Mar Zutra Kahana

By Kahana

Another year, hopefully a brighter, happier time but as indicated in my previous articles on Zechariah in Windows of Futures Past, you immediately can see that the year is quickly spiraling down into the chaos that was predicted. Whether it be New York, Paris, Sydney, or London, the populations in all those countries stand at the brink of impending disasters and just as those articles related, most of them cannot even see the black clouds that are gathering on the horizon. So be it, it is the way it was meant to be, and all the screaming into the wind will fall on deaf ears until the howling begins. The ten men to stand up and stop the coming disaster never even passed a shadow across my brow, so what happens is what must occur and I am but a witness to it as it unfolds. It should be no surprise to anyone that we court God's displeasure. We have done so since the beginning of time, flaunting our desires over His will and never relenting in our misbegotten ways. This can be no more evident than in my latest novel to be released, 'ZUTRA', a story of how we were sent a deliverer, a messiah so-to-speak in the truest sense, to change the world, free us from bondage, and bring all the people of this world closer to God, but in the end the people, primarily those closest to him, those that falsely proclaimed themselves as true men of God, plotted and schemed, until they sacrificed his life on an altar of deceit and wantonness. This is his story but it is also our story. It clearly shows that the more we believe we have changed, we have not changed in even the slightest degree when it comes to those values that actually count and are measured by the Almighty. To all those that follow my articles, I hope that you will download Zutra, (available only electronically) from Amazon and Kindle and read it not as entertainment, which it certainly is, but as a moral lesson directed at all of us. Mar Zutra Kahana was not my direct ancestor. Those roles were fulfilled by his father, Mar Huna, and by one of his wives, which in itself should strike you as particularly strange, but as they say, truth is often stranger than fiction. Once again, this is a factual historical recounting of events, biographical in nature, but shocking in all that it will disclose. It will answer once an for all how the animosity between my family and the Rabbanites arose in the first place and why there can never be peace until they admit fully the measure of their sins.

Synopsis

For those of you wishing to have a brief synopsis of the book, I will condense its 500 pages down to a minimum for you. Let me add, that even though this synopsis will give you a brief outline of the story, it provides only a fraction of what story is about and in no way reveals the many twists and turns that are involved. For those you will have to read the novel in its entirety and only then will you come to understand the man known as Zutra.

Born in 479 AD into the family of Exilarchs (Jewish hereditary kings) the story opens with Zutra’s witnessing his father’s execution in the public square of Ctesiphon, the capital city of the Sassanid Empire. The crime for which his father has been punished was the kidnapping and rape of the daughter of Reb Hanina, one of the chief rabbis of Mahoza. Historical documentation passed down by the legal courts known as the Beth Din record it as such. This grievous event was further compounded when Zutra wass forced to accept the man responsible for his father’s death as his legal guardian until he becomes of age to be Exilarch; two years of living in the household with those responsible for destroying his life. All this was further complicated by his continued cravings for his childhood sweetheart whom happened to be that same daughter involved in the accused rape. It would have been impossible for this real-life Oedipal existence not to have influenced the young prince, scarring him emotionally.

On his eighteenth birthday Zutra was declared Exilarch and immediately turned the tables on all those that had benefitted from his father’s death. Summoning the time-honoured 400, his father’s elite guard, he placed all those responsible for the murder of his father under house arrest, taking back his estate and possessions, and forcing Reb Hanina's daughter into another marriage contract much to the horror of many who saw this as sacrilege. Their marital encounters that followed were both heated and tempestuous, as one can imagine.

Meanwhile the Sassanid Empire was under threat from within as the Great Shah Kavad’s nobles plotted insurrection and intrigue, involving Zutra amongst their cabal and together they plan the inevitable coup d’état. While the young Prince stamped his personal imprint on the city of Mahoza, his cousin and Vizier, Mordecai ben Kahana convinced Zutra that with his new status he must seek a wife with far greater influences and alliances than obtainable through a marriage to a Chief Rabbi's daughter. An invitation was sent out to the kings, nobles and barons of the Empire but it went unexpectedly further, reaching the Kingdom of Northern Wei. The Chinese Emperor sent his beautiful daughter, the Princess Ti-Ping west in response to the invitation. To everyone’s surprise, they discovered that her personal escort was a man thought dead for the past 25 years and who wielded enormous influence and power..

Unforeseen, through deception and manipulation, the arrested Reb Hanina escapes and with his fellow conspirators managed to liberate the imprisoned Kavad, putting into motion the plot that will see Zutra torn from his throne. Assuming full control of the combined Sassanid, Mahozan and allied Byzantine forces, the Princess from Northern Wei's protector achieved a string of successes that saw his army crush Kavad’s forces time and time again. For almost seven years, Zutra ruled Mahoza offering freedom to all of his people for the first time in over five centuries.

What happened next can only be described as the greatest betrayal of all time.

Zutra is a story of love, hate, peace and war. It is a true recording of one man's rise to the pinnacle of greatness only to witness his own tragic fall through the betrayal of love. This is the true story which his enemies afterwards felt the necessity to almost completely erase fearing that it would inspire others who desired freedom.

The Next Story: The Glittering Man

For those that believe the promise of Mar Zutra and his descendants ended with his death on Sargon Bridge, in that regard, I will correct your assumption. I believe the actual end to this story is written in a very old and obscure book, difficult to find but still in existence, entitled"The Secret History of the Mongols" the original dating from 1227. That book states that the great Genghis Khan was descended from a mysterious ancestor that had come from a distant land in the west. This ancestor of noble and ancient bloodlines was forced to leave his kingdom without explanation, creating part of the mystique surrounding the Mongol conqueror. Exactly who this man may have been was never disclosed but his existence became the justification for Genghis Khan's claim to have been destined to rule the world. Years later, several more details were provided by the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din, who recorded it in his book simply titled"Chronicles" that this unknown ancestor was a tall, long-bearded,red haired and green eyed individual. What compounded the mystery further was that he referred to him as the Glittering Man; an omnipotent being who impregnated the legendary matriarch of the Mongols, Alan-Ko thereby establishing the several lines of Mongol rulers that came afterwards from this union. Ten generations in fact are recorded from Alan-Ko to the Great Genghis Khan, roughly six hundred years in total.

From a scientific standpoint, there may be some proof of the legend being more of a reality than a myth. With the haplotyping of the likely DNA sequence for Genghis Khan derived from his descendants there were several anomalies that distinguished him from the general Mongolian population. This in particular concerned the number of alleles for DYS markers 391, 392, 426, 455 and 459a. When compared to the Khallach, the predominant Mongolian ethnic population it becomes obvious that the sequences for these genes came from a different ethnic group. Examining 17 different Mongolian populations the allele number for DYS391 was 9 for all of them. Ghenghis Khan’s descendants were 10 as were my family. For DYS 392, only the Japanese were consistently 11 like the Khan’s but we know he was not of Japanese stock. In general Mongolian alleles number 10. My family was also 11 like that of the Khan. DYS428 is known as having the lowest mutational rate at 0.00009, so what it is now was probably what it has always been since the dawn of time and for the Khan that number is 11, again identical to my family. DYS455 has a similar low mutation rate at 0.00016 and again for both the Khan and my family the number of alleles is 11. Then lastly we look at DYS459a, the number of alleles commonly being 9 for Mongolian populations but once again the Khan’s family and mine are in agreement at 8.

Though none of this will actually prove that the Glittering Man was a descendant of the Kahana, it does demonstrate that Genghis Khan did have an ancestor that was outside the general genetic pool of Mongolians and whereas my haplogroup is J2 and his is C, with agreement of five markers that have key qualities, the possibility of the legend being true is given at least some credence. But enough of the scientific dissertations as you’re probably wondering how any of this relates to the subject matter of my manuscript. For the answer to that question you will have to await my next book.