Editing Khazars (section)

==== Economy ====
The import and export of foreign wares, and the revenues derived from taxing their transit, was a hallmark of the Khazar economy, although it is said also to have produced [[isinglass]].{{sfn|Barthold|1993|p=936}} Distinctively among the nomadic steppe polities, the Khazar Qağanate developed a self-sufficient domestic [[Saltovo-Mayaki|Saltovo]]{{sfn|Zhivkov|2015|p=173}} economy, a combination of traditional pastoralism – allowing sheep and cattle to be exported – extensive agriculture, abundant use of the Volga's rich fishing stocks, together with craft manufacture, with diversification in lucrative returns from taxing international trade given its pivotal control of major trade routes.

The [[Khazar slave trade]] constituted one of the two great furnishers of slaves to [[history of slavery in the Muslim world|the Muslim market]] to [[slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate]] (the other being the [[Samanid slave trade|Iranian Sâmânid amîrs]]), supplying it with captured Slavs and tribesmen from the Eurasian northlands.{{sfn|Golden|2011a|p=64}} It profited from the latter which enabled it to maintain a standing army of Khwarezm Muslim troops. The capital Atil reflected the division: Kharazān on the western bank where the king and his Khazar elite, with a retinue of some 4,000 attendants, dwelt, and Itil proper to the East, inhabited by Jews, Christians, Muslims and slaves and by craftsmen and foreign merchants.{{efn|group=note|A third division may have contained the dwellings of the tsarina. The dimensions of the western part were 3x3, as opposed to the eastern part's 8 x 8 ''farsakhs'' {{harv|Noonan|2007|pp=208–209, 216–219}}.}}

The Khazar Khaghanate played a key role in the trade between Europe and the Muslim world in the early middle ages. People taken captive during the viking raids in Europe, such as Ireland, could be transported to [[Hedeby]] or [[Brännö]] in Scandinavia and from there via the [[Volga trade route]] to Russia, where slaves and furs were sold to Muslim merchants in exchange for Arab silver ''[[dirham]]'' and [[silk]], which have been found in [[Birka]], [[Wolin|Wollin]] and [[Dublin]];{{sfn|Reuter|1999|p=91}} during the 8th- and 9th-century this trade route between Europe and the [[Abbasid Caliphate]] passed via the Khazar Kaghanate,{{sfn|Noonan|2007|p=232}}  until it was supplanted in the 10th-century by the route of [[Volga Bulgarian slave trade|Volga Bulgaria]], [[Khwarazm]], and the [[Samanid slave trade]].{{sfn|Reuter|1999|p=504}}

The ruling elite wintered in the city and spent from spring to late autumn in their fields. A large irrigated greenbelt, drawing on channels from the Volga river, lay outside the capital, where meadows and vineyards extended for some 20 ''farsakhs'' (c. 60 miles).{{sfn|Noonan|2007|p=214}} While customs duties were imposed on traders, and tribute and tithes were exacted from 25 to 30 tribes, with a levy of one sable skin, squirrel pelt, sword, dirham per hearth or ploughshare, or hides, wax, honey and livestock, depending on the zone. Trade disputes were handled by a commercial tribunal in Atil consisting of seven judges, two for each of the monotheistic inhabitants (Jews, Muslims, Christians) and one for the pagans.{{efn|group=note|Outside Muslim traders were under the jurisdiction of a special royal official (''ghulām'') {{harv|Noonan|2007|pp=211–214}}.}}