Non-Jews have been drenched with propaganda that the sixpointed "Star of David" is a sacred symbol of Jewry, dating from David and Solomon, in Biblical times, and signifying the pure "monotheism" of the Jewish religion.

In actuality, the sixpointed star, called "David's Shield," or "Magen David," was only adopted as a Jewish device in 1873, by the American Jewish Publication Society, it is not even mentioned in rabbinical literature.

MAGEN DAWID ("DAVID'S SHIELD"): "The hexagram formed by the combination of two equilateral triangles; used as the symbol of Judaism. It is placed upon synagogues, sacred vessels, and the like, and was adopted as a device by the American Publication Society in 1873, the Zionist Congress of Basel, hence by 'Die Welt, the official organ of Zionism, and by other bodies.

The hebra kaddisha of the Jewish community of Johannesburg, South Africa, calls itself 'Hebra Kaddisha zum Rothn Magen David,' following the designation of the 'red cross' societies...

IT IS NOTEWORTHY, MOREOVER, THAT THE SHIELD OF DAVID IS NOT MENTIONED IN RABBINICAL LITERATURE. The 'Magen Dawid,' therefore, probably did not originate within Rabbinism, the official and dominant Judaism for more than 2,000 years.

Nevertheless a David's shield has recently been noted on a Jewish tombstone at Tarentum, in southern Italy, which may date as early as the third century of the common era.

The earliest Jewish literary source which mentions it, the 'Eshkol haKofer' of the karaite Judah Hadassi says, in ch. 242: 'Seven names of angels precede the mezuzah: Michael, Garield, etc... Tetragrammation protect thee! And likewise the sign called 'David's shield' is placed beside the name of each angel.' It was therefore, at this time a sign on amulets. In the magic papyri of antiquity, pentagrams, together with stars and other signs, are frequently found on amulets bearing the Jewish names of God, 'Sabaoth,' 'Adonai,' 'Eloai,' and used to guard against fever and other diseases. Curiously enough, only the pentacle appears, not the hexagram.

In the great magic papyrus at Paris and London there are twentytwo signs sided by side, and a circle with twelve signs, but NEITHER A PENTACLE NOR A HEXAGRAM, although there is a triangle, perhaps in place of the latter. In the many illustrations of amulets given by Budge in his 'Egyptian Magic' NOT A SINGLE PENTACLE OR HEXAGRAM APPEARS.

THE SYNCRETISM OF HELLENISTIC, JEWISH, AND COPTIC INFLUENCES DID NOT THEREFORE, ORIGINATE THE SYMBOL. IT IS PROBABLE THAT IT WAS THE CABALA THAT DERIVED THE SYMBOL FROM THE TEMPLARS. THE CABALA, IN FACT, MAKES USE OF THIS SIGN, ARRANGING THE TEN SEFIROT, or spheres, in it, and placing in on AMULETS.

The pentagram, called Solomon's seal, is also used as a talisman, and HENRY THINKS THAT THE HINDUS DERIVED IT FROM THE SEMITES [Here is another case where the Jews admit they are not Semites. Can you not see it? The Jew Henry thinks it was derived originally FROM THE SEMITES! Here is a Jew admitting that THE JEWS ARE NOT SEMITES!], although the name by no means proves the Jewish or Semitic origin of the sign.

The Hindus likewise employed the hexagram as a means of protection, and as such it is mentioned in the earliest source, quoted above.

In the synagogues, perhaps, it took the place of the mezuzah, and the name 'SHIELD OF DAVID' MAY HAVE BEEN GIVEN IT IN VIRTUE OF ITS PROTECTIVE POWERS.

Thehexagram may have been employed originally also as an architectural ornament on synagogues, as it is, for example, on the cathedrals of Brandenburg and Stendal, and on the Marktkirche at Hanover.

A pentacle in this form, (a five pointed star is shown here), is found on the ancient synagogue at Tell Hum.

Charles IV, prescribed for the Jews of Prague, in 1354, A RED FLAG WITH BOTH DAVID'S SHIELD AND SOLOMON'S SEAL, WHILE THE RED FLAG WITH WHICH THE JEWS MET KING MATTHIAS OF HUNGARY in the fifteenth century showed two pentacles with two golden stars.

The pentacle, therefore, may also have been used among the Jews. It occurs in a manuscript as early as the year 1073. However, the sixpointed star has been used for centuries for magic amulets and cabalistic sorcery."

(See pages 548, 549 and 550 of the Jewish Encyclopedia).

The Balfour Declaration, a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild in which the British made public their support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was a product of years of careful negotiation.

After centuries of living in a diaspora, the 1894 Dreyfus Affair in France shocked Jews into realizing they would not be safe from arbitrary antisemitism unless they had their own country.

In response, Jews created the new concept of political Zionism in which it was believed that through active political maneuvering, a Jewish homeland could be created. Zionism was becoming a popular concept by the time World War I began.

During World War I, Great Britain needed help. Since Germany (Britain's enemy during WWI) had cornered the production of acetone -- an important ingredient for arms production -- Great Britain may have lost the war if Chaim Weizmann had not invented a fermentation process that allowed the British to manufacture their own liquid acetone.

It was this fermentation process that brought Weizmann to the attention of David Lloyd George (minister of ammunitions) and Arthur James Balfour (previously the British prime minister but at this time the first lord of the admiralty).

Chaim Weizmann was not just a scientist; he was also the leader of the Zionist movement.

Weizmann's contact with Lloyd George and Balfour continued, even after Lloyd George became prime minister and Balfour was transferred to the Foreign Office in 1916. Additional Zionist leaders such as Nahum Sokolow also pressured Great Britain to support a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Though Balfour, himself, was in favor of a Jewish state, Great Britain particularly favored the declaration as an act of policy. Britain wanted the United States to join World War I and the British hoped that by supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine, world Jewry would be able to sway the U.S. to join the war.

Though the Balfour Declaration went through several drafts, the final version was issued on November 2, 1917, in a letter from Balfour to Lord Rothschild, president of the British Zionist Federation. The main body of the letter quoted the decision of the October 31, 1917 British Cabinet meeting.

This declaration was accepted by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922 and embodied in the mandate that gave Great Britain temporary administrative control of Palestine.

In 1939, Great Britain reneged on the Balfour Declaration by issuing the White Paper, which stated that creating a Jewish state was no longer a British policy. It was also Great Britain's change in policy toward Palestine, especially the White Paper, that prevented millions of European Jews to escape from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine.

The Balfour Declaration (it its entirety):

http://history1900s.about.com/cs/holocaust/p/balfourdeclare.htm

History 003

"To the Jews, Rome constituted the quintessence of all that was odious and should be swept away from off the face of the earth. They hated Rome and her device, arma et leges, with an inhuman hatred. True, Rome had leges, laws, like the Jews. But in their very resemblance lay their difference; for the Roman laws were merely the practical application of the arma, the arms. ..but without the arms, the leges were empty formulae."

(Josef Kastein, History of the Jews, p. 192).

History 004

Another famous betrayal of a country bit its Jews took place in Spain. In his History of the Jews, Vol. Ill, p. 109, Professor Graetz relates: "The Jews of Africa, who at various times had emigrated thither from Spain, and their unlucky co-religionists of the Peninsula, made common cause with the Mahometan conqueror, Tarik, who brought over from Africa into Andalusia an army eager for the fray.

After the battle of Xeres (July, 711 A.D.), and the death of Frederic, the last of the Visigothic kings, the victorious Arabs pushed onward, and were everywhere supported by the Jews. In every city that they conquered, the Moslem generals were able to leave but a small garrison of their own troops, as they had need of every man for the subjection of the country; they therefore confided them to the safekeeping of the Jews.

In this manner the Jews, who but lately had been serfs, now became the masters of the towns of Cordova, Granada, Malaga, and many others. When Tarik appeared before the capital, Toledo, he found it occupied by a small garrison only, the nobles and clergy having found safety in flight.

While the Christians were in church, praying for the safety of their country and religion, the Jews flung open the gates to the victorious Arabs (Palm Sunday, 712 A.D.), receiving them with acclamations, and thus avenged themselves for the many miseries which had befallen them in the course of a century since the time of Reccared (The 'miseries' which the Jews claimed prompted them to treason was explained by Professor Graetz.

King Reccard 'the most oppressive of all was the restraint touching the possession of slaves. Henceforward the Jews were neither to purchase Christian slaves nor to accept them as presents.' (History of the Jews, Vol. Ill, p. 46)) and Sisebut (The 'miseries' of King Sisebut was that he was annoyingly determined to convert them to Christianity. History of the Jews, Vol. Ill, p. 46)).

The capital also was entrusted by Tarik to the custody of the Jews, while he pushed on in pursuit of the cowardly Visigoths, who had sought safety in flight, for the purpose of recovering from them the treasure which they had carried off.

Finally when Musa Ibn-Nosair, the Governor of Africa, brought a second army into Spain and conquered other cities, he also delivered them into the custody of the Jews."

(History of the Jews, Professor Graetz, Vol. Ill, p. 109; The Iron Curtain Over America, JohnBeaty, pp. 194-195).

History 005

"The Jews as outcasts: Jews have been a wondering people from the time of the beginning. History is filled with preemptory edicts, expelling Jews from where they had made their homes. At times the edicts were the result of trumped up charges against the Jews or Judaism, and later proved to be false.

At other times they were the consequence of economic situation, which the authorities believed would be improved if the Jews were removed.

Almost always the bands were only temporary as below. The culminate impact on the psychic on the Jewish people however, has been traumatic. And may very well be indelible. The following is a list, far from complete. Hardly a major Jewish community has not been expelled BY ITS HOST COUNTRY. Only to be let back in again, later to be expelled once more."

(Jewish Almanac 1981, p. 127)

History 006

"We Jews have spoiled the blood of all races; We have tarnished and broken their power; we have make everything foul, rotten, decomposed and decayed."

(The Way to Zion, Munzer)

History 007

"The Jews who have arrived would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians) were very repugnant to the inferior magistrates, as also to the people having the most affection for you;

the Deaconry also fearing that owing to their present indigence they might become a charge in the coming winter, we have, for the benefit of this weak and newly developed place and land in general, deemed it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart;

praying also most seriously in this connection, for ourselves as also for the general community of your worships, that the deceitful race, such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ, be not allowed further to infect and trouble this new colony, to the detraction of your worships and dissatisfaction of your worships' most affectionate subjects."

(Peter Stuyvesant, in a letter to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company, from New Amsterdam (New York), September 22, 1654).

History 008

The following is taken from "THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH KHAZARS," by D.M. Dunlop, pp. 4-15.

"... Our first question here is, When did the Khazars and the Khazar name appear? There has been considerable discussion as to the relation of the Khazars to the Huns on the one hand and to the West Turks on the other.

The prevalent opinion has for some time been that the Khazars emerged from the West Turkish empire. Early references to the Khazars appear about the time when the West Turks cease to be mentioned. Thus they are reported to have joined forces with the Greek Emperor Heraclius against the Persians in A.D. 627 and to have materially assisted him in the siege of Tiflis.

it is a question whether the Khazars were at this time under West Turk supremacy. The chronicler Theophanes {died circa A.D. 818} who tells the story introduces them as "the Turks from the east whom they call Khazars." (Ed. Bonn, 485) On the other hand, the West Turks appear in the Greek writers simply as Turks, without special qualification.

The Syriac historians mention the Khazars earlier than A.d. 627. Both Michael Syrus (Ed. Cabot, 381, col. 1, line 9) and Bar Hebraeus (Ed. Budge, 32b, col. 1, line 13) tell how, apparently in the reign of the Greek Emperor Maurcie (582-602), three brothers from "inner Scythia" marched west with 30,000 men, and when they reached the frontier of the Greeks, one of them, Bulgarios (Bar Hebraeus, Bulgaris), crossed the Don and settled within the Empire.

The others occupied "the country of the Alans which is called Barsalia," they and the former inhabitants adopting the name of Khazars from Kazarig, the eldest of the brothers. if as seems possible the story goes back to John of Ephesus (So Barthold, E.I., art. Bulghar) {died circa A.D. 586}, it is contemporary with the alleged event.

It states pretty explicitly that the Khazars arrived at the Caucasus from central Asia towards the end of the 6th century.

In the Greek writer Theophylact Simocatta {circa 620} we have an almost contemporary account of events among the West Turks which can hardly be unrelated to the Syriac story just mentioned. (Ed. Bonn, 282ff, Chavannes, Documents, 246ff) Speaking of a Turkish embassy to Maurice in 598, this author describes how in past years the Turks had overthrown the White Huns (Hephthalites), the Avars, and the Uigurs who lived on "the Til, which the Turks call theBlack River."

(Unidentified. Til is apparently the same as atil, itil, "river." Cf. Atil, Itil=the Volga.

Zeuss (Die Deutschen, 713n.) denied that the Volga was meant. Marquart, followed by Chavannes (Documents, 251), suggested the Tola, a tributary of the Orkhon, which is probably too far east).

These Uigurs, says Theophylact, were descended from two chiefs called Var and Hunni. They are mentioned elsewhere as the "Varchonites." (Menander Protector, ed. Bonn, 400) Some of the Uigurs escaped from the Turks, and, appearing in the West, were regarded by those whom they met as Avars, by which name they were generally known.

The last part of this is confirmed by another Greek author, according to whom Justinian received representatives of thepseudo-Avars, properly Uigurs, in A.D. 558, (Menander, ibid., 282) after which they turned to plundering and laying waste the lands of eastern and central Europe. If the derivation from Uigur is right, the word "ogre" in folklore may date from this early period.

Theophylact also tells us that about the time of the Turkish embassy in 598 there was another emigration of fugitives from Asia into Europe, involving the tribes of the Tarniakh, Kotzagers, and Zabender. These were, like the previous arrivals, descendants of Var and Hunni, and they proved their kinship by joining the so-called Avars, really Uigurs, under the Khaqan of the latter.

It is difficult not to see in this another version of the story given by Michael Syrus and Bar Hebraeus. The Kotzagers are undoubtedly a Bulgar group, (Cf. Marquart, Streifziige, 488) while Zabender should be the same name as Samandar, an important Khazar town, and hence correspond to Kazarig in the Syriac. Originally, it seems, Samandar derived its name from the occupying tribe.

(Menander, ibid., 282)

We appear to have confirmation that the Khazars had arrived in eastern Europe by the region of Maurice, having previously been in contact with the West Turks and destined to be so again.

On the other hand, the older view implied that the Khazars were already on the outskirts of Europe before the rise of the Turks {circa A.D. 550}. According to this view, the affinities of the Khazars were with the Huns. When Priscus, the envoy to Attila in 448, spoke of a people subject to the Huns and living in "Scythia towards the Pontus" called Akatzir, (Priscus, ed. Bonn, 197) these were simply Aq-Khazars, i.e., White Khazars, Jordanes, writing circa 552, mentions the Akatzirs as a warlike nation, who do not practice agriculture but live by pasturing flocks and hunting. (Ed. Mommsen, 63)

In view of the distinction among some Turkish and the remainder as "black," when we read in the Arab geographer Istakhri that the Khazars are of two kinds, one called Qara-Khazars (Black Khazars), the other a white kind, unnamed, (Istakhri's account of the Khazars is translated in Chapter V) it is a natural assumption that the latter are the Aq-Khazars (White Khazars).

The identification of the Akatzirs with "Aq-Khazars" was rejected by Zeuss (Die Deutschen, 714-15) and Marquart (Streifziige, 41, n. 2) as impossible linguistically. Marquart further said that historically the Akatzirs as a subject race correspond rather to the Black Khazars. The alternative identification proposed is Akatzirs=Agacheri. But this may not be very different from the other, if Zeki Validi is right in thinking that the relation between the Agacheri and the Khazars was close. (Ibn-Fadlan, xxxi)

There are one or two facts in favor of the older view which have not been explained away effectively. If the Khazars had nothing to do with the Akatzirs and appeared first as an off-shoot of the West Turks at the end of the 6th century, how do they come to be mentioned in the Syriac compilation of circa 569, (Rubens Duval, cited Chavannes, Documents, 250, n. 4) going under the name of Zacharias Rhetor? The form Kasar/Kasir, which here comes in a list of peoples belonging to the general neighborhood of the Caucasus, refers evidently to the Khazars. Thiswould fit in well with their existence in the same region a century earlier. We have also the testimony of the so-called Geographer of Ravenna (? 7th century) that the Agaziri (Acatziri) of Jordanes are the Khazars. (Ed. Pinder and Parthy, 168)

The Khazars, however, are nowhere represented simply as Huns. The question arises, If they were subjugated by the latter shortly before A.D. 448, as Pricus tells, how long had they existed previously? Here we must consider the views of Zeki Validi, which are put forward exclusively on the basis of Oriental sources and are quite independent of the considerations which have just been raised. He believes that he has found traces of one and the same Urgeschichte of the Turks, not only in Muslim but also in Chinese sources, the latter going as far back as the Wei dynasty (366-558).

(The Later Wei is meant (Zeki Validi's dates)). In the story the Khazars play a leading part and even claim to be autochthonous in their country.

(Ibn-Fadlan, 294. Yet on the basis of the same tradition, the original home of the Khazars is represented as the lower Oxus, cf. ibid., 244, 266)

Zeki Validi cites a story in Gardizi, according to which the eponymous ancestor of the Kirgiz, having killed a Roman officer, fled to the court of the Khazar Khaqan, and later went eastward till he found a permanent settlement on the Yenissei.

But as the Kirgiz in early times are believed to have lived in eastern Europe and to have been south of the urals before the beginning of the Christian era, Zeki Validi would assign a corresponding date to this episode and is unwilling to allow that the mention of Khazars this early is an anachronism. (Ibn-Fadlan, 328) These are remarkable claims to make for the antiquity of the Khazars.

The principal Muslim sources which Zeki Validi relies on are relatively late, Gardizi, circa A.D. 1050, and an anonymous history, the Mujmal al-Tawarikh w-al-Qisas, (Ibn-Fadlan, 311) somewhat later (though these doubtless go back to ibn-al-Muqaffa' in the 8th century, and through him to pre-Islamic Persian sources), nor does his Chinese source mention the Khazars explicitly. But the view that the Khazars existed anterior to the Huns gains some confirmation from another quarter.

The Armenian History going under the name of Moses of Chorene (5th century) has a story which mentions the Khazars in the twenty years between A.D. 197 and 217. (The chronology of the text is confused, suggesting both these dates and an intermediate one. Ency. Brit. (14th ed.), s.v. Khazars, has the date 198. Carmoly (Khozars, 10, in Itineraries de la Terre Sainte, Brussels 1847) must refer to the same incident when he speaks of the Khazar Juluf, who ruled seventeen nations on the Volga, and, pursuing some rebel tribes, burst in to Armenia between A.D. 178 and 198.

The source of Carmoly's information is quite unknown to me). According to this, the peoples of the north, the Khazirs and Basilians, made an agreement to break through the pass of Chor at the east end of the Caucasus "under the general and king Venasep Surhap." (In the Whistons' 18th century translation, ii, 62 (65) "sub duce ac rege eorum Venasepo Surhaco." Kutschera thought that the two kings of the Khazars were intended (Die Chasaren, Vienna 1910, 38) Having crossed the river Kur, they were met by the Armenian Valarsh with a great army and driven back northward in confusion. Some time later, on their own side of the Caucasus, the northern nations again suffered a heavy defeat.

Valarsh was killed in this second battle. His son succeeded him, and under the new king the Armenians again passed the Caucasus in strength, defeating and completely subjugating the Khazirs and Basilians. One in every hundred was taken as a hostage, and a monument in Greek letters was set up to show that these nations were under the jurisdiction of Rome.

This seems to be a very factual account, and by Khazirs certainly the Khazars are to be understood. it is, however, generally held that the Armenian History is wrongly ascribed to Moses of Chorene in the 5th century and should be assigned to the 9th, or at any rate the 8th, century. (For a summary of the views about Moses of Chorene, see an article by A.O. Sarkissian, J.A.O.S., Vol. 60 (1940), 73-81)

This would clearly put quite a different complexion on the story of the Khazar raid. Instead of being unexceptionable evidence for the existence of the Khazars at all events in the time of Moses of Chorene, it would fall into line with other Armenian (and also Georgian (A favorable example of the Georgian accounts in Brosset, Inscriptions Georgiennes etc., M.R.A. 1840, 329) accounts which though they refer to the Khazars more or less explicitly in the first centuries of the Christian era, and even much earlier, we do not cite here. Thigh interesting in themselves, these accounts, in view of their imprecision and lack of confirmation, cannot be regarded as reliable.

The Muslim writers provide us with a considerable amount of material which may be expected to throw light on the date of the emergence of the Khazars. As already indicated, some of this demonstrably derives from Pehlevi sources, composed before the Arab conquest of Persia.

What the Arabic and Persian writers have to say about the Khazars deserves careful scrutiny, as liable to contain authentic information from an earlier time. It is not surprising that these accounts, written when the Khazar state north of the Caucasus was flourishing, distinguish them from the Turks encountered by the first generations of Muslims in central Asia. But a passage like the following, where the Khazars are set side by side with the leading types of contemporary humanity, is somewhat remarkable.

In a discussion between the celebrated ibn-al-Muqaffa' and his friends the question was raised as to what nation was the most intelligent. It is significant for the low state of their culture at the time, or at least for the view held by the Arabs on the subject (ibn-al-Muqaffa' died 142/759), that the Turks and Khazars were suggested only after the claims of the Persians, Greeks, Chinese, Indians, and Negroes had been canvassed. Evidently in this respect the Turks and the Khazars shared a bad eminence. But they are given quite different characteristics: "The Turks are lean dogs, the Khazars pasturing cattle."

(Ibn-'Abd-Rabbihi, al- Iqd al-Farid, ed. of A.H. 1331, Ii, 210. The anecdote is commented on by Fr. Rosenthal, Technique and Approach of Muslim Scholarship, Analecta Orientalia, 24 (1947), 72)

Though the judgment is unfavorable, we get the impression of the Khazars as a distinct, even important, racial group. How far this corresponds with the fact is not certain. Suggestions have been made connecting the Khazars with the Circassian type, taken to be pale-complexioned, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, and through the Basilians or Barsilians already mentioned, with the so-called "Royal Scyths" of Herodotus. (iv, 59)

All this is evidently very speculative. Apart from the passage where the Black Khazars are mentioned, described as being dusky like the Indians, and their counterparts fair and handsome, (See Istakhri's account of the Khazars in Chapter V, infra) the only available description of the race in Arabic sources is the following, apparently from ibn- Sa'id al-Maghribi:

"As to the Khazars, they are to be left [north] of the inhabited earth towards the 7th clime, having over their heads the constellation of the Plough. Their land is cold and wet. Hence their complexions are white, their eyes blue, their hair flowing and predominantly reddish, their bodies large and their natures cold.

Their general aspect is wild." (Bodieian MS., i, 873, fol. 71, kindly communicated by Professor Kahle) This reads like a conventional description of a northern nation, and in any case affords no kind of support for Khazar affinity with the "Circassian" type. If we are to trust the etymology of Khalil ibn-Ahmad (Yaqut, Mu'jam al-Buldan, s.v. Khazar) the Khazars may have been slant-eyed, like the Mongols, etc. Evidently nothing can be said positively in the matter.

Some of the Khazars may have been fair-skinned, with dark hair and blue eyes, but there is no evidence that this type prevailed from antiquity or was widely represented in Khazaria in historical times.

A similar discussion on the merits of the different races is reported from the days before Muhammad, in which the speakers are the Arab Nu'man ibn-al-Mudhir of al-Hirah and Khusraw Anushirwan.

The Persian gives his opinion that the Greeks, Indians, and Chinese are superior to the Arabs and so also, in spite of their low material standards of life, the Turks and the Khazars, who at least possess an organization under their kings. Here again the Khazars are juxtaposed with the great nations of the east. (Ibn-'Abd- Rabbilu, op. cit. i, 166) It is consonant with this that tales were told of how ambassadors from the Chinese, the Turks, and the Khazars were constantly at Khusraw's gate, (Tabari, i, 899.

According to ibn-Khurdadhbih, persons wishing access to the Persian court from the country of the Khazars and the Alans were detained at Bab al-Abwab (B.G.A. vi, 135)) and even that he kept three thrones of gold in his palace, which were never removed and on which none sat, reserved for the kings of Byzantium, China and the Khazars. (Ibn-al-Balkhi, Fdrs Namah (G.M.S.), 97)

In general, the material in the Arabic and Persian writers with regard to the Khazars in early times falls roughly into three groups, centering respectively round the names of (a) one or other of the Hebrew patriarchs, (b) Alexander the Great, and (c) certain of the Sassanid kings, especially, Anushirwan and his immediate successors.

A typical story of the first group is given by Ya'qubi in his History. (Ed. Houtsma, i, 17) After the confusion of tongues at Babel (Gen. 10:18; 11:19), the descendants of Noah came to Peleg (Gen. 10:25; 11:16-19; 1 Chr. 1:19; 1:25), son of Eber (Gen. 10:21; 10:24-25; 11:14-17; Num. 24:24; 1 Chr. 1:18-19; 1:25; 8:12; Neh. 12:20), and asked him to divide (Gen. 10:5; 10:25; 10:32; Exo. 14:21; Deut. 4:19; 32:8; 1 Chr. 1:19) the earth among them.

He apportioned to the descendants of Japheth (Gen. 5:32; 6:10; 7:13; 9:18; 9:23; 9:27; 10:1-2; 10:21; 1 Chr. 1:4-5) - China, Hind, Sind, the country of the Turks and that of the Khazars, as well as Tibet, the country of the (Volga) Bulgars, Daylam, and the country neighboring on Khurasan. In another passage Ya'qubi gives a kind of sequel to this. Peleg (Gen. 10:25; 11:16- 19; 1 Chr. 1:19; 1:25) having divided the earth in this fashion (Deut. 32:8), the descendants of 'Amur ibn-Tubal (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chr. 1:5; Isa. 66:19; Eze. 27:13; 32:26; 38:2-3; 39:1), a son of Japheth, went out to the northeast. One group, the descendants of Togarmah (Gen. 10:3; 1 Chr. 1:6; Eze. 27:14; 38:6), proceeding farther north, were scattered in different countries and became a number of kingdoms, among them the Burjan (Bulgars), Alans, Khazars (Ashkenaz Gen. 10:3), and Armenians. (Ed. Houtsma, i, 203, cf. Marquart, Str. 491)

Similarly, according to Tabari, (i, 217-18) there were born to Japheth Jim-r (the Biblical Gomer (Gen. 10:2-3; 1 Chr. 1:5-6; Eze. 38:6; Hos. 1:3), Maw'-' (read Mawgh-gh, Magog (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chr. 1:5; Eze. 38:2; 39:6; Rev. 20:8)), Mawday (Madai (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chr. 1:5), Yawan (Javan) (Gen. 10:2; 10:4; 1 Chr. 1:5; 1:7; Isa. 66:19; Eze. 27:13; 27:19)), Thubal (Tubal), Mash-j (read Mash-kh, Meshech (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chr. 1:15; 1:17; Eze. 27:13; 32:26; 38:2-3; 39:1)) and Tir-sh (Tiras (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chr. 1:5)). Of the descendants of the last were the Turks and the Khazars (Ashkenaz).

There is possibly an association here with the Turgesh, survivors of the West Turks, who were defeated by the Arabs in 119/737, (H.A.R. Gibb, Arab Conquests in Central Asia, London 1923, 83ff. Cf. Chapter IV, n. 96) and disappeared as aruling group in the same century. Tabari says curiously that of the descendants of Mawgh-gh (Magog) were Yajuj and Majuj, adding that these are to the east of the Turks and Khazars.

This information would invalidate Zeki Validi's attempt to identify Gog and Magog in the Arabic writers with the Norwegians. (Ibn-Fadlan, 196ff) The name Mash-kh (Meshech) is regarded by him as probably a singular to the classical Massagetai (Massag-et). (Ibn-Fadlan, 244, n. 3) A Bashmakov emphasizes the connection of "Meshech" with the Khazars, to establish his theory of the Khazars, not as Turks from inner Asia, but what he calls a Jephetic or Alarodian group from south of the Caucasus. (Mercure de France, Vol. 229 (1931), 39ff)

Evidently there is no stereotyped form of this legendary relationship of the Khazars to Japheth. The Taj-al-Artis says that according to some they are the descendants of Kash-h (? Mash-h or Mash-kh, for Meshech), son of Japheth, and according to others both the Khazars and the Saqalibah are sprung from Thubal (Tubal). Further, we read of Balanjar ibn-Japheth in ibn-al-Faqih (B.G.A., v, 289) and abu-al-Fida'

(Ed. Reinaud and De Slane, 219) as the founder of the town of Balanjar. Usage leads one to suppose that this is equivalent to giving Balanjar a separate racial identity. In historical times Balanjar was a well-known Khazar center, which is even mentioned by Masudi as their capital. (Tanbih, 62)

It is hardly necessary to cite more of these Japheth stories. Their JEWISH origin IS priori OBVIOUS, and Poliak has drawn attention to one version of the division of the earth, where the Hebrew words for "north" and "south" actually appear in the Arabic text. (Conversion, 3) The Iranian cycle of legend had a similar tradition, according to which the hero Afridun divided the earth among his sons, Tuj (sometimes Tur, the eponym of Turan), Salm, and Iraj. Here the Khazars appear with the Turks and the Chinese in the portion assigned to Tuj, the eldest son. (Tabari, i, 229)

Some of the stories connect the Khazars with Abraham. The tale of a meeting in Khurasan between the sons of Keturah (Gen. 25:1; 25:4; 1 Chr. 1:32-33) and the Khazars (Ashkenaz Gen. 10:3) where the Khaqan is Khaqan is mentioned is quoted from the Sa'd and al-Tabari by Poliak. (Loc. cit.; Khazaria, 23, 142, 148; Cf. ibn-Sa'd, I, i, 22; Tabari I, i, 347ff)) The tradition also appears in the Meshed manuscript of ibn-al-Faqih, apparently as part of the account of Tamim ibn-Babr's journey to the Uigurs, but it goes back to Hishim al-Kalbi.

(Hisham ibn-Muhammad, the authority given by ibn-Sa'd=Hisham ibn-Lohrasp al-Sa'ib al-Kalbi in ibn-al-Faqih's text (in V. Minorsky, "Tamim ibn-Bahr's Journey to the Uyghurs," B.S.O.A.S., 1948, xii/2, 282))

Zeki Validi is inclined to lay some stress on it as a real indication of the presence of the Khazars in this region at an early date. ((Ibn-Fadlan, 294) Al-Jahiz similarly refers to the legend of the sons of Abraham and Keturah settling in Khurasan but does not mention the Khazars. (Fada'il al- Atrak, transl. C.T. Harley Walker, J.R.A.S., 1915, 687)

Al-Di-mashqi says that according to one tradition the Turks were the children of Abraham by Keturah, whose father belonged to the original Arab stock (al-'Arab al-'Aribah). Descendants of other sons of Abraham, namely the Soghdians and the Kirgiz, were also said to live beyond the Oxus..."