I don't know if you're aware of this, but the Khazars, who were being pressed by the Moslems on one side and the Orthodox from Kiev on the other, converted to Judaism. They controlled the southern step until the coming of the Pechenegs.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but the Khazars, who were being pressed by the Moslems on one side and the Orthodox from Kiev on the other, converted to Judaism. Yes and no. The Khazar nobility converted.
The Khazar empire kept the dual-Emperor model of the great Turkut empire. The Khagan (Khan of Khans or Emperor) of the Ashina clan that ruled the older Kok Turkut (Blue or Wester Turkish Empire). This religious and dynastic title allowed the Khazars to claim to be the successor to this empire and (theoretically)keep all of the steppe tribes from the Jurjan and Oxus rivers in the southeast to the Danube river in the west under tributariy authority. Of course this power really only existed where it could be enforced militarily.
The spread of Islam destroyed this arraingement in the South. In 737, the Khazars, betrayed by Muslim allies, lost to the Khaliphate. Fortunately, the Muslim army, battered in battled and cut off from supplies had to retreat. Thus Khazaria did not become Muslim. In 740 the Khagan Bek, who was the actual ruler of the Khazars, decided that the Khazar nobility would convert to Judaism to keep their independence. However, many Khazars remained Tengrists, while others converted to Islam or Christianity. The conversion did not apply to subject peoples in the empire.
They controlled the southern step until the coming of the Pechenegs.
The Pechenegs, Poltsovoi, and Cumans did invade. However it was the Rus/Varangians that destroyed the empire.
