What was the Khazar Khanate?

The Khazars were originally a semi-nomadic Turkic people, who created a polity known as the Khazar Khanate or Khazaria. The Khazars were major players in the civilization of the Early Middle Ages. Astride a major artery of commerce between northern Europe and southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading emporia of the medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East, and the Kievan Rus. For some three centuries (c. 650–965) the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus. Khazaria served as a buffer state between the Byzantine empire and both the nomads of the northern steppes and the Umayyad empire, after serving as Byzantium's proxy against the Sassanian Persian empire.

The Khazars were believed to have been adherents of Judaism. While many of the nobility did in fact convert to Judaism, it has often been speculated that this was done for political reasons in order to find a middle path between the Christianity of the Byzantine Empire and the Islam of the Umayyads, empires they depended upon for trade. Evidence suggests they were for the most part religiously tolerant of competing belief systems.