Russian steppes; and the Rus (Scandinavians from Sweden) became prominent in the Volga slave trade.

The Pechunecs, Rus and Byzantines eventually formed alliance against the Khazar Khanate, leading it to collapse in the 10th century.

Harl disputes the widespread belief that the majority of European Jews are descended from Khazars rather than Israelites. He alludes to DNA testing revealing the vast majority of European Jews have Middle East DNA.

*See The Political Forces Controlling the Steppes When Rome Fell

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5694984/5695020

The Political Forces Controlling the Steppes When Rome Fell

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Episode 13: The Sassanid Shahs and the Hephthalites*

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

The Sassanid (aka neo-Persian) Empire, which overthrew the Parthian empire in 224 AD, was a contemporary of the Western Roman Empire (which would fall in 476 AD). The former was an extremely effective bureaucratic state practicing monotheistic Zororastorianism.**

Unlike their Parthian predecessors, the Sassanids had the ability to capture and rule cities, which made them a much greater threat to Rome. Romans and Sassanids engaged in increasingly destructive wars for control of Meosopotamia and Armenia (a vassal state of both the Parthian and Sassanid empires).

Despite Rome’s eventual victory, in 364 and 379 AD the Romans ceded parts of Mesopotamia and Armenia to the Sassanids. This left the neo-Persians with the hassle of dealing with the Hephthalites  and other nomads entering the steppes via the Caucasus mountains.

Initially allied with the Hephthalites, the Sassanids also seized control of Transoxiana (the former heartland of the Kushan empire – see The Parthian Empire: Rome’s Greatest Rival), seeking to control the Silk Road’s wealthy caravan cities.

The Hephthalites eventually reclaimed most of Transoxiana, establishing the Oxus River as the boundary between the Sassanid and Hepththalite empires. With the capitol in Bactrium, they issued coins imprinted with Greek text.

As the Hephthalites gradually gained control of most of the eastern steppes, the Sassinids formed an alliance with the Eastern Roman Empire against them. In the 5th century, the Sassanids built the Great Wall of Gorgan (manned by 15,000 – 30,000 troops) to block Hepththalite movement via the Caucasus passes. They also formed anti-Hepthalite alliances with the Göktürks (a Turkic-speaking people originating from the region which became Xinjiang in modern-day China).

*The latter taught that Ahura Mazda was the sole god in perpetual battle with Ahareem, the evil one.

**Also known  as the White Huns, the Persian-speaking Hephthalites represented several ethnic and linguistic groups and were most likely driven onto the Central Steppes by the Northern Wei kingdom, which ruled northern China in the third century. The Sassanids hired them as mercenaries.

***At present Uzbekistan, Tajkistan, Afghanistan and northern India make up the region formerly known as Transoxiana.

Film can be viewed free on Kanopy with a library card.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5694984/5695011