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This Web site is dedicated to the history and culture of Crimean Karaims
Here you will find a fascinating history of Karaims or Karailar (sing. Karai), their language, culture, and heroic struggle to survive.
Crimean Karaims are people of Turk(ic) descent who have adopted Karaism. This movement could be described as a return to the roots or sola scriptura. Although the Karaite reformation never became a mass movement, an ethnic mixture of Alans, Cumans and a number of Turkic Kipchak tribes in Crimea and northern steppes of Black Sea, as well as the ruling junta of Khazaria (not all the Khazars) converted to Karaism. These people became known as Karaims, thus combining the religious denomination with ethnonym. The following pages are about the native people of Crimea, their ancestors, the Khazars, and the areas they settled.
Religion has played an important part in forming the Karaim people. In the 8th century, Karaism was initiated by Anan ben David in Mesopotamia. From the 8th to the 10th centuries, the Karaims were subjected to the rule of Khazar Kagan. It is recorded in the 13th century that the Karaim congregation practised in Solkhat, the capital city of the Crimean Tatars. Karaism is Mosaism, an independent, non sectarian, monotheistic religion of Abraham. Anan Ben David, the founder of the actual Karaite religion, preached about a return to the written word of the Old Testament. He refused to recognize the Talmudic thought. This religion is distinct from Rabbinical Judaism.
Khazars and Karaims
Prince Bulan, the ruling Khagan of the Turkish Khazar Empire (not the whole Khazar population) was converted to Karaism by Isaac Sangari, whose grave is in the Karaim cemetery, Balti timez, in Josophate valley of Chufut-Kale (Qirq Yer) in Bakhchisarai, Crimea.
There is another supposition that the conversion of local inhabitants of Crimea to Karaism occurred not in Khazar times, but later, during or after the Mongol rule, under the influence of the newcomers from Byzantium. This could explain the Turkish language of the local Karaites, their Tatar appearance and way of life, and the political independence of the Karaites of Chufut-Kale. However, the genetic studies, point to their Khazar origin. Today Turkic Karaims are nearly all from Crimea. Over the years, they moved and settled in Lithuania, Poland, other parts of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Israel, France, and the United States. It is assumed that the number of Karaims in the world is less than 5,000 today.
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From Karaims in Poland (1961) by Ananisaz Zajaczkowski.
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KARAIMS: ORIGIN AND HISTORY
Ethnogenesis(Chapter I)
1. THE NAME
There were many attempts to solve the Karaim "enigma," to explain their origin by means of their name itself. It must, however, be stated from the very beginning that this does not explain the matter completely. This name, in Karaim language Karay, in plural Karaylar, in Arabic Kara'im in European languages Karaim (Russian and Polish), Caraime (French), etc., is derived, as is at present agreed by almost all the investigators, from the Hebrew stem kara "to read." This form in Hebrew karai and in plural Karai'm means literally "reading" that is to say acknowledging only the authority of Reading of the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament." Both the substance of the Karaim religion which actually does not acknowledge any other authority but the Holy Scripture, and - on the other hand - the meaning of the stem kara' as in the Islamic loanword from the Arabic term Koran in the meaning "reading, lecture, Holy Scripture of the Muslims (1), seems to point out to such an etymology.
This explanation leads us only to the statement that the name of Karaim determines the Karaim religion which acknowledges only the authority of reading (see Chapter 11, Religion), and does not tell us anything about the ethnical origin of Karaims.
A similar traditional explanation of the name Karaim is proposed by L. Nemoy in his latest work Karaite Anthology: "The most natural rendering of it is "champions of Scripture" - who do not recognize the postbiblical oral tradition - from the Hebrew kara, "to read," specifically, "to read and study Scripture" (Hebrew kara). Another explanation derives the term from the alternate meaning of kara, "to call, to invite"; hence Karaites would signify "callers, missionaries," similar to the Shiite "callers" (Arabic da'i, pl. du'at), who exhorted Moslems to join their movement. A third interpretation connects the name with the Arabic karra' (pl. karra'un), "expert reader in Scripture," alluding to the Karaite preoccupation with biblical exegesis. All these derivations, however, are more or less conjectural and have no documentary evidence to support them." (2)
2. ETHNOGENESIS OF KARAIMS
Since the name Karaim does not explain the ethnogenesis, we must base ourselves on other evidence in order to determine their origin. The most important evidence is to be found in the language which is spoken till now by Karaims and which belongs (for more details see Chapter 11) -to the Kipchak-Turkic group.(3) Not without bearing on our theme is also the Karaim folklore and other protoTurkic traditions (see Chapter IV).
The Kipchak-Turkic character of Karaim culture and - on the other hand -the Karaim religion (Chapter 11), when taken together, are rather an extraordinary combination. Therefore, if we wish to explain this fact in a natural way, and so find out the ethnogenesis of the present Karaims, we must assume that in the Middle Ages they must have got mixed with some Turkic or Turkic speaking peoples, who at that time lived on the steppes of South Russia, the so-called Kipchak steppes (desht-i-Kipchak of Muslim geographists).
The ethnical elements which stamped the Turkish character on the Karaims were the particular groups of Polovtsi or Komans, and in the earlier period the Khazars.
Especially the ancient realm of the Khazars, called Khazaria, which in the light of the recent scientific researches' shows many features in common with the Karaims - chiefly the Turkic language along with the Mosaic religion - seems to be the ethnic and political area where the cultural aspect of the Karaims found its formation. Therefore we must discuss the history of Khazaria, whose successors (heirs) in culture are the present Karaims.
3. HISTORY OF KHAZARIA (4)
The political history of Khazaria fully confirms the opinion now generally accepted by orientalists about the part played by Turkic ethnical elements in the formation and organization of strong, though not too lasting, states. The Turkish origin of Khazars is now assumed by a great number of scholars. Fr. Dvornik, in his work about the Byzantine-Khazar relations, categorically states: "Les Khazars étaient un peuple nomade d'origine turque," and the French orientalist Rene Grousset in his work L'empire des steppes defines: "Les Khazars etaient un peuple turc."
We find the first mentions of Khazars in Armenian and Georgian annalists. They refer sometimes to the 2nd and 3rd centuries of our era. However, we are not always able to distinguish the Khazars from the Huns of these chronicles. Quite reliable historical information is provided, beginning with the 6th century, by Byzantine, and later by Arabic-Muslim sources. According to those sources the state of Khazaria in the 6th century occupies a leading position among other similar tribal unions or tribal confederation of the Turkic peoples and extends its sway over the big steppe spaces on the Black and Caspian Seas, as well as over the sub-Circassian areas, situated between the Maeotis Sea and the Bahr-i-hazar, i.e. the Khazarian Sea, as the Caspian Sea was called in the Middle Ages, and also between the Volga, the Don and the Caucasus.
The growth and development of the Khazarian State soon compelled probably the most powerful Empire of those times, the Persian State of Sassanids, to adopt a defensive policy. It was just for defensive purposes against the imminent Khazar incursions that the Persian Emperor Khosro I Anoshervan (531-578) built the strong fortress of Darband. He also girdled round with a wall the passage to Transcaucasus at the Caspian coast. The walls, the relics of which have come down to our days, have often played their part in history as barrier to the entrance gate leading from Iran to the South and to the North to Eastern Europe. That is why Muslim geographers call Darband Bab ul-abwab "The Gate of Gates" (the Caspian Gates).
Thus the State of Khazaria was a powerful factor in international politics of the Near East. As enemies of the Persians, the Khazars quite naturally had to grow into powerful allies of the Byzantine State. Byzantium, the next power after the Sassanid Empire, occupied a central position one may say "Between East and West". For the West, i.e. for Christian Europe, it represented the nearest Orient, and for the Asiatic East the Occident. In this struggle "between the Iranian East and Byzantine West" an outstanding part has been played by the Khazars.
The year 626 is of great historical importance in the Byzantine Khazar relations. In this year, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius made an alliance with the Khaqan (Kaghan) of Khazars. The emperor when going on an expedition against Persia, obtained from the Khazars considerable aid consequent on the alliance: they gave him in fact 40,000 horsemen.
Soon afterwards, already in the latter half of the 7th century, the first encounters between the Khazars and the Arabs began. The latter supplied the place of the Persians in historical purport. The Sassanid power in Iran was completely destroyed under the pressure of Arabic conquerors fighting in the name of the new Islamic religion, but the changes in Persia did not bring about any fundamental changes in the foreign relations of Khazaria. The fights went on, with varying fortune. The Arabs managed under calif Osman's reign (644-656) to penetrate northwards to Darband. As a result of this expedition, the Khazarian principal town Samandar was ruined and devastated, and this determined the transposition of the Khazarian political center northwards, to the Volga estuary, where the new capital of Khazaria, Itil, was built. The Khazarian military feat of greatest renown was to force in 731, the Caucasian passage Dar-i-Alan and to reach as far as Iraq. These expeditions found their annalist in a Muslim historiographer, al-Tabari.
The last Khazarian incursion into the Northern borders of the califate territory was in 799, under Harun ar-Rashid's califate. From this time on there reigns a relative equilibrium of forces, which can be explained as a result of "exhaustion", of the termination of the period of conquests by both parties concerned, i.e. the Arabs and the Khazars, and of the begining of a new period of interior stability and peace. In connection with those struggles some investigators rightly emphasize the historical part played by the Khazars, as defenders of Europe against the imminent peril in Middle Ages of the overflow and conquest of Europe by the Arab-Muslim hordes. A Hungarian author, M. Kmosko in his paper Araber und Chasaren (Körösi Csoma Archivum, 1925) writes: "A most significant thing. The (Arabian) people, whose invasion could not be hindered either by the Iranian mountains or by the military power of a state then second in greatness, was obliged to halt before the Caucasian gates and could not advance any further, although the passage was defended by no empire, but merely by a half-settled people of Khazars." (5)
The Khazars, those active enemies of the Arabs, were still welcomed by Byzantium as allies. Their mutual relations grew closer and closer and led even to dynastic unions. The emperor Justinian II (685-695 and 705-711), when in exile, looked for asylum to the Khazarian court and there he married the kaghan's sister, who later on became the empress Theodora. The empress Irene was also originally a Khazarian princess, wife of Constantine V Kopronikos (741-775). Hence to their son, the emperor Leo IV (775-780) history has given the name of Xazaros (Leo IV, surnamed "the Khazar").
At the beginning of the X century a new political power appears on the stage of history, which was destined to exert a great influence on the fate of Khazaria. It was the newly organized state - Kiev Russia. The greatest blow at the Khazarian state was dealt by the ruler Sviatoslav during the expedition of A.D. 965.
In the first half of the llth century, after the fall of the Khazarian power at the end of the 10th century, there comes to the southern steppes on the Dnieper a new Turkic people, the Polovtsi or Komans. They have, most probably, absorbed the rest of the Khazarian people. The Karaims of to-day are regarded as heirs of the Khazarian culture. Therefore we must determine in what this culture consisted.
4. KHAZARIAN CULTURE
The sources show us the Khazars as a people that did not quite get rid of their nomadic peculiarities adopting a half-settled (semi nomadic) way of life. This is then seminomadism, characteristic of many Turkic peoples in the transitory period of their history. In Ibn Rusteh, an Arabian geographer, we find evidence of the Khazarian periodical nomadism, according to the seasons. The author says: "In winter the whole Khazarian population lives in towns, and when spring comes they go from the town to the steppes and remain there till winter." The information given by the so-called "Khazarian correspondence" in Hebrew corroborate this fact. "We live the whole winter in town, and in the month of Nisan (end of March, April) we go out each to his field. With the end of the month of Kislew (November-December) we come back to town." (6)
In Muslim authors we find descriptions of the Khazarian towns. Samandar has many orchards, and there are about 40,000 vineyards in the neighborhood. The population of the town consists of Muslims and others: there are mosques, churches, temples (kanisa, a non-Muslim temple). The town Itil is surrounded with a wall; it consists of two sections, divided by the river Itil (the Volga). There are markets and vapour-baths in the town. The houses are built of wood or felt. Clay, as building material, is little used. Only the royal palace, situated on an island and connected with the Western part of the town by means of a floating bridge, was built of bricks. Private persons were not allowed to use bricks as building material. The Western part of the town was destined for the Court dignitaries and in the Eastern was the town itself, inhabited by artisans, traders of various religions: Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Pagans. The two distinct parts of the Khazar capital were called al-Bayda, literally "the White (Town)," in Khazarian Sarighshin, and Khamlikh.
"The Khazarian country - Arabian geographers write further on - does not produce anything that would be exported southwards, except isinglass(7). Products received by Persia from Khazaria, honey, wax, furs, are exported down the Itil both from Russia and from the Volga-coasts Bulgarians. The Khazars do not produce tissues, but wore cloth imported from the Southern coasts of the Caspian sea, from Byzantium and other neighbouring countries. The Khazarian state income consists mostly of taxes and tributes paid by travelling merchants and of tariff, duties, levied upon the goods on all the roads leading to the capital."
Thus the question: what was the part played by the Khazars in the economic life of the Eastern Europe? - must be answered by Professor Gauther's statement: In that central goods exchange there was the capital Itil, the Khazars were alone the landlords and guardians, guaranteeing the safety of the transactions. For both those functions tributes and tariffs were collected and from these the Khazarian government maintained itself. In the productive work the Khazars had no direct participation and their entire material culture was imported and of foreign origin. This role of intermediary and not of producer is very typical of the Khazars, as of many other Turkic peoples.
As long as the Khazars managed to secure peace and safety, the Khazarian towns continued to flourish. Of great importance was the interior policy, a sui generis "pax khazarica" as well as a deeply rooted religious tolerance. By dint of mild policy, mild attitude towards the conquered peoples, and religious tolerance, the Khazars managed to create and to preserve for four centuries a great empire which from the Crimea to the river Yayik (Ural) had no natural frontiers at all. The best means of defence was the interior "Khazarian peace," which prevailed in those centuries in the area from the Caspian Sea to the Dnieper estuary and from the Caucasian mountains to the forests of central Russia. (8)
The problem of the so-called ' 'judaization" of the Khazars, or in other words, of their adopting the Old Testament, has puzzled already several generations of scientists. "How could this be - they ask that this mighty seminomadic empire had adopted Mosaism as the ruling religion of the nation, and not Christianity or Islam, with which the Khazars were in so close a touch."(9) Now, it must be categorically stated that the three religions in question, namely Christianity, Islam, and the Mosaic Law had each its representatives on Khazarian territory, and that those, acting as missionaries, developed there a lively activity. But the question whether one religion should be chosen rather than another, was decided not by means of religious struggles; on the contrary, the widely-applied Khazarian religious tolerance was here decisive. This is related to a characteristic particularity of the Turkic nomads, namely to their religious indifference. Owing to this very tolerance the original proto-Turkic religion - shamanism was preserved there besides monotheistic religions.
Only in such a cultural milieu, one may say an "inter-religious" one, where various influences were crossing, could there arise what is related by the Arabian geographer Ibn Rusteh, whom we have mentioned above. He speaks of the idea of a prince of Daghestan, i.e. of Northern Caucasus, vassal of the Khazar Kaghan, who was a worshipper of all three reIigions, Islam, Mosaism and Christianity, and who accordingly kept the Lord's day on three days of the week: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A tradition narrated by another Arabian geographer, Mas'udi, must be taken as an outcome of Khazarian tolerance. According to this tradition, there were seven judges in the Khazarian capital: two for the Christians, two for the followers of the Mosaic Law, two for the Muslims and one for the heathen (Shamanistes).
According to the sources the Khazars appear as believers in the Only God. The worship of God, the proto-Turkic Tengri-khan, remained as an old tradition, which would make it easier for them to adopt the monotheistic religions. And so for instance during the reception of St. Constantine, the Byzantine envoy to the Khazarian court, the Khazarian kaghan, taking up his cup and drinking to this guest, suggested such a toast: "Let us drink in the name of the Only God, Creator of all things." And when St. Constantine replied: "I drink in the name of the Only God and His Word and Spirit," the Khazarian ruler once more confirmed his "monotheism": "We quite agree and we differ but in one point. You worship the Holy Trinity, and we the Only God."
The adoption of the religion of the Old Testament by the Khazars, at least by a part of them including the court of the kaghan and the court dignitaries, occurred according to Hebrew sources in the first half of the 8th century, and according to the Muslim annalists during the reign of calif Harun ar-Rashid (786-809). In the light of a detailed critical study the latter sources should be given the first place. It is known that in those very times the Karaim faith, which came to life during the reign of Abu Djafar al-Mansur developed its missionary activities converting peoples of foreign origin. Through Byzantium, the Karaim missionaries reached also the steppes on the Caspian and the Black Seas, where Karaim proselytism found many followers among the Turkic peoples: Khazars, Komans, etc. The Karaims of to-day are the descendants of those groups.
In the latest edition of the Bolshaya Sovetskaya Encyklopediya (Great Soviet Encyclopedia), in two articles relating to the Khazars (Second printing, vol. 46, 1957, p. 23: "Khazar Kaghanat" and "Khazars"), we find a definite assertion to the effect that "Towards the end of the 8th century the ruling class of the Khazars embraced the Karaim faith" (or confession? in Russian: pravyashchaya verkhushka Khazar prinyala k a r a i m s h o y e veroisspovedaniye).
Here we should mention some recent efforts to explain the fact of the adoption of the Mosaic religion (in its Karaim confession) by the Khazarian ruling classes, as a counterweight and opposition against the foreign political influences of the neighbouring empires: the Christian Byzantium and the Muslim califate. Such an explanation, determining the adoption of the Old Testament as a result of a certain political game of the Khazarian court, given the rivalry between Byzantine and Arabic influences, does indeed provide the solution to the question. In any case it must be emphasized that Mosaism or Karaism was not the prevailing religion in the state of Khazaria. As it was stated by the famous Byzantinologue VasiIiev, the political wisdom and the religious tolerance of the Khazars and their kaghans created a vast, tribally differenciated and economically well developed state allied with the great Eastern empire. (10)
5. THE INHERITORS (HEIRS) OF THE KHAZARIAN CULTURE
Where is the cultural milieu, the remnant of the Khazars to be looked for? This question has been put by scientists before. A Russian turkologue in his work About Khazarian Inheritors looked for a continuation of the Khazarian cultural milieu among the Karachays, Balkars, Tats - the Caucasian mountaineers, but first of all among the Karaims.(11) To confirm his thesis the author looked for evidence in the linguistic material relating to the names of the days of the week. The Karaim names of the days have actually preserved the traces of pristine traditions both proto-Turkic and Christian, Muslim and Judaic. So, Sunday and Monday in Karaim yex-k'un', yex-bask'un' literally "the holy day" and "after the holy day" are Turkish terms contained by Christian missionaries for the use of the Turkic peoples they were converting, e.g. the Komans or Polovtsl.
Friday as denominated in both, the version of Troki baraski and that of Halicz ayne has been confirmed in Caucasian languages: of Greek-Byzantine origin paraski, paraskebi and of Irano-Persian origin adne, azne, the Chuvashes having erne-kun. The Mosaic element is represented by the denomination of Saturday: the Karaims have Shabat-k'un, and similarly the Komans and almost all the ethnical Turkic groups in the Caucasus (Kumuks, Karachays, Balkars) the Chuvashes having Shemat, Shumat!
Similarly in both Karaim and Koman names of the months we detect old-Turkic traditions as well as Muslim, Christian and Mosaic. Besides, it is not only the calendar that provides evidence of that "inter-religious" milieu, which was so characteristic of Khazaria, and has remained with the "inheritors" of the Khazarian culture.
A considerable part of the Karaim vocabulary containing the technical nomenclature connected with the worship or ritual, is predominantly of Arabic-Persian-Muslim origin. Now there arises another question: How could this be that Karaims, from "he religious point of view believers in the Old Testament, Bene Mikra "Sons of the Scripture" (see Chapter II), besides a relatively small group of religious terms of Hebrew origin, use for the most part purely Muslim terms. Such notions as the qualities of God (Holy, Merciful, Gracious), the Face of God, faith, law, religious community, congregation, temple, sacrifice, fasting, ritual purity, etc. (see Chapter 111), all those terms in the language are mainly of Arabic origin, and this is par excellence a Muslim nomenclature.
This preponderance of Muslim elements over Mosaic testifies to the fact that Polish Karaims before their settling in the West were for a considerable time in close touch with Muslim culture and that they lived in a milieu where foreign religious influences could more easily infiltrate owing to religious freedom. Such a milieu in the light of the sources was first of all Khazaria.
To complete the picture it must be mentioned that along with those Christian and Muslim traditions there have remained in the Karaim language proto-Turkic, i.e. Shamanian reflexes. In the first place Turkish denomination of the "shaman" itself - kam has remained till the present in the Karaim language. As the conditions of life have changed, it now applies to "the consulters with spirits", persecuted by Biblical Law (Deuteronomy 18, 11). The Mongolian-Turkic tribal nomenclature has also remained: thus ulus "people, tribe," uruv "stem of a family," öbg'ä "ancestor," etc.
But now let us pass from the details to the overall picture. Karaims widely use the Turkic language (Kipchak-Koman dialect) in their liturgy. Besides Hebrew as a liturgical language the Karaim language is of equal importance.
The whole Bible was translated into Karaim, in all probability not later than in the 10th century, and one generation has passed on this translation to another in unaltered form. The Holy Scripture is read in the Karaim temple kenessa in the Karaim language, the original Hebrew text being taken as basis. Karaim scholars, e.g. at-Kirkisani often emphasized the necessity of using the "national liturgy." And we have irrefutable evidence that such liturgy in the Khazarian national language was used in Khazaria.
In the life of St. Constantine there occurs an extremely interesting Mention related to a talk held by the future Slave apostle with the learned Fathers of the Church. When the latter objected to his having written the Holy Books in the Slavonic language, while they did not allow the use of any language but the "trilingue," i.e. the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages, the Slavonic missionary replied with quotation from St. Matthew: "Does not the rain sent by God fall equally upon the world?" and he added: "Many nations worship God in their own language, the Armenians, Persians, Avars, Copts, Khazars, etc." (13)
We know that Christian missionaries, when converting Turkic peoples, made use of the Turkish language in their work. We have a classical example in the Codex Cumanicus, a collection of Christian prayers and hymns, written for the Komans in the 13th century. In a similar way also in Khazaria the Turkic-Khazarian language was used in Christian liturgy, and, we can conclude, also in the Mosaic liturgy. This can be the only interpretation of the easy penetration of multireligious influences into the Karaim terminology. Since there was but one Khazarian language, different religions used similar or identical liturgic terms, and the borrowing of religious terminology in such conditions was very much facilitated. Thus the Khazarian religious tolerance and a national liturgy in the Khazarian language left cultural traces in the form of multireligious elements in the Karaim language.
Another analogy. The Khazars, while speaking a language of their own, Turkic-Khazarian, used the Hebrew alphabet. An Arabian scholar, an-Nadim of Bagdad (10th century) writes that among the Turkic peoples only three groups had their own alphabet; he mentions among other groups, the Khazars who used the Hebrew alphabet.(14) The powerful religious influence is evident in this important cultural detail. In a similar instance, the Islamic religion had influenced the Persians and Turks in adopting the Arabic alphabet. The same with the Polish Karaims: while using a Turkic-Karaim language in their liturgy, they use, on the other hand, the Hebrew alphabet under the influence of their religion.
A more detailed study reveals many common Khazarian and Karaim traditions. Here we have discussed: 1) the very conception of Khazarian culture as a result of the focusing of various cultural influences and 2) the continuation of the Khazarian milieu in the first place among the Karaims, who appear as Khazarian inheritors and even descendants owing to their general ethnical Turkic Koman character, while at the same time they profess the creed of the Old Testament.
Only in this way can the so-called judaization of the Khazars be explained. This misapplied term must be replaced by the adoption of the Biblical Law into the form of Karaim religion by a part of the Khazarian people. This in the climate of a prevailing tolerance and in the particularly conditions of the growth and flowering of Khazaria, gave the possibility of transplantation of Mosaic elements even to the proto-Turkic culture of Khazar autochthons.
The Karaims fully deserve to be called the rightful successors of the Khazarian culture.
Bibliography
(1) Arthur Jeffery, "The foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an," Gaekwad's Oriental Series, No. LXXIX, Oriental Institute, Baroda 1938, p. 233, s.v. Qur'an "A reading from Scripture." Already Marracci (17th century) pointed out the influence of the Hebrew mikra on the forming of the term Koran. Karaims call themselves in Hebrew writings Bene Mikra, "Sons of Holy Scripture" (in Polish " Synowie Zakonu"). See: Prodromus ad Refutationem Alcorani, Ludvico M a r r a c c i o (1698), p. 33: "Alcoran cum atriculo autem praedicto significat determinate Librum specialem legis Mahumetanicae, respondetque Voci qua Hebraei Sacra Volumina inscribunt."
(2) Leon Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, Excerpts from the Early Literature, Translated from Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew sources. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1952, "Introduction," p. XVII.
(3) The term T u r k i c is used here to stand for T u r k i s h in the broader sense. Cf. Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta, vol. 1, 1959, p. 1 "The T u r k i c Languages."
(4) Cf. Ananiasz Zajaczkowski, Ze studiow nad zagadnieniem chazarskim - Etudes sur le problems des Khazars, pub. by Polish Academy of Sciences. Krakow 1947, Reviewed in Der Islam by 0. Pritsak, vol. XXIX, 1949, pp. 96-103.
(5) See recently: D. M. DunIop, The History of the Yewish Khazars. Princeton, New Jersey, 1954, p. X: " it is clear that the victorious Muslims were met and held by the forces of the Khazar kingdom. Though like the Frariks the Khazars were thus in a sense the champions of Christendom, they belonged racially to the nomadic or seminomadic tyl>e of central Asia and at this time were still shamanists."
(6) Cf. Kokovtsov, Khazarskaya perepiska, pub. by Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.. Leningrad 1932, p. 85.
(7) Cf. D. M. DunIop, The History of the Jewish Khazars. Princeton, New Jersey, 1954, p.
(8) J. Gauthier, " Khazarskaya Kul'tura," Noviy Vostok, 1925, p.292.
(9) Cf. Fr. Dvornik, Les legendes de Constantin et de Mgthode vues de Byzance, p. 151.
(10) Cf. A. A. VasiIiev, "The Goths in the Crimea," Monographs of the Mediaeval Academy of America, No. 11. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1936.
(11) The point of view here presented has been referred to in the recent work on Khazars, D. M. Dunlop, The History of the Yewish Khazars, 1954, pp. 222, 261. Cf. S. S z y s z m a n, "Les Khazars - Problemes et controverses," Revue de I'Histoire des Religions, vol. CLII, No. 1, 1957, pp. 174-221.
(12) Cf. T. KowaIski, " Zu den türkischen Monatsnamen, " Archiv Orientalni, vol. II. Prague 1930, pp. 3-26.
(13) Fr. Dvornik, Les legendes de Constantin, ch. XVI.
(14) Cf. G. Fluegel, " Ueber Muhammad bin Ishak's Fihrist al- 'ulam," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, vol. 13, 1859, p. 566. See the Bibliography: A. Zajaczkowski, Ze studiow nad zagadnieniem chazarskim, ,p.59 and Dunlop, The History of the Khazars, p. 119.
This Web site is dedicated to the history and culture of Crimean Karaims
Here you will find a fascinating history of Karaims or Karailar (sing. Karai), their language, culture, and heroic struggle to survive.
Crimean Karaims are people of Turk(ic) descent who have adopted Karaism. This movement could be described as a return to the roots or sola scriptura. Although the Karaite reformation never became a mass movement, an ethnic mixture of Alans, Cumans and a number of Turkic Kipchak tribes in Crimea and northern steppes of Black Sea, as well as the ruling junta of Khazaria (not all the Khazars) converted to Karaism. These people became known as Karaims, thus combining the religious denomination with ethnonym. The following pages are about the native people of Crimea, their ancestors, the Khazars, and the areas they settled.
Religion has played an important part in forming the Karaim people. In the 8th century, Karaism was initiated by Anan ben David in Mesopotamia. From the 8th to the 10th centuries, the Karaims were subjected to the rule of Khazar Kagan. It is recorded in the 13th century that the Karaim congregation practised in Solkhat, the capital city of the Crimean Tatars. Karaism is Mosaism, an independent, non sectarian, monotheistic religion of Abraham. Anan Ben David, the founder of the actual Karaite religion, preached about a return to the written word of the Old Testament. He refused to recognize the Talmudic thought. This religion is distinct from Rabbinical Judaism.
Khazars and Karaims
Prince Bulan, the ruling Khagan of the Turkish Khazar Empire (not the whole Khazar population) was converted to Karaism by Isaac Sangari, whose grave is in the Karaim cemetery, Balti timez, in Josophate valley of Chufut-Kale (Qirq Yer) in Bakhchisarai, Crimea.
There is another supposition that the conversion of local inhabitants of Crimea to Karaism occurred not in Khazar times, but later, during or after the Mongol rule, under the influence of the newcomers from Byzantium. This could explain the Turkish language of the local Karaites, their Tatar appearance and way of life, and the political independence of the Karaites of Chufut-Kale. However, the genetic studies, point to their Khazar origin. Today Turkic Karaims are nearly all from Crimea. Over the years, they moved and settled in Lithuania, Poland, other parts of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Israel, France, and the United States. It is assumed that the number of Karaims in the world is less than 5,000 today.
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From Karaims in Poland (1961) by Ananisaz Zajaczkowski.
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KARAIMS: ORIGIN AND HISTORY
Ethnogenesis(Chapter I)
1. THE NAME
There were many attempts to solve the Karaim "enigma," to explain their origin by means of their name itself. It must, however, be stated from the very beginning that this does not explain the matter completely. This name, in Karaim language Karay, in plural Karaylar, in Arabic Kara'im in European languages Karaim (Russian and Polish), Caraime (French), etc., is derived, as is at present agreed by almost all the investigators, from the Hebrew stem kara "to read." This form in Hebrew karai and in plural Karai'm means literally "reading" that is to say acknowledging only the authority of Reading of the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament." Both the substance of the Karaim religion which actually does not acknowledge any other authority but the Holy Scripture, and - on the other hand - the meaning of the stem kara' as in the Islamic loanword from the Arabic term Koran in the meaning "reading, lecture, Holy Scripture of the Muslims (1), seems to point out to such an etymology.
This explanation leads us only to the statement that the name of Karaim determines the Karaim religion which acknowledges only the authority of reading (see Chapter 11, Religion), and does not tell us anything about the ethnical origin of Karaims.
A similar traditional explanation of the name Karaim is proposed by L. Nemoy in his latest work Karaite Anthology: "The most natural rendering of it is "champions of Scripture" - who do not recognize the postbiblical oral tradition - from the Hebrew kara, "to read," specifically, "to read and study Scripture" (Hebrew kara). Another explanation derives the term from the alternate meaning of kara, "to call, to invite"; hence Karaites would signify "callers, missionaries," similar to the Shiite "callers" (Arabic da'i, pl. du'at), who exhorted Moslems to join their movement. A third interpretation connects the name with the Arabic karra' (pl. karra'un), "expert reader in Scripture," alluding to the Karaite preoccupation with biblical exegesis. All these derivations, however, are more or less conjectural and have no documentary evidence to support them." (2)
2. ETHNOGENESIS OF KARAIMS
Since the name Karaim does not explain the ethnogenesis, we must base ourselves on other evidence in order to determine their origin. The most important evidence is to be found in the language which is spoken till now by Karaims and which belongs (for more details see Chapter 11) -to the Kipchak-Turkic group.(3) Not without bearing on our theme is also the Karaim folklore and other protoTurkic traditions (see Chapter IV).
The Kipchak-Turkic character of Karaim culture and - on the other hand -the Karaim religion (Chapter 11), when taken together, are rather an extraordinary combination. Therefore, if we wish to explain this fact in a natural way, and so find out the ethnogenesis of the present Karaims, we must assume that in the Middle Ages they must have got mixed with some Turkic or Turkic speaking peoples, who at that time lived on the steppes of South Russia, the so-called Kipchak steppes (desht-i-Kipchak of Muslim geographists).
The ethnical elements which stamped the Turkish character on the Karaims were the particular groups of Polovtsi or Komans, and in the earlier period the Khazars.
Especially the ancient realm of the Khazars, called Khazaria, which in the light of the recent scientific researches' shows many features in common with the Karaims - chiefly the Turkic language along with the Mosaic religion - seems to be the ethnic and political area where the cultural aspect of the Karaims found its formation. Therefore we must discuss the history of Khazaria, whose successors (heirs) in culture are the present Karaims.
3. HISTORY OF KHAZARIA (4)
The political history of Khazaria fully confirms the opinion now generally accepted by orientalists about the part played by Turkic ethnical elements in the formation and organization of strong, though not too lasting, states. The Turkish origin of Khazars is now assumed by a great number of scholars. Fr. Dvornik, in his work about the Byzantine-Khazar relations, categorically states: "Les Khazars étaient un peuple nomade d'origine turque," and the French orientalist Rene Grousset in his work L'empire des steppes defines: "Les Khazars etaient un peuple turc."
We find the first mentions of Khazars in Armenian and Georgian annalists. They refer sometimes to the 2nd and 3rd centuries of our era. However, we are not always able to distinguish the Khazars from the Huns of these chronicles. Quite reliable historical information is provided, beginning with the 6th century, by Byzantine, and later by Arabic-Muslim sources. According to those sources the state of Khazaria in the 6th century occupies a leading position among other similar tribal unions or tribal confederation of the Turkic peoples and extends its sway over the big steppe spaces on the Black and Caspian Seas, as well as over the sub-Circassian areas, situated between the Maeotis Sea and the Bahr-i-hazar, i.e. the Khazarian Sea, as the Caspian Sea was called in the Middle Ages, and also between the Volga, the Don and the Caucasus.
The growth and development of the Khazarian State soon compelled probably the most powerful Empire of those times, the Persian State of Sassanids, to adopt a defensive policy. It was just for defensive purposes against the imminent Khazar incursions that the Persian Emperor Khosro I Anoshervan (531-578) built the strong fortress of Darband. He also girdled round with a wall the passage to Transcaucasus at the Caspian coast. The walls, the relics of which have come down to our days, have often played their part in history as barrier to the entrance gate leading from Iran to the South and to the North to Eastern Europe. That is why Muslim geographers call Darband Bab ul-abwab "The Gate of Gates" (the Caspian Gates).
Thus the State of Khazaria was a powerful factor in international politics of the Near East. As enemies of the Persians, the Khazars quite naturally had to grow into powerful allies of the Byzantine State. Byzantium, the next power after the Sassanid Empire, occupied a central position one may say "Between East and West". For the West, i.e. for Christian Europe, it represented the nearest Orient, and for the Asiatic East the Occident. In this struggle "between the Iranian East and Byzantine West" an outstanding part has been played by the Khazars.
The year 626 is of great historical importance in the Byzantine Khazar relations. In this year, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius made an alliance with the Khaqan (Kaghan) of Khazars. The emperor when going on an expedition against Persia, obtained from the Khazars considerable aid consequent on the alliance: they gave him in fact 40,000 horsemen.
Soon afterwards, already in the latter half of the 7th century, the first encounters between the Khazars and the Arabs began. The latter supplied the place of the Persians in historical purport. The Sassanid power in Iran was completely destroyed under the pressure of Arabic conquerors fighting in the name of the new Islamic religion, but the changes in Persia did not bring about any fundamental changes in the foreign relations of Khazaria. The fights went on, with varying fortune. The Arabs managed under calif Osman's reign (644-656) to penetrate northwards to Darband. As a result of this expedition, the Khazarian principal town Samandar was ruined and devastated, and this determined the transposition of the Khazarian political center northwards, to the Volga estuary, where the new capital of Khazaria, Itil, was built. The Khazarian military feat of greatest renown was to force in 731, the Caucasian passage Dar-i-Alan and to reach as far as Iraq. These expeditions found their annalist in a Muslim historiographer, al-Tabari.
The last Khazarian incursion into the Northern borders of the califate territory was in 799, under Harun ar-Rashid's califate. From this time on there reigns a relative equilibrium of forces, which can be explained as a result of "exhaustion", of the termination of the period of conquests by both parties concerned, i.e. the Arabs and the Khazars, and of the begining of a new period of interior stability and peace. In connection with those struggles some investigators rightly emphasize the historical part played by the Khazars, as defenders of Europe against the imminent peril in Middle Ages of the overflow and conquest of Europe by the Arab-Muslim hordes. A Hungarian author, M. Kmosko in his paper Araber und Chasaren (Körösi Csoma Archivum, 1925) writes: "A most significant thing. The (Arabian) people, whose invasion could not be hindered either by the Iranian mountains or by the military power of a state then second in greatness, was obliged to halt before the Caucasian gates and could not advance any further, although the passage was defended by no empire, but merely by a half-settled people of Khazars." (5)
The Khazars, those active enemies of the Arabs, were still welcomed by Byzantium as allies. Their mutual relations grew closer and closer and led even to dynastic unions. The emperor Justinian II (685-695 and 705-711), when in exile, looked for asylum to the Khazarian court and there he married the kaghan's sister, who later on became the empress Theodora. The empress Irene was also originally a Khazarian princess, wife of Constantine V Kopronikos (741-775). Hence to their son, the emperor Leo IV (775-780) history has given the name of Xazaros (Leo IV, surnamed "the Khazar").
At the beginning of the X century a new political power appears on the stage of history, which was destined to exert a great influence on the fate of Khazaria. It was the newly organized state - Kiev Russia. The greatest blow at the Khazarian state was dealt by the ruler Sviatoslav during the expedition of A.D. 965.
In the first half of the llth century, after the fall of the Khazarian power at the end of the 10th century, there comes to the southern steppes on the Dnieper a new Turkic people, the Polovtsi or Komans. They have, most probably, absorbed the rest of the Khazarian people. The Karaims of to-day are regarded as heirs of the Khazarian culture. Therefore we must determine in what this culture consisted.
4. KHAZARIAN CULTURE
The sources show us the Khazars as a people that did not quite get rid of their nomadic peculiarities adopting a half-settled (semi nomadic) way of life. This is then seminomadism, characteristic of many Turkic peoples in the transitory period of their history. In Ibn Rusteh, an Arabian geographer, we find evidence of the Khazarian periodical nomadism, according to the seasons. The author says: "In winter the whole Khazarian population lives in towns, and when spring comes they go from the town to the steppes and remain there till winter." The information given by the so-called "Khazarian correspondence" in Hebrew corroborate this fact. "We live the whole winter in town, and in the month of Nisan (end of March, April) we go out each to his field. With the end of the month of Kislew (November-December) we come back to town." (6)
In Muslim authors we find descriptions of the Khazarian towns. Samandar has many orchards, and there are about 40,000 vineyards in the neighborhood. The population of the town consists of Muslims and others: there are mosques, churches, temples (kanisa, a non-Muslim temple). The town Itil is surrounded with a wall; it consists of two sections, divided by the river Itil (the Volga). There are markets and vapour-baths in the town. The houses are built of wood or felt. Clay, as building material, is little used. Only the royal palace, situated on an island and connected with the Western part of the town by means of a floating bridge, was built of bricks. Private persons were not allowed to use bricks as building material. The Western part of the town was destined for the Court dignitaries and in the Eastern was the town itself, inhabited by artisans, traders of various religions: Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Pagans. The two distinct parts of the Khazar capital were called al-Bayda, literally "the White (Town)," in Khazarian Sarighshin, and Khamlikh.
"The Khazarian country - Arabian geographers write further on - does not produce anything that would be exported southwards, except isinglass(7). Products received by Persia from Khazaria, honey, wax, furs, are exported down the Itil both from Russia and from the Volga-coasts Bulgarians. The Khazars do not produce tissues, but wore cloth imported from the Southern coasts of the Caspian sea, from Byzantium and other neighbouring countries. The Khazarian state income consists mostly of taxes and tributes paid by travelling merchants and of tariff, duties, levied upon the goods on all the roads leading to the capital."
Thus the question: what was the part played by the Khazars in the economic life of the Eastern Europe? - must be answered by Professor Gauther's statement: In that central goods exchange there was the capital Itil, the Khazars were alone the landlords and guardians, guaranteeing the safety of the transactions. For both those functions tributes and tariffs were collected and from these the Khazarian government maintained itself. In the productive work the Khazars had no direct participation and their entire material culture was imported and of foreign origin. This role of intermediary and not of producer is very typical of the Khazars, as of many other Turkic peoples.
As long as the Khazars managed to secure peace and safety, the Khazarian towns continued to flourish. Of great importance was the interior policy, a sui generis "pax khazarica" as well as a deeply rooted religious tolerance. By dint of mild policy, mild attitude towards the conquered peoples, and religious tolerance, the Khazars managed to create and to preserve for four centuries a great empire which from the Crimea to the river Yayik (Ural) had no natural frontiers at all. The best means of defence was the interior "Khazarian peace," which prevailed in those centuries in the area from the Caspian Sea to the Dnieper estuary and from the Caucasian mountains to the forests of central Russia. (8)
The problem of the so-called ' 'judaization" of the Khazars, or in other words, of their adopting the Old Testament, has puzzled already several generations of scientists. "How could this be - they ask that this mighty seminomadic empire had adopted Mosaism as the ruling religion of the nation, and not Christianity or Islam, with which the Khazars were in so close a touch."(9) Now, it must be categorically stated that the three religions in question, namely Christianity, Islam, and the Mosaic Law had each its representatives on Khazarian territory, and that those, acting as missionaries, developed there a lively activity. But the question whether one religion should be chosen rather than another, was decided not by means of religious struggles; on the contrary, the widely-applied Khazarian religious tolerance was here decisive. This is related to a characteristic particularity of the Turkic nomads, namely to their religious indifference. Owing to this very tolerance the original proto-Turkic religion - shamanism was preserved there besides monotheistic religions.
Only in such a cultural milieu, one may say an "inter-religious" one, where various influences were crossing, could there arise what is related by the Arabian geographer Ibn Rusteh, whom we have mentioned above. He speaks of the idea of a prince of Daghestan, i.e. of Northern Caucasus, vassal of the Khazar Kaghan, who was a worshipper of all three reIigions, Islam, Mosaism and Christianity, and who accordingly kept the Lord's day on three days of the week: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A tradition narrated by another Arabian geographer, Mas'udi, must be taken as an outcome of Khazarian tolerance. According to this tradition, there were seven judges in the Khazarian capital: two for the Christians, two for the followers of the Mosaic Law, two for the Muslims and one for the heathen (Shamanistes).
According to the sources the Khazars appear as believers in the Only God. The worship of God, the proto-Turkic Tengri-khan, remained as an old tradition, which would make it easier for them to adopt the monotheistic religions. And so for instance during the reception of St. Constantine, the Byzantine envoy to the Khazarian court, the Khazarian kaghan, taking up his cup and drinking to this guest, suggested such a toast: "Let us drink in the name of the Only God, Creator of all things." And when St. Constantine replied: "I drink in the name of the Only God and His Word and Spirit," the Khazarian ruler once more confirmed his "monotheism": "We quite agree and we differ but in one point. You worship the Holy Trinity, and we the Only God."
The adoption of the religion of the Old Testament by the Khazars, at least by a part of them including the court of the kaghan and the court dignitaries, occurred according to Hebrew sources in the first half of the 8th century, and according to the Muslim annalists during the reign of calif Harun ar-Rashid (786-809). In the light of a detailed critical study the latter sources should be given the first place. It is known that in those very times the Karaim faith, which came to life during the reign of Abu Djafar al-Mansur developed its missionary activities converting peoples of foreign origin. Through Byzantium, the Karaim missionaries reached also the steppes on the Caspian and the Black Seas, where Karaim proselytism found many followers among the Turkic peoples: Khazars, Komans, etc. The Karaims of to-day are the descendants of those groups.
In the latest edition of the Bolshaya Sovetskaya Encyklopediya (Great Soviet Encyclopedia), in two articles relating to the Khazars (Second printing, vol. 46, 1957, p. 23: "Khazar Kaghanat" and "Khazars"), we find a definite assertion to the effect that "Towards the end of the 8th century the ruling class of the Khazars embraced the Karaim faith" (or confession? in Russian: pravyashchaya verkhushka Khazar prinyala k a r a i m s h o y e veroisspovedaniye).
Here we should mention some recent efforts to explain the fact of the adoption of the Mosaic religion (in its Karaim confession) by the Khazarian ruling classes, as a counterweight and opposition against the foreign political influences of the neighbouring empires: the Christian Byzantium and the Muslim califate. Such an explanation, determining the adoption of the Old Testament as a result of a certain political game of the Khazarian court, given the rivalry between Byzantine and Arabic influences, does indeed provide the solution to the question. In any case it must be emphasized that Mosaism or Karaism was not the prevailing religion in the state of Khazaria. As it was stated by the famous Byzantinologue VasiIiev, the political wisdom and the religious tolerance of the Khazars and their kaghans created a vast, tribally differenciated and economically well developed state allied with the great Eastern empire. (10)
5. THE INHERITORS (HEIRS) OF THE KHAZARIAN CULTURE
Where is the cultural milieu, the remnant of the Khazars to be looked for? This question has been put by scientists before. A Russian turkologue in his work About Khazarian Inheritors looked for a continuation of the Khazarian cultural milieu among the Karachays, Balkars, Tats - the Caucasian mountaineers, but first of all among the Karaims.(11) To confirm his thesis the author looked for evidence in the linguistic material relating to the names of the days of the week. The Karaim names of the days have actually preserved the traces of pristine traditions both proto-Turkic and Christian, Muslim and Judaic. So, Sunday and Monday in Karaim yex-k'un', yex-bask'un' literally "the holy day" and "after the holy day" are Turkish terms contained by Christian missionaries for the use of the Turkic peoples they were converting, e.g. the Komans or Polovtsl.
Friday as denominated in both, the version of Troki baraski and that of Halicz ayne has been confirmed in Caucasian languages: of Greek-Byzantine origin paraski, paraskebi and of Irano-Persian origin adne, azne, the Chuvashes having erne-kun. The Mosaic element is represented by the denomination of Saturday: the Karaims have Shabat-k'un, and similarly the Komans and almost all the ethnical Turkic groups in the Caucasus (Kumuks, Karachays, Balkars) the Chuvashes having Shemat, Shumat!
Similarly in both Karaim and Koman names of the months we detect old-Turkic traditions as well as Muslim, Christian and Mosaic. Besides, it is not only the calendar that provides evidence of that "inter-religious" milieu, which was so characteristic of Khazaria, and has remained with the "inheritors" of the Khazarian culture.
A considerable part of the Karaim vocabulary containing the technical nomenclature connected with the worship or ritual, is predominantly of Arabic-Persian-Muslim origin. Now there arises another question: How could this be that Karaims, from "he religious point of view believers in the Old Testament, Bene Mikra "Sons of the Scripture" (see Chapter II), besides a relatively small group of religious terms of Hebrew origin, use for the most part purely Muslim terms. Such notions as the qualities of God (Holy, Merciful, Gracious), the Face of God, faith, law, religious community, congregation, temple, sacrifice, fasting, ritual purity, etc. (see Chapter 111), all those terms in the language are mainly of Arabic origin, and this is par excellence a Muslim nomenclature.
This preponderance of Muslim elements over Mosaic testifies to the fact that Polish Karaims before their settling in the West were for a considerable time in close touch with Muslim culture and that they lived in a milieu where foreign religious influences could more easily infiltrate owing to religious freedom. Such a milieu in the light of the sources was first of all Khazaria.
To complete the picture it must be mentioned that along with those Christian and Muslim traditions there have remained in the Karaim language proto-Turkic, i.e. Shamanian reflexes. In the first place Turkish denomination of the "shaman" itself - kam has remained till the present in the Karaim language. As the conditions of life have changed, it now applies to "the consulters with spirits", persecuted by Biblical Law (Deuteronomy 18, 11). The Mongolian-Turkic tribal nomenclature has also remained: thus ulus "people, tribe," uruv "stem of a family," öbg'ä "ancestor," etc.
But now let us pass from the details to the overall picture. Karaims widely use the Turkic language (Kipchak-Koman dialect) in their liturgy. Besides Hebrew as a liturgical language the Karaim language is of equal importance.
The whole Bible was translated into Karaim, in all probability not later than in the 10th century, and one generation has passed on this translation to another in unaltered form. The Holy Scripture is read in the Karaim temple kenessa in the Karaim language, the original Hebrew text being taken as basis. Karaim scholars, e.g. at-Kirkisani often emphasized the necessity of using the "national liturgy." And we have irrefutable evidence that such liturgy in the Khazarian national language was used in Khazaria.
In the life of St. Constantine there occurs an extremely interesting Mention related to a talk held by the future Slave apostle with the learned Fathers of the Church. When the latter objected to his having written the Holy Books in the Slavonic language, while they did not allow the use of any language but the "trilingue," i.e. the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages, the Slavonic missionary replied with quotation from St. Matthew: "Does not the rain sent by God fall equally upon the world?" and he added: "Many nations worship God in their own language, the Armenians, Persians, Avars, Copts, Khazars, etc." (13)
We know that Christian missionaries, when converting Turkic peoples, made use of the Turkish language in their work. We have a classical example in the Codex Cumanicus, a collection of Christian prayers and hymns, written for the Komans in the 13th century. In a similar way also in Khazaria the Turkic-Khazarian language was used in Christian liturgy, and, we can conclude, also in the Mosaic liturgy. This can be the only interpretation of the easy penetration of multireligious influences into the Karaim terminology. Since there was but one Khazarian language, different religions used similar or identical liturgic terms, and the borrowing of religious terminology in such conditions was very much facilitated. Thus the Khazarian religious tolerance and a national liturgy in the Khazarian language left cultural traces in the form of multireligious elements in the Karaim language.
Another analogy. The Khazars, while speaking a language of their own, Turkic-Khazarian, used the Hebrew alphabet. An Arabian scholar, an-Nadim of Bagdad (10th century) writes that among the Turkic peoples only three groups had their own alphabet; he mentions among other groups, the Khazars who used the Hebrew alphabet.(14) The powerful religious influence is evident in this important cultural detail. In a similar instance, the Islamic religion had influenced the Persians and Turks in adopting the Arabic alphabet. The same with the Polish Karaims: while using a Turkic-Karaim language in their liturgy, they use, on the other hand, the Hebrew alphabet under the influence of their religion.
A more detailed study reveals many common Khazarian and Karaim traditions. Here we have discussed: 1) the very conception of Khazarian culture as a result of the focusing of various cultural influences and 2) the continuation of the Khazarian milieu in the first place among the Karaims, who appear as Khazarian inheritors and even descendants owing to their general ethnical Turkic Koman character, while at the same time they profess the creed of the Old Testament.
Only in this way can the so-called judaization of the Khazars be explained. This misapplied term must be replaced by the adoption of the Biblical Law into the form of Karaim religion by a part of the Khazarian people. This in the climate of a prevailing tolerance and in the particularly conditions of the growth and flowering of Khazaria, gave the possibility of transplantation of Mosaic elements even to the proto-Turkic culture of Khazar autochthons.
The Karaims fully deserve to be called the rightful successors of the Khazarian culture.
Bibliography
(1) Arthur Jeffery, "The foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an," Gaekwad's Oriental Series, No. LXXIX, Oriental Institute, Baroda 1938, p. 233, s.v. Qur'an "A reading from Scripture." Already Marracci (17th century) pointed out the influence of the Hebrew mikra on the forming of the term Koran. Karaims call themselves in Hebrew writings Bene Mikra, "Sons of Holy Scripture" (in Polish " Synowie Zakonu"). See: Prodromus ad Refutationem Alcorani, Ludvico M a r r a c c i o (1698), p. 33: "Alcoran cum atriculo autem praedicto significat determinate Librum specialem legis Mahumetanicae, respondetque Voci qua Hebraei Sacra Volumina inscribunt."
(2) Leon Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, Excerpts from the Early Literature, Translated from Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew sources. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1952, "Introduction," p. XVII.
(3) The term T u r k i c is used here to stand for T u r k i s h in the broader sense. Cf. Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta, vol. 1, 1959, p. 1 "The T u r k i c Languages."
(4) Cf. Ananiasz Zajaczkowski, Ze studiow nad zagadnieniem chazarskim - Etudes sur le problems des Khazars, pub. by Polish Academy of Sciences. Krakow 1947, Reviewed in Der Islam by 0. Pritsak, vol. XXIX, 1949, pp. 96-103.
(5) See recently: D. M. DunIop, The History of the Yewish Khazars. Princeton, New Jersey, 1954, p. X: " it is clear that the victorious Muslims were met and held by the forces of the Khazar kingdom. Though like the Frariks the Khazars were thus in a sense the champions of Christendom, they belonged racially to the nomadic or seminomadic tyl>e of central Asia and at this time were still shamanists."
(6) Cf. Kokovtsov, Khazarskaya perepiska, pub. by Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.. Leningrad 1932, p. 85.
(7) Cf. D. M. DunIop, The History of the Jewish Khazars. Princeton, New Jersey, 1954, p.
(8) J. Gauthier, " Khazarskaya Kul'tura," Noviy Vostok, 1925, p.292.
(9) Cf. Fr. Dvornik, Les legendes de Constantin et de Mgthode vues de Byzance, p. 151.
(10) Cf. A. A. VasiIiev, "The Goths in the Crimea," Monographs of the Mediaeval Academy of America, No. 11. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1936.
(11) The point of view here presented has been referred to in the recent work on Khazars, D. M. Dunlop, The History of the Yewish Khazars, 1954, pp. 222, 261. Cf. S. S z y s z m a n, "Les Khazars - Problemes et controverses," Revue de I'Histoire des Religions, vol. CLII, No. 1, 1957, pp. 174-221.
(12) Cf. T. KowaIski, " Zu den türkischen Monatsnamen, " Archiv Orientalni, vol. II. Prague 1930, pp. 3-26.
(13) Fr. Dvornik, Les legendes de Constantin, ch. XVI.
(14) Cf. G. Fluegel, " Ueber Muhammad bin Ishak's Fihrist al- 'ulam," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, vol. 13, 1859, p. 566. See the Bibliography: A. Zajaczkowski, Ze studiow nad zagadnieniem chazarskim, ,p.59 and Dunlop, The History of the Khazars, p. 119.