A Khazar ruler during the early 10th century CE, Aaron ben Benjamin was the son of the Khazar king Benjamin. Whether Aaron, like the rest of the Bulanids, was a Khagan or a Bek is an unresolved issue.
According to the anonymous author of the Schechter Letter, during Aaron's reign a war was launched against Khazaria by a Byzantine-inspired coalition led by the Alans, who had been allies of Aaron's father Benjamin.[1] Aaron defeated his enemies with the help of Oghuz mercenaries and captured the king of the Alans.[1] Rather than execute his captive, he demanded an oath of fealty and spared his life. The Alan king's daughter married Aaron's son Joseph.[1] In Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century, Omeljan Pritsak dated this war to the early reign of Romanos I (i.e., the early 920s CE).[2]
Notes
[edit]- ^ a b c Golb, Norman; Pritsak, Omeljan (1982). Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century. Cornell University Press. pp. 104, 115. ISBN 9780801412219.
- ^ Golb, Norman; Pritsak, Omeljan (1982). Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century. Cornell University Press. p. 136. ISBN 9780801412219.
Sources
[edit]- Brook, Kevin Alan. The Jews of Khazaria. 3rd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2018.
- Dunlop, Douglas M. The History of the Jewish Khazars, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954.
- Golb, Norman and Omeljan Pritsak. Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982.
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