Gog and Magog

METHODOLOGY FOR STUDY OF THE QUR'AN 

by Sheikh Imran Nazar Hosein

www.imranhosein.org

Gog and Magog

It was in the early 90’s when I was still based in New York, that I arrived at an interpretation of a crucially important verse of the Qur’ān concerning the identity of Gog and Magog, and I was quietly confident that my interpretation was correct. But since I could not find any other scholar who had interpreted the verse the way that I did, I found myself in a unique and precarious position.

My view was that the Qur’ān referred to Jerusalem when it declared, in Verses 95 and 96 of Sūrah al-Anbiyāh, that Allah Most High had destroyed a ‘town’, had expelled its people, and had banned their return (to the town to reclaim it as their own) until Gog and Magog were released, and they had spread out in all directions, or descended from every height: 

“We have prohibited the return of a people to a town which we have destroyed, 

(21:95) 

Until Gog and Magog are released, and they spread out in all directions (or descend from every height).” 

(Qur’ān, al-Anbiyāh, 21:95-6) 

This interpretation of the Qur’ān, in which I identified the ‘town’ as Jerusalem, allowed me to go on to recognize the presence of Gog and Magog in the Judeo Christian Zionist alliance in modern western civilization, since they were the ones responsible for bringing the Jews back to Jerusalem to reclaim it as their own some 2000 years after Allah had expelled them from that town and had banned such return.  

It was only after I had interpreted the ‘town’ as Jerusalem, was the road opened for me to write my bestselling book entitled ‘Jerusalem in the Qur’ān’.

A few months after I had identified the ‘town’ as Jerusalem, I picked up a booklet from the books of Maulānā’s personal library which had been gifted to me after I married his daughter. It was written by Ebrahīm Ahmad Bāwāny, a Pakistani businessman (r), and was entitled ‘Gog Magog and the State of Israel’. I was absolutely astonished to find at the very beginning of the booklet that Bāwāny had not only quoted the two verses of Sūrah al-Anbiyāh which made mention of Gog and Magog, but had also identified the ‘town’ as Jerusalem. Bāwāny went on to explain in the Preface to the booklet that he was indebted to the Islamic scholar, Maulānā Dr. Muhammad (s) Fazlur Rahmān Ansārī, who not only explained the subject of Gog and Magog to him, but also, and of crucial importance to us, he identified the ‘town’ in Sūrah al-Anbiyāh: 95-96, as Jerusalem.  

Commenting on the two verses of Sūrah al-Anbiyāh’ and to the ‘town’, Bāwāny declared as follows: “we firmly believe (and for which we have advanced solid arguments in the following pages) that this Ayah refers in particular to the city of Jerusalem …” (p. 2). He went on to declare: “Thus the Ayah of the Holy Qur’ān (i.e. al-Anbiyāh’: 95-96), beyond doubt, relates to the establishment of the State of Israel by the connivance and support of the powers of Gog and Magog.” (p. 3). He also acknowledged his debt to Maulānā Muhammad (s) Fazlur Rahman Ansari, “whose interpretation and explanation of the Ayāt relating to the return of the people to the city which was destroyed, referred to in the preceding pages, inspired me to make research and to write on the subject” (p. iii).  

The  booklet was published in August 1967 by the Begum Aisha Bāwāny Wakf in Karachi, Pakistan, and so Maulānā must have arrived at the interpretation of the ‘town’ as Jerusalem, a few decades before I did. We do not know how he arrived at his interpretation, but we can assume that it was his methodology for the study of the Qur’ān which delivered this astonishing fruit to him.  

Since he (correctly) identified the ‘town’ as Jerusalem, the implication must be that Maulānā had also easily identified the presence of Gog and Magog in the Judeo-Christian Zionist alliance in the modern world, and was thus well-placed to pioneer Islamic eschatology as a new branch of knowledge in Islam. It will forever remain an agonizing mystery why he chose not to do so.  

I remained his student for seven years, and it may perhaps be true to say that he had a high regard for me as his student. It remains an enigma that even though Maulānā clearly had the knowledge to do so, never during my seven years with him did he ever attempt to teach and explain to me, or to any of his other students, the subjects of Dajjāl and of Gog and Magog in Ākhir alZamān (i.e., the last age). I am left to wonder in amazement and disbelief whether he deliberately maintained that silence since his plan was for someone other than himself to pioneer Islamic eschatology.  

The mystery that is evident in Maulānā’s silence on the subject of Gog and Magog finds an uncanny echo in the even more mysterious silence of the poet-philosopher, Dr. Muhammad (s) Iqbal, who responded to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and the subsequent European crusader conquest of Jerusalem one month later, with an amazing couplet of Urdu poetry in which he declared that Gog and Magog had been released: 

Khul gayay Yajooj aur Majooj kay lashkar tamam

Chashmay Muslim dekh lay tafseer-e harf-e-yansil oon.

“Set loose are all the hordes of Gog and Magog; 
To the Muslim eye manifest is the meaning of the word Yansilūn”, 

(i.e. the two verses of the Qur’ān, al-Anbiyāh’, 21: 95-96, which end with the word ‘Yansilūn’). 

[Bang-e-Dara – Zarifana: 23] 

Having made this amazing statement in Urdu poetry confirming that Gog and Magog had been released, and having linked the event of the British liberation of Jerusalem (for the Jews) with the release of Gog and Magog,  Iqbal then proceeded to maintain a mysterious total silence on the subject for the rest of his life. He never wrote or spoke a single word on the subject subsequent to that amazingly accurate penetration of the verses of the Qur’ān concerning the release of Gog and Magog into the world.  

This mysterious silence on the subject of Gog and Magog from the world of Islamic scholarship cannot continue for much longer since it appears that the world is now poised on the brink of another world war. In the same way that the First World War was used to bring down the curtain on the Islamic Caliphate, so too it appears that this coming world war will bring down the curtain on the Hajj or pilgrimage to the Ka’aba in Makkah. When that happens, it would no longer be possible for any Muslim to remain in a state of denial concerning the release of Gog and Magog in the world since the Prophet prophesied, in a Hadīth recorded in Sahīh Bukhārī, that: 

“People would continue to perform the Hajj and ‘Umrah even after Gog and Magog have been released.” 

But then he went on to declare:  

“The Last Hour would not come before the Hajj no longer takes place.” 

(Sahīh Bukhārī) 

Source: Sheikh Imran Nazar Hosein

to be continued .....