[5] [It is possible that the identification was suggested by the similarity in sound between Bosporus and bi-Spharad, the Hebrew for "in Sepharad.">[
[6] [The Arabic and other medieval authors write the name with a kh (= hard German ch), hence the frequent spelling Chazars. In Hebrew sources the word is written with a k (כ), except in a recently discovered document (see Schechter, Jew. Quart. Review, new series, iii. 184), where it is spelled with a k (ק). Besides Khazar and Kazar, the name is also found in the form Kozar, or Kuzar.]
[7] According to another version of the same story, quoted by the Arabic geographer al-Bekri (d. 1094), the Bishop who was championing the cause of Christianity said in reply to the King's inquiry: "I believe that Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, is the Word, and that he revealed the mysteries of the great and exalted God." A Jew who lived at the royal court and was present at the disputation interrupted him with the remark: "He [the Bishop] believes in things which are unintelligible to me."
[8] [The author, evidently relying on the authority of Harkavy, writes Ibn Sharzi. The writer referred to by Harkavy is Ali Ibn Ja`far ash-Shaizari (wrongly called Ibn Sharzi), who made an extract from Ibn Fakih's "Book of Countries" about 1022. This extract has since been published by de Goeje in his Bibliotheca Geographicorum Arabicorum, vol. v. Our reference is found there on p. 271. I have put Ibn Fakih's name in the text, as there is no reason to doubt that our passage was found in the original work, which was written more than a hundred years earlier.]
[9] [See on the name of this city de Goeje's remarks in his edition of Ibn Fakih, p. 271, note a.]
[10] A group of Slav nations.
[11] A group of Caucasian cities (Semender = Tarku, near Shamir-Khan-Shur; Bab al-Abwab = Derbent).
[12] A group of Crimean cities (Kerch, Sudak, Mangup, and others).
[13] [I. e. Sea of Constantinople, another name for the Black Sea.]
[14] This supposition is confirmed by a recently discovered Genizah fragment containing a portion of another Khazar epistle, which supplements and modifies the epistle of King Joseph. See Schechter, "An Unknown Khazar Document," Jewish Quarterly Review, new series, iii. 181 ff.