Tags, 상세검색
응답: OPERATION SHANSTORM
PJ 28CHAPTER 21REC #1 HATONN
THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1991 9:22 A.M. YEAR 4, DAY 238
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1991
Remember this day to keep it Holy, for if each slay is kept in the Light of Truth, Love and within Divine Law--so shall the people be brought home. Allow us ever to serve in Truth and without ego or pain into a brother. In the glory of this day may we be given into understanding and ask for care of all our relations of which all are within the ONE. As the Great Spirit has given us to know and some yet to learn, we ARE all as ONE and only through that unity within Truth shall all come home to the mansions prepared for your presence. We of the hosts and brotherhood are only come to show the way and give you means of travel that the transition be glorious instead of woeful. So be it and AHO. Hatonn present in love and understanding of the frightening circumstances which come from time to time, within our very own midst.
Dharma, the impact of yesterday is more severe than we had recognized. Please allow us a day of intake of only fluids and a doubling of mineral intake--we must immediately change your electrolyte balance. The ones in service against us have new devices which can better focus-in on your frequency. It will be an annoying few days so please have patience and do be away from this place from time to time. It is easier to immediately change you than to destroy their whole system only to have it re-installed and needing re-identification. Keep away from the refined sugar and use substitutes for they are focused on the system as it changes the carbohydrates into energy form--twenty-four hours should do it and then take care for the next several days. I shall give you instructions. Thank you.
The adversary is extremely upset with our Command because they had planned on this hoax trip of the shuttle to fool you--again. We care not except as how their attacks are heaped upon you ones of our ground crew. So be it and please note that the shuttle landed right on schedule--all the way from Australia while the "original" was forfeited. It appears your government has simply no end to the amounts of your money they will expend to keep their New World Order plans anywhere nearly on track.
The situation in the Russias is getting more and more unstable and if Gorbachev is ousted--you must look forward to the possibility of immediate nuclear attack--of you against them. Gorbachev is the robotic ally of the Khazar Elite and when he is ousted the you-know what will really hit the fan. You will find that the military command actually backs Yeltsin, regardless of that which you are told. The KGB leadership works with the Mossad. They are your deadly enemy and they will be in joint command of the United Nations One World Order. The friendly exchange of KGB people working with your police departments around your
IRS NOTE
Note the ridiculous manner of "advertising" to get you to file your returns on time. Clowns from the circus and other threatening presentations to remind you. Come now, if I have not been telling you truth regarding the unlawful nature of the Income Tax Amendment and the fact that income taxes are "voluntary"--would they bother to entice you with clowns? No, it is that over 30 million Americans refused to file a return form last year and at least an additional million plus are expected to not do so this year. I would guess that the number of non-participants will be in the area of 50-60 million.
This tells you two things--that your tax income to the government credit account will be less. Further, with the great numbers of people unemployed (you are given only the numbers of people who show up as receiving unemployment benefits--most unemployed have long since run out of eligibility for that assistance), the returns will be cut even more drastically. So what does the government do? Just what Bush has done--have a war and/or economy collapse whereby the EMERGENCY REGULATIONS ARE KEPT IN SERVICE--AND THEREFORE, YOU CAN COUNT ON THE SITUATIONS WORSENING AT HOME AND THE WAR NEVER GETTING UNDER CONTROL IN IRAQ.
At any rate, your income tax monies do not go for anything other than to service the debt to the world bankers. NONE of your tax funding goes for anything other than that one purpose. Since the Federal Reserve Notes (money) are only "credit" documents, do you see that you have no "money" at all!? Further, do not be shocked when the certificates called money are changed. Does not any bank have right to change their loan documents? Come now, chelas, you-the-people only PAY for the service. The Federal Reserve System is a PRIVATE BANKING CORPORATION and so is THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE who simply enforces the collections for the Bankers. The U.S. Government only finances and CONTRACTS with those two entities--UNTIL THE NEW WORLD ORDER IS IN, THAT IS, AND THEN "THEY" BECOME THE GOVERNMENT! AND YOU SLEPT!
What shall ye do? Whatever you want to do! I can tell you how it is--YOU will decide that which to do if you desire to change it. Please, however, don't continue to tell me that "You have to do something about it, Hatonn and Hosts"!--NO, WE DO NOT. I, as a matter of fact, function in a balanced society of true freedom and, moreover, I have technology beyond any of your wildest dreams at my disposal. I can personally transfer an entire planet-sized mother-ship from one part of the universe to another--instantly. Why would I bother with your little world--especially against the orders and regulations of the Cosmos? I do not HAVE to do anything except watch and/or leave and return to where I came from--or elsewhere. I, and my crews have come as Hosts sent of the one you call God who promised to return unto you. I am a functioning part of that promise--no more and no less. I will not, however, under any circumstances desert my people who are already in service on your planet--and yes, I can get them off instantly--intact!
I do suggest you not give much thought to my identity other than to confirm my Truth. I suggest you read the material I bring, along with that of my traveling companions, and open your eyes. As to even the smallest details--how think you that Baker has a right to assure Shamir of Khazar (little gray alien, I josh you not!) heaps of millions more in funding to make up for this "terrible bombing" which was inflicted upon self. Saddam did not bomb "Israel". Saddam has not shot one bullet at the Kurds, furthermore! Baker is over there to make arrangements for your final sell-off, America, and check the status. Please also note that, because Jordan failed to agree with you on the Iraq War, you have now cut $55 million dollars of Jordan's relief aid and stopped the World Bank Loan Guarantees. I bow my head in shame that I have failed to awaken you in time. It shall most surely be a painful time ahead for your planet and the agony within my being is indeed overwhelming to bear.
I honor my brothers, G & D, as they effort to allow you insight--from experience and their own experience and then bringing you our messages as quickly as they can. It is indeed hard for a "rich man to pass through the gates of heaven"--but there is one who has done so. Little Desiree' came forth as a flower closed tightly into the bud and terrified and, quite frankly, not wanting to see and perceived she would "lose" everything of value. Ask her today--"What is of value?" In the time of gathering--all earthly gain becomes of insignificance as ye find the peace and purpose within--one even begins to see the fur coat from within the spirit of the animal from whom it was stolen. Does that mean that you should not have a fur coat? Does it honor the dead animal to throw the coat away? NO, each action is judged at the moment. If ye have a fur coat--honor the beast who gave all and wear it with love and joy that his gift might be worthy and treat the garment with respect. But do not kill again, for thine vanity!
YE SHALL NEVER EXPERIENCE GREATER ABUNDANCE THAN THE PRESENCE OF GOD--THERE SIMPLY IS NOTHING OF PHYSICAL IMAGININGS WHICH IS WORTH EVEN A PITTANCE IN CONSIDERATION RELATIVE TO THAT PRESENCE.
Does this mean no more wondrous things of Earth? No, it means that as you can let go of all Earthly things, ye can have total abundance in its proper perspective. And moreover, when you have achieved that point--ye will not have to ask if you have reached attainment or how to attain it.
Let us turn now, to the time of the Khazars in which the Judean "faith" was taken on as their shield to hide their lies.
BACK TO KHAZAR
As we have been writing on the subject, the next chronological point of view, the next event, should be the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism, around AD 740 (hardly sounds like the birth or death time of the one you called Jesus). But to see that remarkable event in proper perspective, you should have some idea of the habits, customs and everyday life among the Khazars PRIOR to the conversion.
Eyewitness reports on your level of experience are indeed absent but ones of great ego always leave signs and proof of their passage and oral traditions are handed down and the myths are again proven by uncoverings of tell-tale facts. So what you do have are mainly second-hand accounts and compilations by Byzantine and Arab chroniclers, which are fragmented but sufficient. One bit of sure evidence is a letter from a Khazar King which I will give you later; the other is a travelogue by an observant Arab traveller, Ibn Fadlan, who--like Priscus--was a member of a diplomatic mission from a civilized court to the Barbarians of the North. I am efforting to stick to accounts which CAN be PROVEN if you look for the records--I am not here in the business of mystical magician, fortuneteller or past-seer, my point is to give you information which you can check out in your own research--if you care enough and do not trust that which I bring--go look up the documents of historical information. Some, alas, have been locked within "archives" where you-the-people are not intended to get your hands upon the volumes. Also, books written and published dealing with these matters are removed from the shelves, destroyed and are allowed very little circulation. But as. God always provides--enough survive and when man is ready to save his own neck and find Truth--it is there to be found.
The court was that of the Caliph al Muktadir, and the diplomatic mission travelled from Baghdad through Persia and Bukhara to the land of the Volga Bulgars. The official pretext for this grandiose expedition was a letter of invitation from the Bulgar King, who asked the Caliph (a) for religious instructors to convert his people to Islam, and (b) to build him a fortress which would enable him to defy his overlord, the King of the Khazars. The invitation--which was no doubt prearranged by earlier diplomatic contacts--also provided an opportunity to create goodwill among the various Turkish tribes inhabiting territories through which the mission had to pass, by preaching the message of the Koran and distributing huge amounts of gold bakishish.
The opening paragraphs of our traveler's account are based on Zeki Validi Togan's German translation of the Arabic text and the English translation of extracts by Blake and Frye but I shall paraphrase a bit for you for expediency and a bit less tedium:
This is the book of Ahmad ign-Fadian ibn-al-Abas, ibn-Rashid, ibn Hammad (Hatonn: Do you still think it unthinkable that Judas Iscarioth could have been misrepresented, even by accident, as Judas Iscariot? Can anyone, without looking, repeat the names I have just written? Even one of them? So be it.), an official in the service of [General] Muhammed ibn-Sulayman, the ambassador of [Caliph] al Muktadir to the King of the Bulgars, in which he relates what he saw in the land of the Turks, the Khazars, the Rus, the Bulgars, the Bashkirs and others, their varied kinds of religion, the histories of their kings, and their conduct in many walks of life.
The letter of the King of the Bulgars reached the Commander of the Faithful, al Muktadir; he asked him therein to send him someone to give him religious instruction and acquaint him with the law of Islam, to build him a mosque and a pulpit so that he may carry out his mission of converting the people all over his country; he also entreated the Caliph to build him a fortress to defend himself against hostile kings (actually, King of the Khazars). Everything that the King asked for was granted by the Caliph. I was chosen to read the Caliph's message to the King, to hand over the gifts the Caliph sent him, and to supervise the work of the teachers and interpreters of the Law....[There follow some details about the financing of the mission and names of participants.] And so we started on Thursday the 11th Safar of the year 309 [June 21, AD 921] from the City of Peace [Baghdad, capital of the Caliphate.] (Sic, sic--and you thought this wasn't pertinent information!)
The date of the expedition, it will be noted, is much later than the events described in our prior notations. But as far as the customs and institutions of the Khazars' neighbors are concerned, this probably makes little difference; and the glimpses you might get of the life of these nomadic tribes convey at least an idea of what life among the Khazars may have been during that earlier period--before the conversion--when they adhered to a form of Shamanism similar to that still practiced by their neighbors in Ibn Fadlan's time.
The progress of the mission was slow and apparently uneventful until they reached Khwarizm, the border province of the Caliphate south of the Sea of Aral. Here the governor in charge of the province tried to stop them from proceeding further by arguing that between his country and the kingdom of the Bulgars there were "a thousand tribes of disbelievers" who were sure to kill them. In fact his attempts to disregard the Caliph's instructions to let the mission pass might have been due to other motives; he realized that the mission was indirectly aimed against the Khazars, with whom he maintained a flourishing trade and friendly relations. In the end, however, he had to give in, and the mission was allowed to proceed to Gurganj on the estuary of the Amu-Darya. Here they hibernated for three months, because of the intense cold--a factor which looms large in many Arab travelers' tales if you have time to read them:
The river was frozen for three months, we looked at the landscape and thought that the gates of the cold Hell had been opened for us. Verily I saw that the market place and the streets were totally empty because of the cold....Once, when I came out of the bath and got home, I saw that my beard had frozen into a lump of ice, and I had to thaw it in front of the fire. I stayed for some days in a house which was inside of another house [compound] and in which there stood a Turkish felt tent, and I lay inside the tent wrapped in clothes and furs, but nevertheless my cheeks often froze to the cushion....
Around the middle of February the thaw set in. The mission arranged to join a mighty caravan of 5,000 men and 3,000 pack animals to cross the northern steppes, and bought the necessary supplies: camels, skin boats made of camel hides for crossing rivers, bread, millet and spiced meat for three months. The natives warned them about the even more frightful cold in the north, and advised them what clothes to wear:
So each of us put on a Kurtak [camisole], over that a woollen Kaftan, over that a buslin [fur-lined coat], over that a burka [fur coat]; and a fur cap, under which only the eyes could be seen; a simple pair of underpants, and a lined pair, and over the trousers; house shoes of kaymuht [shagreen leather] and over these also another pair of boots; and when one of us mounted a camel, he was unable to move because of his clothes.
Ibn Fadlan, the fastidious Arab, liked neither the climate nor the people of Khawarizm and I can't actually say as how I could blame him greatly.
They are, in respect of their language and constitution, the most repulsive of men. Their language is like the chatter of starlings. At a day's journey there is a village called Ardkwa whose inhabitants are called Kardals; their language sounds entirely like the croaking of frogs.
They left on March 3 and stopped for the night in a caravanserai called Zamgan--the gateway to the territory of the Ghuzz Turks. From here onward the mission was in foreign land, "entrusting our fate to the all-powerful and exalted God". During one of the frequent snow-storms, Ibn Fadlan rode next to a Turk, who complained: "What does the Ruler want from us? He is killing us with cold. If we knew what he wants we would give it to him". Ibn Fadlan: "All he wants is that you people should say: 'There is no God save Allah''. The Turk laughed: "If we knew that it is so, we certainly should say so".
There are many such incidents reported by Ibn Fadlan without appreciating the independence of the remarkable mind which they reflect. Nor did the envoy of the Baghdad court appreciate the nomadic tribesmen's fundamental contempt for authority. The following episode also occurred in the country of the powerful Ghuzz Turks, who paid tribute to the Khazars and, according to some sources, were closely related to them:
The next morning one of the Turks met us. He was ugly in build, dirty in appearance, contemptible in manners, base in nature; and we were moving through a heavy rain. Then he said: "Halt". Then the whole caravan of 3,000 animals and 5,000 men halted. Then he said: "Not a single one of you is allowed to go on". We halted then, obeying his orders. (Obviously the leaders of the great caravan had to avoid at all costs a conflict with the Ghuzz tribesmen.) Then we said to him: "We are friends of the Kudarkin [Viceroy]." He began to laugh and said: "Who is the Kudarkin? I shit on his beard". Then he said: "Bread". I gave him a few loaves of bread. He took them and said: "Continue your journey; I have taken pity on you".
The democratic methods of the Ghuzz, practiced when a decision had to be taken, were even more bewildering to the representative of an authoritarian theocracy--and even worse than is your democratic method where you can outvote anything or everything:
They are nomads and have houses of felt. They stay for a while in one place and then move on. One can see their tents dispersed here and there all over the place according to nomadic custom. Although they lead a hard life, they behave like donkeys that have lost their way. They have no religion which would link them to God, nor are they guided by reason; they do not worship anything. Instead, they call their headmen lords; when one of them consults his chieftain, he asks: "0 lord, what shall I do in this or that matter"? The course of action they adopt is decided by taking counsel among themselves; but when they have decided on a measure and are ready to carry it through, even the humblest and lowliest among them can come and disrupt that decision.
The sexual mores of the Ghuzz--and other tribes--were a remarkable mixture of liberalism and savagery:
Their women wear no veils in the presence of their men or strangers. Nor do the women cover any parts of their bodies in the presence of people. One day we stayed at the place of a Ghuzz and were sitting around; his wife was also present. As we conversed, the woman uncovered her private parts and scratched them, and we all saw it. Thereupon we covered our faces and said: "May God forgive me". The husband laughed and said to the interpreter: "Tell them we uncover it in your presence so that you may see and restrain yourselves; but it cannot be attained. This is better than when it is covered up and yet attainable". Adultery is alien to them; yet when they discover that someone is an adulterer they split him in two halves. This they do by bringing together the branches of two trees, tie him to the branches and let both trees go, so that the man tied to them is torn in two.
I stop hereat to remind you that the Ghuzz of which we are speaking became part of the Khazars--whose offspring have settled blessed Palestine and call it Israel. This is the tribe with which you have allied yourselves in this place called America. This is that which is eating your nation and has corrupted your people into doom. Think carefully about this thing that has come upon you like the plague and has destroyed your morals, you constitutional justice and deprived you ALREADY of your freedom. The anti-God of Christness has controlled your minds and turned you into confused and brain-washed beasts running about in haplessness. You were goodly and you were blind in your efforts to be just and fair and they have taken you completely and my compassion is great for you who see and my pity endless for those who remain blinded.
It is not said whether or not the same punishment was meted out to the guilty woman. Later on, when talking about the Volga Bulgars, he describes an equally savage method of splitting adulterers into two, applied to both men and women. Yet, he notes with astonishment, Bulgars of both sexes swim naked in their rivers, and have as little bodily shame as the Ghuzz.
As for homosexuality--which in Arab countries was taken quite as a matter of course--Ibn Fadlan tells you that it is "regarded by the Turks as a terrible sin". But in the only episode that he relates to prove his point, the seducer of a "beardless youth" gets away with a fine of 400 sheep. Dear ones, YOU are fined with a humongous bill to the pharmaceutical Elite, the hospitals and finally slowly tortured to death with AIDS! You had better carefully consider this compromise with evil.
Accustomed to the splendid baths of Baghdad, our traveler could not get over the dirtiness of the Turks. "The Ghuzz do not wash themselves after defecating or urinating, nor do they bathe after seminal pollution or on other occasions. They refuse to have anything to do with water, particularly in winter..." When the Ghuzz commander-in-chief took off his luxurious coat of brocade to don a new coat the mission had brought him, they saw that his underclothes were "fraying apart from dirt, for it is their custom never to take off the garment they wear close to their bodies until it disintegrates". Another Turkish tribe, the Bashkirs, "shave their beards and eat their lice. They search the folds of their undergarments and crack the lice with their teeth." When Ibn Fadlan watched a Baskir do this, the latter remarked to him: "They are delicious".
All in all, it is not such an engaging picture but then you can allow that the traveler might be a bit fastidious and somewhat a prude so you can likely discount a measure as of exaggeration--but I can warn you; not very much for there are many records which tell the same truth. The only reason for change in habits was to win a point and/or advantage. I would dare say that the traveler did not care greatly for these people of whom he wrote. However, had there not been the contempt, he probably would not have kept recordings. His contempt was only aroused by their uncleanliness and what he considered as indecent exposure of the body; the savagery of their punishments and sacrificial rites leave him quite indifferent. Thus he describes the Bulgars' punishment for manslaughter with detached interest, without his otherwise frequent expression of indignation: "They make for him [the delinquent] a box of birchwood, put him inside, nail the lid on the box, put three loaves of bread and a can of water beside it, and suspend the box between two tall poles, saying: 'We have put him between heaven and earth, that he may be exposed to the sun and the rain, and that the deity may perhaps forgive him.' And so he remains suspended until time lets him decay and the winds blow him away".
He also had similar aloofness at describing the funeral sacrifice of hundreds of horses and herds of other animals, and the gruesome ritual killing of a Rus (Rus: the Viking founders of the early Russian settlements) slave girl at her master's bier.
About pagan religions he has little to say. But the Bashkirs' phallus cult arouses his interest, for he asks through his interpreter one of the natives the reason for the worshipping a wooden penis, and noted down his reply: "Because I issued from something similar and know of no other creator who made me". He then adds that "some of them [the Bashkirs] believe in twelve deities, a god for winter, another for summer, one for the rain, one for the wind, one for the trees, one for men, one for the horse, one for water, one for the night, one for the day, a god of death and one for the earth; while that god who dwells in the sky is the greatest among them, but takes counsel with the others and thus all are contented with each others' doings... We have seen a group among them which worships snakes, and a group which worships fish, and a group which worships cranes...."
Among the Volga Bulgars, Ibn Fadlan found a strange custom:
"When they observe a man who excels through quickwittedness and knowledge they say: 'For this one it is more befitting to serve our Lord.' They seize him, put a rope around his neck and hang him on a tree where he is left until he rots away...."
Commenting on this passage, the Turkish orientalist Zeki Validi Togan, undisputed authority on Ibn Fadlan and his times, has this to say: "There is nothing mysterious about the cruel treatment meted out by the Bulgars to people who were overly clever. It was based on the simple, sober reasoning of the average citizens who wanted only to lead what they considered to be a normal life, and to avoid any risk or adventure into which the 'genius' might lead them". He then quotes a Tarter proverb, "If you know too much, they will hang you, and if you are too modest, they will trample on you". I would think you ones would consider this most closely. You have been deceived and kept in ignorance to allow you no recourse against their strength. Ibn Fadlan concluded that the victim "should not be regarded simply as a learned person, but as an unruly genius, one who is too clever by half " This leads one to believe that the custom should be regarded as a measure of social defense against change, a punishment of non-conformists and potential innovators, but goes on to give a bit of a different interpretation:
Ibn Fadlan describes not the simple murder of too-clever people, but one of their pagan customs: human sacrifice, by which the most excellent among men were offered as sacrifice to God. This ceremony was probably not carried out by common Bulgars, but by their "Tabibs", or medicine men, i.e. their shamans, whose equivalents among the Bulgars and the Rus also wielded power of life and death over the people, in the name of their cult. According to Ibn Rasta, the medicine men of the Rus could put a rope round the neck of anybody and hang him on a tree to invoke the mercy of God. When this was done, they said: "This is an offering to God".
Perhaps both types of motivation were mixed together: "since sacrifice is a necessity, let's sacrifice the trouble-makers".
We shall go on to see that human sacrifice was also practiced by the Khazars-- including the ritual killing of the King at the end of his reign. You may assume that many other similarities existed between the customs of the tribes described by Ibn Fadlan and those of the Khazars. Unfortunately he was barred from visiting the Khazar capital and had to rely on information collected in territories under Khazar dominion, and particularly at the Bulgar court.
Things haven't changed much, dear ones, as ones are also barred from travel in Khazar (Israel) this very day--to hide from the world the truth. Before we finish we shall give you lessons from ones trapped within that system. We have already given you one, Jack Bernstein, but so you do not think it one-sided in presentation and a "sour grapes", "sore loser" individual--we shall present you more. I cannot stress strongly enough to look: Yitzak Shamir is as typical a "little gray alien" from cosmic source as you are going to find anywhere. You who choose to be blind and fools might well wish you had looked more closely at Truth.
Allow us a break, please. Thank you and I remind you herein, please refrain from solid food this day that we can more quickly regain balance in your system.
We shall take up with more of the Caliph's mission when we return for this is a most important portion of history as impacts you this day in "time". Salu.
Hatonn to clear.
PJ 28CHAPTER 22REC #2 HATONN
THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1991 1:44 P.M. YEAR 4, DAY 238
THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1991It took the Caliph's mission nearly a year (from June 21, 921, to May 12, 922) to reach its destination, the land of the Volga Bulgars. The direct route from Baghdad to the Volga leads across the Caucasus and Khazaria--to avoid the latter, they had to make the enormous detour around the eastern shore of the "Khazar Sea", the Caspian. I realize you are angry and embarrassed to have missed so much of historical significance--even unto your doom; but chelas, don't waste time wallowing in "what might have been", deal only with this day and quickly absorb that which is offered for God always sends that which is asked for--and YOU HAVE asked for help! Even so, they were constantly reminded of the proximity of the Khazars and its potential dangers.
LAND OF THE VOLGA BULGARS
A characteristic episode took place during their sojourn with the Ghuzz army chief (the one with the disreputable underwear). They were at first well received, and given a banquet. But later the Ghuzz leaders had second thoughts because of their relations with the Khazars. The chief assembled the leaders to decide what to do:
The most distinguished and influential among them was the Tarkhan; he was lame and blind and had a maimed hand. The Chief said to them: "These are the messengers of the King of the Arabs, and I do not feel authorized to let them proceed without consulting you". Then the Tarkhan spoke: "This is a matter the likes of which we have never seen or heard before; never has an ambassador of the Sultan traveled through our country since we and our ancestors have been here. Without doubt the Sultan is deceiving us; these people he is really sending to the Khazars, to stir them up against us. The best will be to cut each of the messengers into two and to confiscate all their belongings." Another one said: "No, we should take their belongings and let them run back naked whence they came". Another said: "No, the Khazar King holds hostages from us, let us send these people to ransom them".
Ah so, and does it not begin to ring clear as the tinkling bells? You must face the facts, dear ones, that the only reason that there are hostages in any of the Arab nations, of American lineage, is to apply pressure against Khazar--that which they have labeled, but is not, Israel.
They argued among themselves for seven days, while Ibn Fadlan and his people feared the worst. In the end the Ghuzz let them go when it was evident the mission was in fact directed against the Khazars. These ones were friends and enemies as the winds blew one way and then another. Later they basically merged. The Ghuzz had earlier-on fought with the Khazars against another Turkish tribe, the Pechenegs, but more recently had shown a rather hostile attitude; hence the hostages the Khazars took.
The Khazar menace loomed large on the horizon all along the journey. North of the Caspian they made another huge detour before reaching the Bulgar encampment somewhere near the confluence of the Volga and the Kama. There the King and leaders of the Bulgars were waiting for them in a state of acute anxiety. As soon as the ceremonies and festivities were over, the King sent for Iban Fadlan to discuss business. He reminded Ibn Fadlan in forceful language ("His voice sounded as if he were speaking from the bottom of a barrel".) of the main purpose of the mission--to wit, the money to be paid to him "so that I shall be able to build a fortress to protect me from the 'Jews' who subjugated me". No nice little Judeans here, brothers! Unfortunately, that money--a sum of four thousand dinars--had not been handed over to the mission, owing to some complicated matter of red tape; it was to "be sent" (in the mail?) later on. On learning this, the King--"a personality of impressive appearance, broad and corpulent"--seemed close to despair. He suspected the mission of having defrauded the money.
"' What would you think of a group of men who are given a sum of money destined for a people that is weak, besieged, and oppressed, yet these men defraud the money?'
"I replied: 'This is forbidden, those men would be evil.'
"He asked: 'Is this a matter of opinion or a matter of general consent?'
"I replied: 'A matter of general consent".
Gradually Ibn Fadlan succeeded in convincing the King that the money was only delayed and apparently it did actually arrive at some time as the matter was dropped and Ibn Fadlan did not again refer to it. This, however, did not allay his anxieties at the moment. The King kept repeating that the whole point of the invitation was the building of the fortress "because he was afraid of the King of the Khazars". And I might add, he had every reason to be afraid, as Ibn Fadlan relates:
The Bulgar King's son was held as a hostage by the King of the Khazars. It was reported to the King of the Khazars that the Bulgar King had a beautiful daughter. He sent a messenger to sue for her. The Bulgar King used pretexts to refuse his consent. The Khazar sent another messenger and took her by force, although he was a "Jew" and she a Muslim; but she died at his court. The Khazar sent another messenger and asked for the Bulgar King's other daughter. But in the very hour when the messenger reached him, the Bulgar King hurriedly married her to the Prince of the Askil, who was his subject, for fear that the Khazar would take her, too, by force, as he had done with her sister. This alone was the reason which made the Bulgar King enter into correspondence with the Caliph and ask him to have a fortress built because he feared the King of the Khazars.
Ibn Fadlan also specifies the annual tribute the Bulgar King had to pay the Khazars: one sable fur from each household in his realm. Since the number of Bulgar households (i.e., tents) is estimated to have been around 50,000, and since Bulgar sable fur was highly valued all over the world, the tribute was a handsome one.
KHAZAR COURT
So far what Ibn Fadlan was to tell about the Khazars was based on intelligence collected in the course of his journey, but mainly at the Bulgar court. Unlike the rest of his narrative, derived from vivid personal observations, the pages on the Khazars contain second-hand, spotted information, and fall rather flat. Moreover, the sources of his information were biased, in view of the Bulgar King's understandable dislike of his Khazar overlord--while the Caliphate's resentment of a kingdom embracing a rival religion need hardly be stressed.
The narrative switches abruptly, therefore, from a description of the Rus court to the Khazar court:
Concerning the King of the Khazars, whose title is Kagan, he appears in public only once every four months. They call him the Great Kagan. His deputy is called Kagan Bek; he is the one who commands and supplies the armies, manages the affairs of state, appears in public and leads in war. The neighbouring kings obey his orders. He enters every day into the presence of the Great Kagan, with deference and modesty, barefooted, carrying a stick of wood in his hand. He makes obseisance, lights the stick, and when it has burned down, he sits down on the throne on the King's right. Next to him in rank is a man called the K-nd-r Kagan, and next to that one, the Jaw-shyghr Kagan.
It is the custom of the Great Kagan not to have social intercourse with people, and not to talk with them, and to admit nobody to his presence except those we have mentioned. The power to bind or release, to mete out punishment, and to govern the country belongs to his deputy, the Kagan Bek.
It is the further custom of the Great Kagan that when he dies a great building is built for him, containing twenty chambers, and in each chamber a grave is dug for him. Stones are broken until they become like powder, which is spread over the floor and covered with pitch. Beneath the building flows a river, and this river is large and rapid. They divert the river water over the grave and they say that this is done so no devil, no man, no worm and no creeping creatures can get at him. After he has been buried, those who buried him are decapitated, so that nobody may know in which of the chambers is his grave. The grave is called "Paradise" and they have a saying: "He has entered Paradise". All the chambers are spread with silk brocade interwoven with threads of gold.
It is the custom of the King of the Khazars to have twenty-five wives; each of the wives is the daughter of a king who owes him allegiance. He takes them by consent or by force. He has sixty girls for concubines, each of them of exquisite beauty.
Then Ibn Fadlan proceeded to give a rather fanciful description of the Kagan's harem, where each of the eighty-five wives and concubines has a "palace of her own", and an attendant or eunuch who, at the King's command, brings her to his alcove "faster than the blinking of eye". Now don't you ones give me the shocked treatment--you just fought a battle in the Middle East, killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq to restore a KING to a throne in a pink palace who has 80 WIVES (AND THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE THE NUMBER OF CONCUBINES) AND HAS BLACK SLAVES TO DO HIS WORK. So please, don't wave your yellow ribbons and flags at me for I just don't accept it, little friends. Then you have the audacity to say that "God was on your side" and that "there were hardly any casualties". You even blame Saddam Hussein for that which is happening to the Kurds--WHEN YOUR GOVERNMENT TOLD THE REBELS IF THEY WOULD RISE UP AGAINST SADDAM YOU WOULD MILITARILY FIGHT THE WAR WITH THEM. FURTHER, AFTER THE REBELS STARTED THEIR RETREAT--NOT ONE SINGLE BULLET HAS BEEN FIRED AT ANY KURD TRYING TO LEAVE AND, IN FACT, ALL EFFORTS TO WELCOME THEM BACK HOME HAVE BEEN THWARTED BY YOUR INTERVENTION AND THAT OF THE MOSSAD INFILTRATORS. I AM SORRY, DEAR ONES, YOU WILL ANSWER FOR THIS CARNAGE AND ALL THE "STUFF" YOU CAN PARACHUTE IN UPON THOSE PEOPLE (SOME HAVE BEEN KILLED BY THE FALLING DEBRIS) WON'T HEAL THOSE WOUNDS FOR THIS KIND OF EVIL IS NEVER STRICKEN FROM THE MEMORY.
After a few more dubious remarks about the "customs" of the Khazar Kagan--but you'll get them a bit later, Ibn Fadlan at last provides you with some factual information about the country:
The King has a great city on the river Itl (Volga) on both banks. On one bank live the Mulsims, on the other bank the King and his court. The Muslims are governed by one of the King's officials who is himself a Muslim. The law-suites of the Muslims living in the Khazar capital and of visiting merchants from abroad are looked after by that official. Nobody else meddles in their affairs or sits in judgment over them.
Ibn Fadlan's travel report, as far as it is preserved, ends with the words:
The Khazars and their King are all* Jews. The Bulgars and all their neighbours are subject to him. They treat him with worshipful obedience. Some are of the opinion that Gog and Magog are the Khazars". [I suggest you ones harken-up smartly!]
* The above (all) was likely an exaggeration in view of the existence of a Muslim community in the capital and even if suppressed, some would have secretly held to their religious teachings. So, you will further have to assume that "the Khazars" herein refers to the ruling nation or tribe, within the ethnic mosaic of Khazaria, and that the Muslims enjoyed legal and religious autonomy, but were not considered as "real Khazars".
So far we have given you some historical data and there is much more regarding the world which surrounded the Khazars but you can research the rest on your own accounts. It is evident that there was stark barbarity of the people amidst whom they lived, reflecting their own past, prior to the conversion. For, by the time of Ibn Fadlan's visit to the Bulgars, Khazaria was a surprisingly modern country compared to its neighbors-as is always the case with the Khazars who leech off of the the ones they choose to support them.
The contrast is evidenced by the reports of other Arab historians and we shall get to the works of Istakhri, al Masudi, Ibn Rusta and Ibn Hawkal in the next pages. The contrast was present on every level, from housing to the administration of justice. The Bulgars still lived exclusively in tents, including the King, although the royal tent was "very large, holding a thousand people or more". On the other hand, the Khazar Kagan inhabited a castle built of burnt brick, his ladies were said to inhabit "palaces with roofs of teak", and the Muslims had several mosques, among them "one whose minaret rises above the royal castle".
In the fertile regions, their farms and cultivated areas stretched out continuously over sixty or seventy miles. They also had extensive vineyards. Thus Ibn Hawkal: "In Kozr [Khazaria] there is a certain city called Asmid [Samandar] which has so many orchards and gardens that from Darband to Serir the whole country is covered with gardens and plantations belonging to the city. It is said that there are about forty thousand of them. Many of these produce grapes".
The region north of the Caucasus was extremely fertile. In AD 968 Ibn Hawkal met a man who had visited it after a Russian raid:
"He said there is not a pittance left for the poor in any vineyard or garden, not a leaf on the bough....[But] owing to the excellence of their land and the abundance of its produce it will not take three years until it becomes again what it was." Caucasian wine is still a delight, consumed in vast quantities in the Soviet Union.
However, the royal treasury's main source of income was from foreign trade. The sheer volume of the trading caravans plying their way between Central Asia and the Volga-Ural region is indicated by Ibn Fadlan: we remember that the caravan his mission joined at Gurganj consisted of "5,000 men and 3,000 pack animals". Making due allowance for exaggeration, it must still have been a mighty caravan and many such caravans would be on the move at any one given time. Many goods were transported including textiles, dried fruit, honey, wax and spices. A second major trade route led across the Caucasus to Armenia, Georgia, Persia and Byzantium. A third consisted of the increasing traffic of Rus merchant fleets down the Volga to the eastern shores of the Khazar Sea, carrying mainly precious furs much in demand among the Muslim aristocracy, and slaves from the north, sold at the slave market of Itil. On all these transit goods, including the slaves, the Khazar ruler levied a tax of ten percent. Adding to this the tribute paid by Bulgars, Magyars, Burtas and so on, one realizes that Khazaria was a prosperous country--but also that its prosperity depended to a large extent on its military power, and the prestige it conveyed on its tax collectors and customs officials.
Apart from the fertile regions of the south, with their vineyards and orchards, the country was poor in natural resources--although for you "old folk", one native item they exported was isinglass. Surely you remember the "surrey with the fringe on top and the isinglass curtains that would roll right down"? At any rate the main commercial activity consisted in re-exporting goods brought in from abroad. Among these goods, honey and candle-wax particularly caught the Arab chroniclers' imagination. Thus Muqaddas: "In Khazaria, sheep, honey and Jews exist in large quantities". It is true that one source--the Darband Namah--refers to gold or silver mines in Khazar territory, but their location was not ascertained for documentation at that time. On the other hand, several of the sources mention Khazar merchandise seen in Baghdad, and the presence of Khazar merchants in Constantinople, Alexandria and as far afield as Samara and Fergana.
I suggest that if you wish to get much out of this writing that you obtain a good map of the region and you will find it REALLY becoming pertinent as we move along.
Thus Khazaria was by no means isolated from the civilized world; compared to its tribal neighbours in the north it was a cosmopolitan country, open to all sorts of cultural and religious influences, yet jealously defending its independence against the two ecclesiastical world powers. We shall see that attitude prepared the ground for the coup de theatre --or coup d'etat--which established Judaism as the state religion.
The arts and crafts seem to have flourished, including haute couture. When the future Emperor Constantine V married the Khazar Kagan's daughter she brought with her dowry a splendid dress which so impressed the Byzantine court that it was adopted as a male ceremonial robe; they called it tzitzakion, derived from the Khazar-Turkish pet-name of the Princess, which was Chichak or "flower", (until she was baptized Eirene). So you have a rather illuminating fragment of cultural history. When another Khazar princess married the Muslim governor of Armenia, her cavalcade contained, apart from attendants and slaves, ten tents mounted on wheels, "made of the finest silk, with gold and silver-plated doors, the floors covered with sable furs. Twenty others carried the gold and silver vessels and other treasures which were her dowry." The Kagan himself traveled in a mobile tent even more luxuriously equipped, carrying on its top a pomegranate of gold.
And so, Dharma, allow us to leave this segment of "And so the World Turns" and have a bit of respite. What a wondrous bit of life you have missed by the decree secretly projected to keep your populations in ignorance. No, you think not? Not possible? I assure you--POSSIBLE!
Dharma, I apologize but we must enter an article right here regarding "Atrophied Brainpower" in the U.S.
"U.S. BRAINPOWER BEING ATROPHIED"
QUOTE
Seven years ago, in 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its now famous report, "A Nation at Risk", in which it said that, "The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people". In that year the SAT (Scholastic Apitude Test) average verbal score was 425, just one point above its lowest score of 424 reached in 1980. This year we are back to that bottom score of 424.
It should be noted that the SAT is taken by the nation's high school students who intend to go to college. They represent the best brains in America. The dropouts and those not intending to go to college are not tested. They just melt into society.
But the continued poor showing of America's college-bound students is an alarming indication that the nation's brain power is being atrophied by an education system that no longer believes in the supremacy of intellectual power. It believes in developing emotional power through effective education. A nation that is governed more by its emotions than by its brains is headed for Third World status and wholesale victimization.
Already, there exists in every large American city and in many poor rural areas an under-class of Americans who lead Third World lives of ignorance, illiteracy, poverty, chronic unemployment, drug addiction, disease, and social victimization. Yet, all the members of this under-class attended public schools and it is the public school that has robbed them of the brains they could have used to take advantage of the great opportunities America still offers those ready to work their way out of poverty. Immigrants, arriving in this country with only the clothes on their backs, manage to achieve middle class status in one generation. So why can't Americans born here do the same?
The hallmark of the Third World predicament is entrapment by the degenerating forces of one's low economic and social situation, to be totally helpless and hopeless in the face of unrelenting adversity. And every year more and more Americans are being reduced to that level of despair. The public schools were supposed to save the poor from such a fate. Now it seems as if the public schools are as helpless and hopeless as the people they were supposed to save.
Will an America with reduced brain power be able to deal effectively with its growing social problems? The answer is obvious. Indeed, as we turn more and more to our emotions for solutions, and less and less to our brains, the problems will only become worse.
The dumbing down of America is taking its toll even among our best and brightest. In 1972, 2,817 students achieved the highest verbal score of 750 to 800. In 1987, that number was down to 1,363. In 1990, it was down to 1,226. America is literally losing its brains. At this rate, there will be no Americans in the year 2000 capable of scoring 750 to 800 in the verbal test.
While the national average verbal score was 424, different ethnic groups fared differently. The score for whites was 442; for Asian Americans, 410; for American Indians, 388; for Mexican Americans, 380; for Puerto Ricans, 359; and for Blacks, 352. Why do English speaking blacks perform so poorly? With the improvement in civil rights, school integration, affirmative action, Head Start and Chapter One compensatory education programs, etc., why haven't black students been able at least to reach a par with Asian Americans or American Indians? Perhaps one reason is that blacks, as a group, are more wedded to public education than any other ethnic group. Many Mexican American children attend Catholic parochial schools, but most Puerto Rican children attend public school.
While 82 percent of the students who took the SAT attended public schools, their average verbal score was 421--3 points below the national average. Students who attended parochial schools--13 percent--achieved an average score of 436; and those who attended non-religious private schools--5 percent--achieved a score of 467--45 points above the national average of 424. Obviously, the private schools are doing a better job teaching reading than the public schools.
As for math, the public schoolers achieved an average score of 475--1 point below the national average. Parochial schoolers scored 473--3 points below the national average. But the non-religious private schoolers scored 523--47 points above the national average of 476. Again, the private schoolers out-performed the public schoolers.
The whole idea of centralized, government-monopoly education is totally incompatible with the values of a free society.
The government school is an anachronism. Not only does it no longer serve the purposes of education, and not only has it become a huge parasite on the national economy, but it is blocking the development of the new private institutions which will be needed in America's future. The Establishment's preoccupation with politics is an indication that it knows its survival depends not on pleasing the consumer but on controlling legislatures. And the more incapable it becomes of delivering academic excellence, the more it will rely on politics for its survival--.
Blumenfeld Education Letter, Box 45161, Boise, ID 83711.
END QUOTING
Dear ones, what can I say? It is intended that your nation be pulled down and this is a major, major step in that direction--an ignorant society is a helpless society.
Salu, Hatonn to clear.
