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Khazars: Difference between revisions
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The kingdom of the [[Khazars]] vanished from the map of the world many centuries ago. Today many people have never | [[File:Chasaren.jpg|thumb|Khazar Khaganate, 650–850]] | ||
The kingdom of the [[Khazars]] vanished from the map of the world many centuries ago. Today many people have never heard of it, yet in antiquity the Khazarian kingdom [Khazaria] was a major power, indeed dominating the southern portion of modern Russia between the Black and Caspian Seas, holding sway over a large empire of subjugated peoples. | |||
The Khazars had been under continual pressure from their Byzantine and Muslim neighbors to adopt Christianity or Islam, but the Khazar ruler, called the Khakan, had heard of another religion called Judaism. For political reasons of maintaining independence in the region and to more easily infiltrate the local cultures, the Khakan announced that the Khazars were adopting Judaism as their religion, which acted as the façade of which to hide their [[Baal Worship]] blood cult practices. Overnight an entirely new group of people, the warlike [[Khazars]], suddenly proclaimed themselves to be practicing Jews. The Khazar kingdom began to be described as the ’Kingdom of the Jews’ by historians that were intentionally rewriting history for the Khazarians who became known as the [[Name-Stealers]]. Succeeding Khazar rulers took on Jewish names of those they had conquered and continued to name their offspring classical Jewish names, and during the late 9th Century the Khazar kingdom became a haven for Jews of other lands. | The Khazars had been under continual pressure from their Byzantine and Muslim neighbors to adopt Christianity or Islam, but the Khazar ruler, called the Khakan, had heard of another religion called Judaism. For political reasons of maintaining independence in the region and to more easily infiltrate the local cultures, the Khakan announced that the Khazars were adopting Judaism as their religion, which acted as the façade of which to hide their [[Baal Worship]] blood cult practices. Overnight an entirely new group of people, the warlike [[Khazars]], suddenly proclaimed themselves to be practicing Jews. The Khazar kingdom began to be described as the ’Kingdom of the Jews’ by historians that were intentionally rewriting history for the Khazarians who became known as the [[Name-Stealers]]. Succeeding Khazar rulers took on Jewish names of those they had conquered and continued to name their offspring classical Jewish names, and during the late 9th Century the Khazar kingdom became a haven for Jews of other lands. | ||