Kitab al Khazari

Commonly called the Kuzari, this book is the most famous work by the medieval Spanish Jewish writer Judah Halevi. The work is divided into five parts, and takes the form of a dialogue between the pagan king of the Khazars and a Jew who had been invited to instruct him in the tenets of the Jewish religion. Originally written in Judeo-Arabic, its Hebrew translation by Judah ibn Tibbon became the standard edition among Jews in Europe while the original Arabic text circulated among Arabic-speaking Jews in the Muslim world, but there have been numerous other translations. The original Arabic text was first published in 1887 by Hartwig Hirschfeld. A new edition appeared of the Hebrew text in Israel in 1977. This edition is that of the 1905 translation by Hartwig Hirschfeld from his translation edition from the original text. This is, so far, the only translation into English made from the original Arabic text.