SOUTH-east Africa comprises a people called vaMwenye (foreigners), vaShavi, vaSena, vaLungu and vaRemba.
These are black people who are on average even darker than other Zimbabweans in complexion and are concentrated in the dryer parts of Zimbabwe in the south.
They are being associated with the religions of Islam and Judaism but many people are confused as to why.
Today, one will find more than 10 synagogues in Mberengwa where most of the Remba people reside, and migrated from to other lands.
In Gutu, there are four synagogues and Hwedza and Masvingo have numerous mosques.
These are recent occurrences which have led to the question: Are vaMwenye Jews or Muslims? 
There is a saying which goes: ‘There is no smoke without fire’.
The Remba have maintained a history of coming to Zimbabwe from Sena.
Sena was an ancient Yemenite city located between the harbours of Tarim and Sayhut.
In pre-Islamic Arabia, this group was known as Sabaeans because southern Arabia was called Saba/Sheba and their main profession was trading goods to and from Africa and Asia.
This is where the title vaShavi, meaning both traders and Sabaeans, originated and vaSena from being the citizens of the city called Sena.
This is not to be confused with the modern day Sana’a which is located east as opposed to Sena which was located in the western part of Saba (Yemen).
Prophet Muhammad identified these Sabaeans as the house of David and Solomon and children of Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, in the Quranic books called Saba and the Ant (An Naml).
Similar accounts are found in the Biblical books of 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chronicles 9 which speak of the relationship between Solomon and Makeda and the trade ventures between their two lands.
The Sabaeans traded gold, almug wood and monkeys from Ophir (Zimbabwe); and frankincense and myrrh from Somalia to Asia.  
In an Ethiopian book called the Kebra Nagast (Glory of Kings) which belongs to another group which traces its origins in the two monarchs of Israel and Africa, the story of how the tribe of Israel entered Africa and Arabia is told in more detail.
These events took place 3 000 years ago, before there was Judaism and Islam.
It is important to note that neither Israel nor his descendants were Jews by religion until the formation of the religion owing to the influx of foreign invaders from Assyria in the time of Shalmennezar (650 BCE), Persia in the time of Ahasuerus (450 BCE) and Greece in the time of the Seleucids (380 BCE).
The ancient Israelites, such as Solomon, had no synagogues, sects like the Pharisees, skull caps and shawls.
They simply followed covenants between their ancestors and their God and this was encapsulated in their culture.
Outside forces like the Sepharvaim were imported to Samaria from Babylon and are now called Sephardic Jews.
They began making a religion of the culture of the Israelites in the time of Assyrian invasion.
The Israelites were taken as captives in Assyria and the rest of them scattered mainly into north and western Africa.
The foreigners who were made to inhabit Samaria were then given a Levite priest to teach them the culture of the Israelites, including their dietary laws and also male circumcision.
At this time, the only descendants of Israel who were still in the land were from the tribe of Judah and they were located south of Samaria.
Therefore, all the foreigners who began partaking of the way of the Israelites were called ‘Jew’ which was short for Judah.
This does not make them descendants of Israel and to this day, the Sephardic Jews do not claim to be descendants of Israel but a stock that came out of conversion.
When Persia became a super power and ruled over the known world including Africa, India, Arabia, southern Europe as well as the west and central Asia, another wave of converts to the new religion that was based on the culture of Israel emerged.
This was after an Amalekite or Macedonian (Greek) called Haman unsuccessfully tried to annihilate the remaining tribe of Judah in the time of Persian King Ahasuerus.
Esther and Mordecai intervened and his plot was turned over his head and led to Haman being killed.
A statement from the king was passed around to respect the tribe of Judah and people from other nations began to partake of the ways of Israel and they too were now called Jews. 
This also does not make them descendants of Israel.
After the time of Alexander, the so-called great, Judah fell into the hands of the Seleucid faction of the Greek Diadochi.
The Diadochi were four Greek generals who inherited the leadership of the known world from Alexander, who had done so by defeating Persia.
At first, the Greeks intended to hellenise Judea and this entailed destroying all indigenous cultures and replacing them with Greek lifestyle. 
In the time of a Seleucid ruler called Antiochus Epiphanes IV, Judeans were being killed for circumcising their children, observing Sabbath and the Passover, restricting the consumption of swine and so on.
Because of fear, many Judeans forwent their culture and began taking up Greek customs.
This was until they faced resistance from an Israelite called Mattathias who started a guerilla war that is remembered as the Maccabean revolution. 
The war went on for generations and in the time of Antiochus’ great grandson, who was also called Antiochus Eupator, son of Alexander, son of Antiochus Epiphanes IV, the Greeks finally gave up trying to hellenise Judea.
Mattathias had been succeeded by his descendants Judas, Jonathan, Joseph and Simon who continued the guerilla war and conserved the culture of Israel.
In the generation of John, son of Simon, son of Mattathias, Antiochus proclaimed that the Judeans have shown that they love their culture and will not compromise in conserving it.
He then ordered for all the people in Judea to become Hellenic Jews and this included the Greeks who were in the land.
What he wanted was for people to not be divided and this is where the fully fledged religion of Judaism was birthed.
Again, this does not make these Jews by conversion descendants of Israel.
It was in this era that the traditional priests of the Levite tribe were replaced by Greek scribes and sects such as the Pharisees and Sadducees began to form.
Greek scribes were used in all lands including Assyria, Babylon, India and Egypt to rewrite all they came across into the Greek language and to destroy the originals. This was a key component of the process of hellenising.
This new religion, which is the mother of modern or Rabbinic Judaism, was headed by the Seleucid Greeks who also became known as Jews and were part and parcel of the above mentioned sects, particularly the Pharisees who previously were inexistent in Israel.
By the time of John and Yeshua (Jesus), the Romans had overtaken the Greeks but had placed the Greek Jews as the top most authorities of the Judeans.
This is how Pharisees replaced Levites, and Romans the kingship of the lineage of David.
John and Yeshua were firmly against the religion of Judaism and were concerned with returning their people to the way of their ancestors which had nothing to do with the foreign traits that had been brought about by assimilating with the Greeks.
For this reason, they were both condemned to death and were given up by the Pharisees to the Roman authorities for execution.
In the book of Revelations, it is said: “I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.”
This statement was in reference to the non-Israelites who were partaking of Hellenic Judaism and imposing their new religion on the actual Israelites.
Today, the Remba are being called Jews and having their ancestors being portrayed as whites who intermarried with Africans to become blacks.
This is far from the truth.
The Israelites were never white to begin with and the first whites to enter the region of Israel and the known world were the Greeks.
The ancestors of the Remba had left Judah and settled in Saba more than 600 years before the Greeks came into Judea.