Have the Rechabites Become Muslims?

Q: If I may, I need to ask a question? I know you are knowledgeable about the Rechabites in the Tanach. Do you think they have become Muslim? The reason why I ask is I am doing some study on early Hebrews who converted to Islam, not forced, but happy to, and the one things clear is the Rechabites did not drink, the Hebrews could, do you think maybe the Rechabites helped Islam in the early years? I know there are many people in Islam whom are Hebrews, and have the genetic marker to be priest.  What you think?

A: You may find the story of the Rechabites in Jeremiah 35 or click here for a page.

At the beginning of Islam, the command of its leaders was to take down all idols as Zoroaster had done a thousand years before.  Early on there wasn’t the Mohammed cult that there is now – he was just a man ostensibly on a mission to point the way to the true faith of the Jews (Messianic, that is).  In Mohammed's bio, he talks about the foundation of true faith being firmly established in Arabia by the messenger he calls Addai and Addai’s disciples.  

As you recall, there was a kingdom known as Adiabene (capital later Edessa) that was actually named after Addai (it means “Good Addai”).  So Mohammed was surely right about this ‘founding father’ of religion in Babylon and Arabia. 

Next we go to the Acts of Thomas.  The man known as Thoma (a twin) had another name (a nickname) through other the Nazorean literature – Judas the Twin was Addai or ‘ThADDEus.’  This fellow’s travels are in the public record – Addai perhaps being the brother of Yahshua, and twin (depending on who you ask) of either Yahshua himself or his brother Ya’aqov. 

Now we know from Hegesipus that the other brother, Shimon of Cana WAS a Rechabites.  (This is explained in the passages about the murder of James – the “priest of the rechabites” was the first to get to his brother after he had been pushed off the Temple wing.)  So there is little doubt that the brother Jude / Addai was also a Rechabite as were his kin.

So I tell you all that to say, YES, I think positively that as the Rechabites were pushed farther and farther east by the persecutions of the Church, they melded entirely in with those who were later known as Muslims, hailing Yahshua as a prophet and keeping the Torah as Mohammed insisted. In fact, if memory serves me, Robert Eisenman in either James or New Testament Code traces this incursion east.