Corrections
Apr 7, 2012 16:05:09 GMT 1 aynur said: If I want to search for visual material or pictures of Khazar warriors, pretty much the only thing I get to see is Israelis with black hats and beards. Now, it bugs me. Where on Earth did people first come up with this idea? Is it some type of new trend or rooted somewhere else in past history? Because as far as I'm concerned, most Khazars identify themselves as Muslim and Kazakh and live in southern Russia/Kazakhstan/Caucasus and have nothing to do with Jewish people.
The first Nation to have historically claimed descent from Khazars are the Karaims. We are the smallest Turkic minority. BTW it bugs us too! The idea came from the fact that one of the Khazar tribes called the Jidi tribe converted to Judaism and suddenly everyone thinks all Khazars were Jews which is obviously ridiculous. We Karaims preserve the original religion of Khazaria, and it is very similar to what the Uyghurs believed. Central Asians believed in Shamanism, Moses, Buddha, Christ, and later also Muhammad. It is our eclectic nature to cross-pollinate ideas from east to west, north to south and back again and make use of everything which is useful.
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Apr 8, 2012 0:24:46 GMT 1 Ardavarz said: The only Turkic Judaists I am aware of are the Karaims and they are an unorthodox sect - they adopt Torah, but refute Talmud, Rabbinate and Messianism..... It seems that only a small upper class of the Khazars have adopted (Karaim?) Judaism in 8th/9th century. But some Israeli nationalists would like to believe that there was a Jewish empire in the early middle ages and that was Khazaria, so they perpetuate this myth.
You are confusing Karaims of Eastern Europe with the beliefs of the Karaite Jews. We are not Jews, we have nothing to do with Jews, Karaite Jews are coincidentally named so and have nothing in common with us. Our religion is an eclectic native Turanian religion of Tengri. And yes we do believe in Christ, alongside Buddha. We believe in Tora (Old Turkic Customary Tribal Laws also known as Tura and Tore) not exactly the same as the Torah
It was not our upper class of Khazars who converted, most of us never converted. Karaimism was our original religion and only one tribe called the Jidi tribe converted to Judaism.
You are correct however that it is Israeli Nationalists who keep the myth alive and at the same time crush all knowledge about our own distinct ethnic group.
Apr 8, 2012 10:02:03 GMT 1 H. Ihsan Erkoc said: The Khazars were Judaist as much as the Orkhon Uyghurs were Manichaeists - only the ruling elite and perhaps a part of the society was. We have many Islamic geographical and diplomatic accounts which describe the Khazar Empire and it's capital as a multi-religioned and multi-ethnic entity. Judaists, Christians, Muslims and "pagans/Tengriists (followers of non-Semitic Turkic and Finno-Ugric, perhaps also Slavic beliefs)" all had their own courts in which they were tried according to their own customs....The dynasty from which Khazar qaghans stemmed from are thought to be a branch of the ruling dynasty from the Ashina.... Were they a continuation of the Sabars, were they speakers of an R-Dialect of Old Turkic, or were they Z-Dialect speakers related with the Uyghurs in the east? Who knows.
Again I have to re-iterate that it was only the Jidi tribe which converted, not the ruling elite. And the Arab sources are confused because they could not make sense of our religious system which includes all the elements you mentioned but which is in fact only one eclectic (and syncretic) tradition. The so-called "White" Khazar rulers were indeed Gokturk Ashinas who had previously ruled over the Western On-Oq Gahanate. The common population were Kara-Khazars (Karaims).As for our language it is a variety of Cuman, but genetic studies on our ethnicity reveal a typically Ghuzz Turk composition. It is not likely that we spoke R-Turkic which is only spoken by the Ugric speakers who were Turkicized (and hence called Oguric) under our Khazar influence (Khazar-Ugors aka Kutrigurs). The Ugors under the Hun influence (Hun-Ugors aka Onogurs) managed to keep their language and absorb the Turkic Huns.
Apr 8, 2012 22:48:44 GMT 1 Ardavarz said: When some new religion is adopted there is often some contamination of the older legends and mythology. According to the genealogical myth in the letter of Qaghan Joseph there were ten sons of Togarmah. ... Then if "Togarmah" is indeed a cipher for Tocharians...
The legend of the Ten sons of Togarmah is an intentional Jewish corruption of our own legends because they have been trying to convert us and bury our own native traditions on our Ten Tribe ancestors. Why? Because they feel it threatens their own legitimacy. Togarmah is indeed Tochar, whose daughters were married to the Turkic Ten Tribes. The relationship between our people and the Cimmerian nations (Sogdians, Tocharians and Rifat) began after the Scythian King Madyes conquered the Medes.
Apr 9, 2012 7:39:30 GMT 1 H. Ihsan Erkoc said: I don't think the Tokharians were related with the On Oq or Onoghurs. We know that Ïshbara Die-li-shi Qaghan (Sha-bo-luo Die-li-shi Ke-han 沙鉢羅咥利失可汗), who became the ruler of the Western Gokturk realm in 634, reorganized the Turkic tribes dwelling in his qaghanate under the name On Oq or "Ten Arrows (Tribes)". At that time the Khazars were already in existence in the west as a separate ethnogroup.
Onogurs are first mentioned in 460sAD. Khazars were first mentioned in the mid 500s (6th century AD). But you are correct, just because the Ten Tribes married Tocharian (and other Cimmerian) women, it does not mean we became Tocharians.
Apr 10, 2012 10:20:35 GMT 1 massaget said: Onoghoria was in the meotis swamps, noth east of the black sea in the early 4.th century according to Libanius greek philosohper, its mentioned in the 7th century work of Ravenna Geographicus. Therefore its not that sure they were a türkic tribe. Hungarian form of the name hungarian- ungar, derives from onoghur. Also the name onoghur is convincing as its form in the sources are mostly not onoghur, several sources mentions it as ungur, unnigur, etc.
Unugur were the Volga Ugors who were under the control of the Huns. The Ugors in the North East who were under the control of the Khazars were eventually Turkicized to become the Chuvashes, but the Ugors who were in the South West under the control of the Huns eventually absorbed their Turkic leaders and remain primarily Ugor language speakers to this day (although preserving significant Turkic influence) as the Hungarians.
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