A wall of iron built to keep out Gog and Magog
the 2 giants in London’s Lord Mayor’s convey relatively figure in the Koran too
05 Sep 2015
The 14ft-high wicker figures of the giants Gog and Magog are being spruced up for the Lord Mayor’s procession, which they’ll lead in just a few weeks’ time.
Sticklers insist that they should be referred to as Magog and Corineus, putting their self belief in the 12th-century account by Geoffrey of Monmouth of the fight between those two heroic figures. however the metropolis of London giants are moderately labelled Gog and Magog.
The names are discovered in the Bible, though it is unforthcoming about their nature. “Son of man,” says the prophet Ezekiel, “direct your face towards Gog, of the land of Magog.”
The final e book of the Bible, Revelation, takes up the names when it says that at the end of the world, after satan has been sure for 1,000 years, he’s going to be loosed and can “deceive the nations which are within the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog”.
What stunned me used to be to seek out Gog and Magog in the Koran. Muslims regard the Koran as the uncreated phrase of God. That don’t need to current difficulties for the testimonies present in Sura 18 of the ebook, even though they undergo similarities to folklore from other sources.
Sura 18 narrates briefly the travels of Dhu l-Qarnayn. The identify means Two Horned, but it does not discuss with Moses (who is continuously depicted with horns of energy). Dhu l-Qarnayn has fairly been taken to mean Alexander the good. The identify is defined in a narrative present in a sixth-century Syriac version and often called the Alexander Romance. “Thou has brought about horns to grown upon my head,” Alexander says to God, “in order that I could crush the countries of the arena.”
Anyway, within the Koran, Dhu l-Qarnayn travels except he comes to “a people who might scarcely consider any speech”. They ask his assist as a result of “Yajuj and Majuj are wreaking mischief within the land”. Yajuj and Majuj are the Arabic names for Gog and Magog.
Dhu l-Qarnayn directs them to convey pieces of iron, which can be melted in a fireplace to kind a wall that can neither be scaled nor pierced, barring the way in which between two cliffs. this may increasingly preserve out Yajuj and Majuj unless the ultimate days, when they are let loose. Yajuj and Majuj are conceived right here as peoples rather than giants. they are going to be so numerous, commentators on the Koran wrote, that they will drink up the entire waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates. once they hearth their arrows against God, he’s going to kill them multi functional night.
except the closing days, in keeping with the ninth-century Persian exegete al-Tabari, Yajuj and Majuj will attempt to dig below the wall each evening, when the sound of their tools could also be heard. however God repairs the breaches they make before the morning.
This hanging element strikes a chord in my memory of a story via the nineteenth-century fable-making author George Macdonald, who in the Princess and the Goblin has subterranean goblins digging away each night time to interrupt via into the king’s house. I don’t recognize his sources; it will simply be a coincident.
so far as Islam is anxious, a reference to the iron wall against Yajuj and Majuj is made in a hadith that reviews Mohammed hurrying into the room of Zainab bint Jahsh, his spouse, and announcing that a lot (making an indication with his finger and thumb) had been unfolded within the wall of Yajuj and Majuj. “we could all perish?” she requested. “yes,” he answered, “if evil be widespread.”
There’s more of a moral there than in any legend of Gog and Magog acquainted to the spectators on the Lord Mayor’s convey. i wonder how outsiders would judge our beliefs if they glided by the emblems and traditions we perpetuate.
the two giants in London’s Lord Mayor’s express rather figure within the Koran too
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