In the sphere of common Arab-Jewish messianism, as examined in the foregoing chapters, the Children of Israel emerge as righteous believers, or “Judeo-Muslims”, whose model of piety serves to establish the universal perception of the chosen community. This was most appropriate for the initial apologetic needs of the Muslim invaders of Syria. However, the traditions about the “Judeo-Muslim” Israelites did not gain wide circulation and almost none of them entered the canonical compilations of ḥadīth. The orthodox compilers were reluctant to accept the righteous image of the Jews as delineated in these traditions, and the image of the Jews as sinful was the one which eventually established itself in the mainstream of Islamic tradition. In fact, even in the realm of tafsīr—in which the traditions about the righteous Israelites are mainly found-these traditions are not widely current, and apart from Muqātil very few compilers of tafsīr material repeated the stories about the Is- lamic disposition of the Lost Tribes. The objection to this type of material is reflected in contradictory traditions recorded in tafsīr compilations to the effect that the Islamic message never reached the Israelite Lost Tribes,’ which means that they are unbelievers, and as such can have no place in the chosen community. A degradation in the status of the Israelites is also evident in traditions in which the righteous are no more privileged than the sinful among them. One of these traditions is of the Syrian al-Raḍīn ibn ʿAṭāʾ. Here God reveals to Joshua the son of Nun that He is about to destroy 60,000 of the evildoers of his people, as well as 40,000 of the innocent among them. The latter are going to perish because of their friendly relations with the sinners.

The altered attitude towards the Children of Israel is also discernible in additional traditions depriving contemporary “Judeo-Muslim” Jews such as Kaʿb al-Ahbar of their positive image. In a tradition of Ibn Aotham seen in Chapter 1, Kaʿb in Jerusalem hears from Umar Qur'ān 4:47, which urges the People of the Book to believe in the Qur'ān that confirms (muṣaddiq) their own scriptures. Kaʿb immediately responds with Biblical passages asserting that the Islamic conquest of the Promised Land has taken place in accordance with a predestined scheme of messianic redemption.