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.

We Were Warriors

Once upon a time there was a people that despite their small numbers would not hesitate to fight for what they believed in; for what they considered right. It doesn't necessarily follow that they won each time because they didn't, but they knew that for every loss there would be a victory some time, some place in the future. For a thousand years that belief was consistent and unfaltering. We fought the Egyptians, though halfheartedly I must admit when Shishank stormed Jerusalem and lost. But Solomon made up with his father-in-law and the Egyptians withdrew. We fought the Assyrians and lost the northern kingdom but more so through the assimilation that followed. We fought the Babylonians and lost but fortunately they in turn lost to the Persians and we were given back our institution to self govern. We fought the Greeks and actually won, but then gave away that freedom immediately afterwards through alliances with Antiochus, the same ruler we fought against so that we could become a self-governing vassal state. No one said it had to make sense. And then we fought the Romans and lost. Sixty years afterwards we fought them again, and lost again. Three hundred years later we tried it again but we didn't fare any better that time. But by the fourth century AD something had drastically changed in our makeup and our mindset. We no longer saw ourselves as warriors, definitely not as victors, and we certainly lost the aptitude to keep challenging the powers that be.
There were singular moments when individuals did rise to the occassion and for the span of a few years there were even hazy reflections of the ancestral warriors and the sweet taste of victory but then that same insidious change that occurred in the fourth century would pervade our thinking and we would sacrifice all that we had gained. The story of Mar Zutra is such an episode where our freedom had been re-established only to have it sold out from under us.

For anyone that knows my belief system and is familiar with my thinking they may already know what I'm alluding to. Where I feel the blame is to be laid and how I see us once again as a people faltering and failing to embrace that warrior heritage that is the core of our existence.
After the wars against Rome, notice I say wars because most are of the beleif that there was only a singular war which is completely incorrect, we abandoned that which was the essential elements of our existence. Not our stalwart belief in God, but the tools that he handed us to ensure our continued survival through the ages. I'm referring to the Rod and the Sceptre. There came amongst us a group of relgious philosphers (hasidim) that felt the two institutions were archaic and irrelevant. They dismissed them as the flotsom of an outlived aristocracy, no longer essential. They presumed that without a Temple, without a base or kingdom to rule, there was no longer a need for either priests or kings. And in their haste to bury both castes they forgot that it was not their decision to make as God had forbade any man to wrest these from between his knees (this is a biblical expression, not mine). Yes, I blame Rabbinical Judaism for our downfall through the ages.

Now before everyone gets in an uproar and starts proclaiming what the Rabbis have always insisted that if not for them we never would have survived as a distinct people amongst all the other nations, let me say this; 'CRAP'. The Talmud, is the work and interpretation of men and if anything, it has caused more confrontational arguments than agreements. Long after it was written you still had the Rashis and Maiomondes, and the hundreds and thousands of Rabbis that followed still trying enforce their interpretation as the correct one. How ridiculous. Because as any knowledgable Karaite can tell you, Anan ben David had summed up everything that had to be known in a singular revision; "If what you read seems good to you, then it is correct." It was a powerful statement. So powerful in fact that by the tenth century, the Rabbinical sage, Saadiah grew very concerned that the rabbinical Judaism he and his colleagues professed would actully become subordiante to the Karaite beliefs that he made it his life's ambition to destroy all that was Karaite. Though you may find it hard to uncover this edict I'm about to reveal, since an effort has been made to erase it from Jewish History, Saadiah, once enshrined as the Gaon, or chief Rabbi, pronounced, "To Kill a Karaite is no Different Than Killing a Dog." What did this actually mean? It meant that you could kill a Karaite without being charged with murder. And they did; literally in the thousands.
It is inconceivable that we who were once warriors would turn upon our own brethren, simply because one group decided that somehow it became their right to rule the hearts and minds of the people. And that same group would preach whenever as a people we would become oppressed by other nations that we should put our trust in God and that he will deliver us. That it is not up to us to deliver ourselves. How many holocausts have we suffered because of such faulty logic? How many more must we endure before it is finally questioned, who are these people that claim the authority to speak for God?

We are at a crossroads now. As Karaite, I'm only one of thirty thousand remaining in the world. Even most of my family following the death of Yakov Kahana (see Shadows of Trinity) abandoned Karism and adopted what was then mainstream rabbinical Judaism. But in case you have not noticed, there is a tide turning in the world. A tide that suddenly looks at today's Israel with its six million people and says, "How dare you exert your beligerance over 500 million Arabs. How dare you declare yourself a Jewish Homeland but WE acknowledge the right for a Palestinian state to exclude any Jews from living within its borders. How dare you pronouce Judaism as your State religion, even though you let millions of Muslims and Christians live freely within your country to practice their religion, while those of non-Muslim faiths are not allowed to publicly practice their religions in a large number of Muslim countries. How dare you claim an entitlement to the land on which you have been a presence on for three thousand years continuously, have fought and died over for an equal length of time as mentioned at the start of this article, and try to use that to refute OUR claim that you are merely the creation of post world war European guilt." You can hear it now. It's whispered in the streets, it's shouted behind closed doors, it's rising in its tenor and rhetoric from the lips of presidents that are willing to deny the truth. As a Karaite I can see the winds of change. We have seen it many times over our existence. We have not abandoned either the Staff nor the Sceptre. And though our numbers are diminished we still recall that once We Were Warriors.

Of Witches, Werewolves, Vampires, Angels and Demons

You have to love the wisdom that emanates from the mouths of your children. Their ability to state what's on their minds without the hesitency that we all gain as adults is sometimes brutal but overwhelmingly honest. It's a trait we all seem to lose as we become part of the adult working force and enter society with all its restrictions and political correctness. And what have we actually created with our acts of hypocrisy and social obligations; A mess to put it quite frankly. A world that is spinning out of control because somewhere along the way it lost what we once called morality. The overriding sense of wrong and right that was engraved in stone. You knew there would be a punishment for every improper deed you did and that was often enough to keep you walking the straight and narrow. Now there is no discipline, no sense of fairplay, and definitely no morality.
So when my daughter asks me why I choose to write of historical events because in her mind real author's know that success lies in writing books devoted to the celebration of the antihero, dipped heavily into the ether of demons and the supernatural, then I better have a good answer since so much of their lives are wrapped up in the hoodoo voodoo of this new age. Whether your child considers themselves Emo or Goth determines whether they just hate society or wish to watch it burn in Hell. We can shake our heads all we want but the truth of the matter is that it's our fault that they're immsersed in those attitudes. Why? Because we took their heroes away. We had to obliterate the masked man in the white suit that always defeated his nemesis in the black hat and Snidely Whiplash styled moustache. Someone said that it gave children the wrong impression that colour determined good or bad and that could result in racism. And just like that they were gone! Then we had to remove God from religion so as not to suggest that the God of one religion was superior to that of another. Perhaps if we had thought about it more thoroughly we would have recognised that the solution was not to toss out God from religion but to remove religion from God. Whether one believes in the physical forces of the universe, the God of the Bible, the Force from Star Wars, it's all God. God didn't have to be removed from schools and public services. What had to be removed was the false sense of superiority that one believer held over another. But that's all a discussion for another day. The fact is the youth of today want to believe in a world created by the likes of a Stephanie Meyer. They want to emulate the world that author's of this alternative reality have fashioned, where the supernatural meshes intricately with that of humanity. Where darkness is inseparable from the light because in their own minds there is no longer a distinction. Death and life have become confused and meaningless with the preservation of life no longer paramount nor sacred.
So to be asked why I don't expend my efforts to write about the witches, werewolves, vampires, angels and demons that now haunt their everyday existence, I took great pleasure in replying that I do. The only difference is that I relate these attributes of horror to real people, that did cause terrible suffering and by which the people had to bear the repurcussions of the evil manifest in these human forms. There were witches in my newly finished novel Zutra. They were women of power that exerted magical forces over the men in their lives, twisting them until they performed like marionettes on chainlink strings. Oh, and there were werewolves too. Men that could change their form on any given day, masking the deceit and visciousness of their own personna until they tore the hearts from the innocent. Zutra's father died on the cross because he failed to see the werewolves that existed amongst those he thought were his friends. And of course their were Vampires, none so much as the Lady Avital that sucked the life blood from both of her husbands, father and son, until they were too weak to resist her alluring charms. But in spite of the evil that flourished, there were still angels that would not succumb to the evil that pervaded their world. Men and women who could rise above the wickednss that men do and would willingly risk their own lives in order to stem the evil tide. Zutra was such a man. Patricius longed to be such a man. And the Princess Ti-Ping was definitely such a woman. As for demons, they are always in disguise. They're the ones not happy until they destroyed everything about them even if they have to sacrifice the world and all they hold dear to do so. You will find many demons existed in the world in which Zutra lived. He had no choice but to become a demon slayer.
So you see, much to my daughter's surprise, I do write about this dark Gothic world they wish to envelop themselves within. But in my stories there still remains that fine line between Good and Evil. I still have my heroes in white hats or shining armour. Because it is not about the colour. It was never about the colour. It was always about doing what was right. And if my words can re-establish the belief that this world did have, does have, and will have heroes, then perhaps we can save it from ourselves!

Zutra is Searching for an Agent

So what's next you ask in the Kahana Chronicles series. Well, next is book 5. Wait you say, the last one to be published was book 8 and now you're following with book 5. What's going on?
Welcome to New Math. The actual reason is that I never know what compulsion or story-line is going to pop into my head at any given time. Book 1 actually will at some time in the future but not yet. All I can say is that Zutra was screaming to get out and it's one hell of a story. And you probably never even heard his name before even though he changed the world. Following his death there was a virtual pact between the Byzantines, the Sassanids and I'm afraid to say it, even the Rabbis to ensure that his story never was repeated. The name Zutra was synonymous with freedom. It was a call sung loudly by the 400 that were one of the most feared military units with their dervish style of fighting. And to the two women that shared his life it infused one with love and the other with hatred.
The success of Zutra and his renegade Byzantine general Patricius were an embarassment to them all as he forged his own kingdom along side the Tigris River, a kingdom that remained free for 7 years only to brought down by the betrayal of his father-in-law, Reb Hanina and the other rabbis that had dedicated their live to stipping the power away from the Exilarch. This is the story of one man that took on the world and for a few short years actually defeated it. There are no punches pulled in the telling of this story. What he did and what was done to him are all historically accurate. And those that still were responsible for his death and the death of his father, the extermination of a kingdom, and the extinguishing of freedom are not going to be happy about it.

Below is a brief synopsis of the characters that played such an important role in this insurrection and its subsequent demise. Let's hope that Zutra can find an agent bold enough to represent it because they will find themselves under attack from several oganisations that still would like to see these events remain buried!

Mar Zutra Kahana, was born around 480 in Mahoza, which today would be located in Iraq. He was the hereditary Exilarch, indicating that he was the rightful king in exile and both a royal descendant of King David and a priestly descendant of Aaron. In 496 when he was sixteen years old, he watched as his father Huna was crucified by the Persians and in 498 he lead a revolt in which he won the freedom of the people he ruled over for seven years.

Julius Flavius Patricius was born around 445, the son of Aspar, the Consul of the Byzantine Empire, becoming Caesar under the Emperor Leo in 470 and considered next in line for the throne. In love with Leo’s daughter Ariadne but married to her sister Leontia, Patricius had to flee for his life in 471 when his family was accused of treason and Leo had his father and brother slain by what is commonly referred to as the Revolt of the Palace Eunuchs. For twenty-five years he became a soldier of fortune in the orient until one fateful day in 497 when he escorted the daughter of the Emperor Hsiang of China to the city of Mahoza.

Princess Ti-Ping, the young and beautiful daughter of the reigning Chinese Emperor of Northern Wei who was offered to the young Exilarch when he assumed his throne in order to forge an alliance between the eastern and western worlds. Though initially a marriage of diplomacy as the Empire of Northern Wei was constantly under attack, what resulted was a passionate and genuine love that became a modern tale of star-crossed lovers and the bane of Great Shah's existence as he attempted to regain the Persian throne.

The Lady Avital, betrothed to Zutra as a young girl but married instead to Zutra’s widowed father at the insistance of the leaders of the religious community, she bore the old Exilarch a son, and soon after became responsible for the death of Zutra's father. Unable to accept her marriage to his father, Zutra forced the Lady Avital, now a widow into a marriage as his second wife, only to find that doing so, he took the mechanism to his own demise into his bed chambers.

Ariadne, Empress of Byzantium, who had been engaged to Patricius son of Aspar only to have the engagement broken by her father the Emperor Leo and her hand in marriage given to Zeno, a man she hated and despised, while her betrothed was then married to her younger sister Leontia. As the real power behind the throne, she not only plotted against her husband but once he was dead, she used her power and influence to name the next emperor, whom she married thereby retaining her influence and power over the Empire. Twenty-five years later, she finds herself torn between the love she still bears for the only man she ever truly loved or to hold on to the throne as the most powerful woman in the world.

This is their story; this is my family's story.