Mag and Magog (Yajuj and Majuj)

Gog and Magog appear in Qur'an sura Al-Kahf (The Cave chapter), 18:83–98, as Yajuj and Majuj (Ya'jūj and Ma'jūj or يَأْجُوج وَ مَأْجُوج, in Arabic), as well as in the sura Al-Anbiyā (The Prophets):

“	But there is a ban on a town which We have destroyed: that they (the people of the town) shall not return. Until the Gog and Magog are let through (their barrier), and they spread out from every direction.(Qur'an 21:96–97)	„

According to Islamic tradition (in Saḥīḥ al-Bukhāri), Gog and Magog are "Sons of Adam", i.e. human beings, who would be released when a people return to a town which was destroyed and from which they were banned. Some scholars have argued this town is Jerusalem.^[6] They would possess great power and, when released, would cause corruption in society ("Yājūj and Mājūj do great mischief on earth", Al-Kahf verse 94) to such an extent that for each 1 muslim there will be 999 of Gog and Magog would be led to the hellfire (according to Saḥīḥ al-Bukhāri).
The prominent Muslim scholar Javed Ahmed Ghamidi contends that Gog and Magog are from the descendents of Noah’s son Japeth who inhabited the northern areas of Asia. Later, some of their tribes reached Europe and after that settled in America and Australia.^[7] In Qur'an 18:83-98, it is stated that Dhul-Qarnayn (the One with Two Horns, or of Two Ages) travelled in three directions, meeting finally a people who complained that Yājūj and Mājūj were "causing corruption on earth".^[8] When the people offered Dhul-Qarnayn a tribute in exchange for building a wall, he replied that Allah had given him enough, and would build it with their help. He constructed a wall between two mountains (believed by some to be Daryal Pass). He built it out of iron and then poured molten metal over it, so no one could climb over or dig under. This stopped Gog and Magog from threatening them. According to some, they will be trapped there until doomsday, and their escape will be a sign of the end.
The Qur'anic account of Dhul-Qarnayn is said by some, to follow the "Gates of Alexander" story from the Alexander romance, a thoroughly embellished compilation of Alexander the Great's wars and adventures (see Alexander the Great in the Qur'an). The details of the two stories, however, are quite different and the comparisons made appear to be attempts at undermining the Islamic belief that the Qur'an was revealed from God. Moreover, most Muslim scholars reject this attribution,^[9] and some associate Dhul-Qarnayn with some other early ruler, usually Cyrus the Great, but also Darius the Great. Gog and Magog are also mentioned in some of the hadiths, or sayings of Muhammad, specifically the Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, revered by Sunni Muslims.
Fourteenth century Muslim sojourner Ibn Battuta traveled to China on order of the Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq, and encountered a large community of Muslim merchants in the city of Zaitun. He comments in his travel log that "Between it [the city] and the rampart of Yajuj and Majuj is sixty days' travel."^[10] The translator of the travel log notes that Ibn Battuta confused the Great Wall of China with that supposedly built by Dhul-Qarnayn.^[11]

[edit] In The Ahmadiyya Islamic Community

The Ahmadiyya Community present the view that Gog and Magog represent one or more of the European nations. They associate European imperialism after the Age of Discovery with the reference to Gog and Magog's rule at the "four corners of the world" in the Christian Book of Revelation. The Ahmadiyya founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835 – 1908) linked Gog and Magog to the European nations and Russia.^[12] His son and second successor, Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad further expounds the connection between Europe and the accounts of Gog and Magog in the Bible, the Qur'an, and the hadith in his work Tafseer-e-Kabeer..^[13] According to this interpretation of Mahmood Ahmad in his commentary on Surah Al-Kahf (Urdu),^[13] Gog and Magog were the descendants of Noah who populated eastern and western Europe long ago,^[14] the Scythians.^[15] According to Ahmadiyya teachings, the period of the Cold War between the two superpowers, USA and the Soviet Union (identified as Gog and Magog) or the influence of Communism and capitalism, the conflict and rivalry between the two and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union all occurred in accordance with the prophecies concerning Gog and Magog.^[16] Ahmadis also cite the folkloric British interpretation of Gog and Magog as giants (see below) as support for their view.^[17]
Affiliation with fire
Ahmadis point out that the Arabic words for Gog and Magog i.e. Yājūj and Mājūj derive from the root word ajja (to burn, blaze, hasten) which suggests that Gog and Magog will excel all nations in harnessing fire to their service and shall fight their battles with fire. In his commentary of Surah-Al-Masadd, Mirza Mahmood Ahmad, the Second Ahmadiyya leader has interpreted the two hands of Abu-lahab (the father of flame) as Gog and Magog, the nations opposed to Islam that will ultimately be destroyed by the 'fire' of their own making.^[18]


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