GOG AND MAGOG. Arabic Yājūj wa Mājūj, also spelt Maʾjūj wa Yaʾjūj (ياجوج و ماجوج). A barbarous people of Central Asia, perhaps the Turkomans, who are in the Qurʾān represented as doing evil in the land in the days of Ẕū ʾl-Qarnain (or Alexander). See [Sūrah xviii. 93–97]:—
“They said, ‘O Ẕū ʾl-Qarnain! verily Gog and Magog waste this land; shall we then pay thee tribute, so thou build a rampart between us and them?’
“He said, ‘Better than your tribute is the might wherewith my Lord hath strengthened me; but help me strenuously, and I will set a barrier between you and them.
“ ‘Bring me blocks of iron,’—until when it filled the space between the mountain sides—‘Ply,’ said he, ‘your bellows,’—until when he had made it red with heat (fire), he said,—‘Bring me molten brass that I may pour upon it.’
“And Gog and Magog were not able to scale it, neither were they able to dig through it.
“ ‘This,’ said he, ‘is a mercy from my Lord.’ ”
They are also spoken of in [Sūrah xxi. 95, 96], as a people who shall appear in the last days:—
“There is a ban on every city which we shall have destroyed, that they shall not arise again,
“Until a way is opened for Gog and Magog, and they shall hasten from every high land.”
Al-Baiẓāwī says Yājūj and Mājūj are two tribes descended from Japheth the son of Noah, and some say Yājūj belong to the Turks and Mājūj to the Jīls. (Comp. [Ezekiel xxxviii. 2]; [xxxix. 1]; [Rev. xvi. 14]; [xx. 8].)