Ishmaelites

The Ishmaelites or Ishmaelites (Latin Ismaelitae, English Ishmaelites) are the descendants of Abraham's firstborn son Ishmael, who is considered the progenitor of the Arabs. In the Christian Orient, this term was used from the early Middle Ages to refer to the Muslims. For example, in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, written in the late 7th century, the Muslim Arabs are described as "sons of Ishmael". In the 8th century, the theologian John of Damascus (d. 754) wrote a polemic against the "heresy of the Ishmaelites," by which he meant Islam. In the Coptic Book of Daniel, dated to the middle of the 8th century, the Umayyad state is described as the "empire of the Ishmaelites" and integrated into the four-kingdom doctrine.

In Eastern Europe, especially in Kievan Rus, the term Ishmaelites was used to describe those Turkic-speaking Muslims who traded and later settled in the eastern lands of Europe from the lower Volga and the northern edge of the Caspian Sea. The Nestor Chronicle states that there were four Ishmaelite tribes in all, namely the Turkmen, the Pechenegs, the Turks, and the Polovts or Cumans. The term was also used in this sense in medieval Hungary. In the 58th chapter of the Gesta Hungarorum it is reported that in the 10th century a large number of Ishmaelites came to Hungary from Bolgar. This refers to Cumans who migrated from the Volgabulgar Empire and formed the earliest Muslim population in Hungary.

In the Latin West, the term Ishmaelites - along with Saracens - was commonly used to refer to Muslims. Thus the Spanish theologian Juan de Torquemada (d. 1468) wrote a Tractatus contra Madianitas et Ismaelitas.

The Ismaelites are not to be confused with the Ismailites, the followers of a Shiite doctrine. They are named after Ismāʿīl ibn Dschaʿfar, the son of the sixth Shiite imam, Dschaʿfar as-Sādiq.