Khazar Correspondence

The Khazar Correspondence is a set of documents, which are alleged to date from the 950s or 960s, and to be letters between Hasdai ibn Shaprut, foreign secretary to the Caliph of Cordoba, and Joseph Khagan of the Khazars. The correspondence is one of only a few documents attributed to a Khazar author, and potentially one of only a small number of primary sources on Khazar history. Joseph's reply ostensibly gives both an account of the Khazar conversion to Judaism and of its progress in subsequent generations, as well as potentially showing that within a generation of the fall of the Khazar empire in 969, the Khazar state was still militarily powerful and received tribute from several polities. The authenticity of the correspondence has occasionally been challenged, on the grounds that it allegedly has little in common with the otherwise attested chronology, language, borders and economy of the Khazars at the time, and has very little supporting archeological evidence.