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After telling you about the epic of the Mongols and Genghis Khan, it also seemed interesting to “find them in the Quran. In one of the passages of Surat Kahf, in fact, we will come into contact with singular populations, called Gog and Magog and ready to destroy the humanity
Between the fantastic and the real
We specify from the outset that all those that we will do in this article are our assumptions, based solely on those that seem clues to us but that it is not obvious they really are. The Quranic and biblical narrative in which these two tribes are present, moreover, is still one of the least clear and most interpretable, because of which their real identities have never been defined exactly. This has pushed man, over the centuries, to periodically give a new face to these ancient and terrifying monsters, varying according to the most current threat.
This meant that, de facto, “Gog and Magog” remained above all an ideal transposition of the nomads of Central Asia, even geographically divided from the rest of the world. The multitude of walls raised over the centuries then fueled the myth even more ferociously, confirmed with the actual arrival of Genghis Khan and his army.
A people beyond the barrier
In the Quran we are placed in front of these characters in Surat Kahf, one of the most relevant to mysticism and eschatology, thanks to the presence of Al Khidr and that of the Dhū l-Qarnayn, the “Bicorne”, identified by many as Alexander the Great. He will be led to the edge of the earth, coming into contact with such brutal populations, not even able to understand a language. At this point he will build a barrier made of iron and copper, with which he will seal the mountain passes forever, keeping them segregated until the dawn of time.
Just as history went then, it is difficult to believe that these references were not actually the imminent threat of Turks and Mongols who, casually, also brought very similar names as a dowry. The first Turkish tribe, for example, were the Göktürk and the Mongols will then turn into “Mughal”, a word with an even more similar sound to the Quranic one. Nobody knows who these two characters actually are but, if they were also flesh and not only legend, it is extremely probable that they were Mongols and Turks, peoples who actually brought ruin and destruction in the Islamic world, altering their history forever.
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