Aim: To identify who Gog and Magog refers to as they are part of a Quranic prophecy.
The thread from which this article is derived has more details about why the Gog and Magog are not volcanoes or rivers. See: http://www.free-minds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=952The first step in this regard must be to identify where the wall of Dhul Qarnain might be. There are two reasonable candidates as far as I am concerned both within the same region of the caucasus (one is Derbend the other is in the Daryal pass). The one I believe it probably is the gates located in the Daryal Pass:
Quote(d?ryl?, Rus. dry?l?) (KEY) or Dariel (drl?) (KEY) , pass, c.3,950 ft (1,204 m) high, N Georgia, in the central Greater Caucasus Mts. below Mt. Kazbek. Situated above the Terek River, it is noted for its wild grandeur. The Georgian Military Road crosses the pass, which has long been significant as an invasion route. In ancient times Daryal was called the Gates of Alan or the Caucasian or Iberian Gates.
Mountain passes are known hot-spots for armies and warring nations' conflicts. This description of the world's most famous Khyber pass shows this:
"The Khyber Pass is a 53-kilometer (33-miles) passage through the Hindu Kush mountain range. It connects the northern frontier of Pakistan with Afghanistan. At its narrowest point, the pass is only 3 meters wide. On the north side of the Khyber Pass rise the towering, snow-covered mountains of the Hindu Kush. The Khyber Pass is one of the most famous mountain passes in the World. It is one of the most important passes between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is the best land route between India and Pakistan and has had a long and often violent history. Conquering armies have used the Khyber as an entry point for their invasions. It was also been a major trade route for centuries" The following links have an article about Cyrus the Great (who lived around 530 BC) and his claims to being Dhul Qarnain of the Quran.
http://home.btconnect.com/CAIS/Cyrus-the-Great/cyrus-the-great.htmhttp://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/zolqarnain_cyrus_quran.phpNow having established the most likely location of the gates we come to the conclusion that the Gog and Magog were war like people living to the North of these gates in modern day Georgia.
It so happens that the Caucasus has been a major highway for Hunnish and Turkic tribes migrating from Central Asia to the Middle East and Europe as far back as the first millenium BC. The region was therefore settled by various waves of tribes that have travelled through the region. The Turkic tribes were very mobile horsemen that have the 'mischeivous' warlike trait that the Gog and Magog possess and required a gate to be constructed.
The Magyars and Bulgars that settled in Europe in later times are also part of the migratory Turkic tribes that moved through this region.
It so happens that the area immediately North of the Daryal Pass was inhabited by a people known as the Khazars (another of the Turkic tribes) who in the time of Islam's birth were a great military people and established a nation in the third to fifth century AD - the Kingdom of Khazaria. The Khazar empire ended in the 10th to 11th Century AD when most of their lands were conquered by the Russian tribes. See more about these people at
www.kazaria.com. Knowledge about the Khazars is only being researched now, they had been a forgotten nation for almost a millenium!
Now what makes the story truly fascinating is that the Khazars adopted Judaism somewhere in the 8th to 9th century AD. The time, it must be remembered is when the Eastern Roman empire Byzantium is the dominant force in world Christianity and the rapidly growing Muslim empire is to the South of the Khazars. The Khazars at the time believed in a Shamanist religion of paganism. The King of Khazaria it is said invited envoys from the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions and asked each of the envoys in turn to explain why he should adopt their religion. The argument that favoured Judaism for him was that when the Christians and the Muslims were asked what religion they would favour if not their own both indicated they would choose Judaism.
Therefore the Khazars adopted Judaism and became
the greatest Jewish nation ever to have existed on the Earth (the largest in population and size). It is stunning that this empire hardly rates a mention in any history books given its size and importance in the region. The answer to this lies in the fact that the victor's version of history is what is propagated and the Khazars became forgotten after their loss to the Russians in subsequent centuries.
What became of the Khazar Jews then? They can't have just vanished off the face of the Earth. New research is addressing this question however an important seminal work in this regard was the work of Arthur Koestler (a Jew) in "The Thirteenth Tribe" who argued that the Khazar Jews migrated en masse into Europe and became the origins of the Ashkenazi Jews.
A link to an online copy of
The Thirteenth Tribe:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/13trindx.htm#The%20Thirteenth%20TribeThis is a controversial area but even the nay-sayers do admit that these Jewish people did migrate to Europe to mingle with the populations there.
It might be pertinent to note that the following is said about the Daryal Pass:
A ?Daryal Pass? valley route sometimes called, ?the Pass of Israel,? is clearly marked out in red in the Cambridge History Of Iran, (vol. 3:1:522); it was a favourite passage-way to Europe from the Mid-East.
A favorite passage way to Europe as well as being called "the Pass of Israel" are some of the many small evidences that these Khazar Jews moved into Europe to become the Ashkenazi Jews who appear from apparently nowhere in the Middle Ages immediately after the collapse of the Khazar Empire. Surely there is much presumptive evidence for this migration and origin for the Ashkenazi Jews.
The Ashkenazi Jews are important as far as Judaism goes because they form the majority (approximately 90%) of the present day Jews and the vast majoriity of American Jews. These Jewish people have nothing whatsoever from the original biblical Jewish people and have their ancestors in the warlike Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus.
From Khazaria to America these Jewish people in my opinion represent the Gog and Magog people described in the Quran. The corruption and mischief spread by this group over the latter part of history; the fact that they are spread all over the world and that for the large part they are liberalist humanists (atheists) or followers of fabricated traditions and not their original law fits the description of the Gog and Magog. The Ashkenazim are heavily involved in the world's problems. America's domination in world affairs militarily in alliance with Israel (an Ashkenazi nation) should demonstrate without doubt that these people fit the description better than any other people.
Finally there is the other mention of Gog and Magog in the Quran. Verse 21:96. I include below 21:95-96
Quran 21:95
Waharamun AAala qaryatin ahlaknaha annahum la yarjiAAoona
But there is a ban on any population which We have destroyed: that they shall not return,
Literal: And forbidden on a village/urban city We made it die/destroyed it , that they do not return.
Quran 21:96
Hatta itha futihat ya/jooju wama/jooju wahum min kulli hadabin yansiloona
Until when Gog and Magog are let loose and they shall break forth from every elevated place.
Literal: Until when Yagog and Magog was opened , and they are for every/each hard/elevated ground, they rush down/separate.
The verse preceding 21:96 mentions populations and is then followed immediately after by the mention of Gog and Magog. So this is indicating that there would be a spreading of a population called Gog and Magog; in my opinion it's the news about who they are being let loose that is important. A destroyed community that returns. The Khazar empire was destroyed and it's with the discovery that the Ashkenazi Jews are the 'returned' people ie. the Gog and Magog that their significance/presence returns.
What about elevated place? Well this doesn't necessarily have to be a hill or mound like the view has been. An elevated place can refer to positions of power in human affairs. These are often referred to in English as top positions. If one thinks about the influence of the Ashkenazi Jews in world affairs and how many high places they hold (in finance, politics, music, film etc. the list stretches to all human endeavours) then it is not so much of a stretch of the imagination to see that this also supports the finding that it is the Ashkenazi Jews who are the Gog and Magog.
In conclusion; the Ashkenazi Jews (who are originated from the North Caucasus Turkic warlike tribes (whom Dhul Qarnain built a wall against) and have spread out to all regions of the Earth) are none other than the Gog and Magog people.
