From this we understand that the Ishmaelites should have belonged the same [[Sadducee]] religion as [[Alexander Janneus]] albeit of a different minhag due to the years of separation and interaction with non-Abrahamites. This causes us to wonder why Sebeos said that the Jews from Edessa could not convince the Ishmaelites of Tachkastan to unite with them in religion unless it was because the Ishmaelites did not rule the country at that time. Alternatively perhaps the problem perhaps was that the Ishmaelites had existed as Hagarim without teachers for so long they were reluctant to accept Jews as their teachers.
Anastasius of Sinai (died 700CE) confirms the Judaic practice of the Ishmaelites. He writes angrily of some Saracens, "who had expressed their disbelief and blasphemed the holy place, its icons and its crosses". He ridicules them, saying that "no such miracles had occurred in any other religion, or in any synagogue of the Jews or Arabs."