Who are the Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj?

he Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj

 During the reign of Hadhrat Isa (A.S.) people will live an extremely peaceful life filled with prosperity and abundance. Then the wall which imprisons Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj will break and they will surge forth in large numbers.

  "But when Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj are let loose and they rush headlong down every hill" (Quran 21:97)

Who are the Ya'jooj and Majooj?

Zul Qarnain (A.S.) who was a pious and just Ruler travelled to many lands and conquered them, establishing justice and the Law of Allah therein. Allah Ta'ala provided him with all forms and material strength through which he was able to carry out his conquests and missions.

He once carried out a mission in three directions, the far west, the far east, and then in a northerly direction. It was here that he came across a tribe of people who complained to him about the tribes of Ya'jooj and Majooj which inhabited the land behind two huge mountains and often emerged from behind these mountains to perpetrate acts of anarchy and plunder among them. They requested Zul Qarnain (A.S.) to erect a barrier between themselves and the tribes of Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj so that they could be saved from their atrocities. With the material strength at his disposal, Zul Qarnain (A.S.) enlisted their physical labor and set about erecting a high wall between the two mountains. The height of the wall or its exact length is unknown. What is known is that the height of this wall reaches that of the summit of both mountains. It is made with blocks or sheets of iron, which is further strengthened by molten lead. In this manner Ya'jooj and Majooj are unable to scale the wall, or cross it, except when it is the will of Allah.

  "And when the promise of my Rabb approaces, He will level it to dust" (Quran 18:98)

They are situated in a land of ice which is hidden from our gazes and the exact location of which is unknown. Though many interpretations do exist in this respect, none of these can be said to absolute.

 Ya'jooj and Majooj are human beings and according to a narration they are from the progeny of Yafith ibn Nooh (A.S.).

 Some Ahadith...

 In a lengthy hadith by Hadhrat Nawwas ibn Sam'aan (R.A.) Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) is reported to have said:

"...Allah will send revelation upon Eesa (A.S.) that 'Such a creation of mine is now going to emerge that no power will be able to stop them. Therefore take my servants and ascend the Mount of Toor.' Then Ya'jooj and Majooj will emerge and surge forth in all their fury. When those from among them who constitute the former part of their army pass the lake of Tiberias (which is in northern Palestine), they will drink up all the water of that lake and by the time those that constitute the latter part of that same army pass the lake, they will say, "There used to be water here (long ago). When they reach the Mount of Khamr in Jerusalem, they will arrogantly proclaim: 'We have conquered the people of the earth, now we will annihilate those in the sky.' So saying they will fire their arrows towards the sky. When the arrows return to the ground they will be blood stained.

In the meantime, Eesa (A.S.) will be on the Mount of Toor with his followers. At that time the head of and ox will be as valuable as is a hundred dinars to you in this day. [This indicates the scarcity of provisions]. Faced with these hardships, Eesa (A.S.) and his followers will make dua unto Allah (to remove this calamity). As a result, Allah will cause sores to appear on the necks of each and every individual of these people which will cause their death suddenly. When Eesa (A.S.) and his followers descend from the Mount of Toor there will not be a single space on the land where the dead rotting bodies of these people is not littered, giving off a horrendous odour. Eesa (A.S.) and his followers will once more supplicate unto Allah as a result of which Allah will send down huge birds whose necks will be as thick as that of the necks of camels, and they will dump these bodies in a place where Allah wills. (According to a narration by Tirmidhi, they will be dumped at a place called Nahbal).

 Allah Ta'ala will then send down a heavy rain, the waters of which will flow in every part of the earth cleansing it thoroughly. It will rain for a period of forty days.

 The Muslims will then burn the bows and arrows of the Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj for a period of seven years.

 Allah will order the earth to yield forth its crops in abundance and there will be such blessing and prosperity that one pomegranate will be sufficient for a whole group while the peel thereof will suffice to cast a shadow over them. The milk of one camel will be sufficient for many groups while one milk giving cow will be sufficient for a whole tribe. One milk giving goat will be sufficent for a whole family..."

(Muslim)

 Hadhrat Abu Saeed Khudri (R.A.) narrates that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said:

"On the day of Qiyamah Allah will say to Adam (A.S.) to pick out the Jahannamis from his entire progeny. Adam (A.S.) will ask: 'O Rabb, who are they?'

 Allah will say: 'Nine hundred and ninety nine of a thousand are Jahannami while the one is a Jannati.'

 On hearing this the Sahaba were overtaken by fear and they asked "O Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam), who will that one Janniti be?'

 Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: 'Do not grieve, the nine hundred and ninety nine will be Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj while you will be the Jannati."' (i.e. your numbers in relation to them will be one in a thousand).

(Bukhari and Muslim)

 Hadhrat Abdullah ibn Umar (R.A.) says that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said:

"Allah Ta'ala divided mankind into ten parts. Nine tenths constitute Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj while the remaining tenths constitutues the rest of mankind."

 Hadhrat Zainab bint Jahsh (R.A.) says: "...once Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wassallam) awoke from such a sleep that his face was red and these words were on his tongue: 'There is none worthy of worship except Allah. Destruction is upon the Arabs on account of the evil which has come close to them. Today a hole as big as this has opened up in the wall of Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj.' ..and Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) indicated the size of the hole forming a ring with his index finger and thumb."

(Bukhari and Muslim)

 Hadhrat Abu Hurairah (R.A.) narrates that every day Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj break (dig) through the wall erected by Zul Qarnain (A.S.) until they reach the end of it to that extent that they can actually see the light on the other side. They then return (home) saying that 'We will break through tomorrow.' But Allah Ta'ala causes the wall to revert to its original thickness and the next day they start digging through the wall all over again, and this process continues each day until as long as Allah wills them to remain imprisoned. When Allah wishes them to be released, then at the end of the day they will say, "If Allah wills, tomorrow we will break through." The following day they will find the wall as they had left it the previous day (i.e. it will not have returned to its orginal state) and after breaking the remaining part of it they will emerge."

 (Ahmad, Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah)

 Commenting on the above hadith, Allamah Ibn Arabi says, Three miracles are evident in this Hadith:

1.) It never occurs to these tribes that they must continue work during the night. After all, they are in such large numbers that they can easily delegate the work among themselves and work in shifts. But Allah does not allow this thought to occur to them.

 2.) It never occurs to them that they can merely cross the mountains or scale the wall, which they can do through the aid of equipment and implements wich they possess in large numbers. According to a narration by Wahab ibn Munabbah it is known that these tribes are agriculturists and artisians possessing various types of equipment.

 3.) The thought of saying "If Allah wills" never enters their minds and it will only occur to them to say it when Allah wills that they be released.

from: "Signs of Qiyamah"
by Mohammed Ali Ibn Zubair Ali

source ; http://www.islamawareness.net/Yajuj/yajooj.html

New offensive targets rebels on Aleppo's outskirts

Deaths of civilians reported in rebel-held Atareb while government blames fighters for deadly shelling elsewhere.

Syrian government forces have launched a new offensive against rebels on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo.

The fighting comes after claims by Syrian state television of at least three deaths due to opposition shelling of a district, and just two days after the Syrian army gained full control of Aleppo city.

At least six civilians were also killed on Saturday in air strikes on the rebel-held town of Atareb, west of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The SOHR, a UK-based information office that has been documenting human-rights abuses in Syria, said at least two children were among the dead.

The SOHR could not immediately specify who had carried out the air raids, but Russian and government warplanes typically carry out raids in Aleppo province.

An AFP correspondent in Atareb said military aircraft could be seen circling above the town and a nearby village throughout the day.

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Turkey's Gazientep near the border with Syria, said the new wave of air strikes were concentrated on eastern, southern and northern outskirts of Aleppo, appearing to be aimed at keeping rebel forces away from the recaptured city.

"People are concerned because there are thousands of civilians who are still trapped on the outskirts of Aleppo, particularly those who have been evacuated from eastern Aleppo," he said.

"If the fighting continues, that could further exacerbate the situation."

Russia launched its air war in support of President Bashar al-Assad's forces in September 2015, marking a major turning point in the government's fight against armed opposition groups.

In another Aleppo-related development, Syrian state TV said an explosion caused by a device left inside a school by rebels rocked the eastern part of the city on Saturday as some residents were returning to their homes.

State news agency SANA said the school had been transformed into "an ammunitions and explosive devices warehouse left behind by terrorist groups in the Sukkari neighbourhood".

Citing a police source, SANA said another 33 people were wounded in the blast, four of them critically, but did not specify whether they were civilians or government troops.

A correspondent for Lebanon's Hezbollah-run Al Manar TV was reporting live from the area when the blast sounded in the background, sending a huge cloud of dust into the air.

The correspondent later said that at least three people were killed.

The SOHR reported two deaths in the Sukkari warehouse, but said the blast took place as army troops were dismantling explosives.

It said one other person was killed when an explosive devide detonated inside a home in the Ansari district.

Elsewhere in Syria, the Damascus water authority  said  late on Friday that it had resorted to using water reserves to meet the city's demands.

The authority accused rebels who control territory northwest of the Syrian capital of contaminating the water's source, al-Fija spring.

The water authority said it expected the problem to be resolved in a "few days".

Syrian government forces and allied paramilitaries entered eastern Aleppo on Thursday after the last residents and opposition fighters were evacuated from the enclave under a Turkish-Russian deal.

The evacuees left for areas under control of rebels in the western Aleppo countryside and Idlib in northwestern Syria.

The pullout has given Assad's forces full control over Aleppo, which had been divided between his government and opposition fighters since 2012.


source : http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/offensive-targets-rebels-aleppo-outskirts-161224140539925.html

Islam in Libya

Most Libyans adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam, which provides both a spiritual guide for individuals and a keystone for government policy. Its tenets stress a unity of religion and state rather than a separation or distinction between the two, and even those Muslims who have ceased to believe fully in Islam retain Islamic habits and attitudes. The post-revolution National Transitional Council has explicitly endeavored to reaffirm Islamic values, enhance appreciation of Islamic culture, elevate the status of Qur'anic law and, to a considerable degree, emphasize Qur'anic practice in everyday Libyan life with legal implementation in accordance to Islamic jurisprudence known as sharia.

History of Islam in Libya

During the seventh century, Muslims, who were spreading their faith, reached Libya to spread the message. The urban centers soon became substantially Islamic, but widespread conversion of the nomads of the desert did not come until after large-scale invasions in the eleventh century by Bedouin tribes from Arabia and Egypt.

A residue of pre-Islamic beliefs blended with the Islam of the Arabs. Hence, popular Islam became an overlay of Quranic ritual and principles upon the vestiges of earlier beliefs—prevalent throughout North Africa—in jinns (spirits), the evil eye, rites to ensure good fortune, and cult veneration of local saints. The educated of the cities and towns served as the primary bearers and guardians of the more austere brand of orthodox Islam.

Saints and brotherhoods

Islam as practiced in North Africa is interlaced with indigenous Berber beliefs. Although the orthodox faith preached the unique and inimitable majesty and sanctity of God and the equality of God's believers, an important element of North African Islam for centuries has been a belief in the coalescence of special spiritual power in particular living human beings. The power is known as Barakah, a transferable quality of personal blessedness and spiritual force said to lodge in certain individuals. Those whose claim to possess barakah can be substantiated—through performance of apparent miracles, exemplary human insight, or genealogical connection with a recognized possessor—are viewed as saints. These persons are known in the West as marabouts, a French transliteration of al murabitun (those who have made a religious retreat), and the benefits of their baraka are believed to accrue to those ordinary people who come in contact with them.

The cult of saints became widespread in rural areas; in urban localities, Islam in its orthodox form continued to prevail. Saints were present in Tripolitania, but they were particularly numerous in Cyrenaica. Their baraka continued to reside in their tombs after their deaths. The number of venerated tombs varied from tribe to tribe, although there tended to be fewer among the camel herders of the desert than among the sedentary and nomadic tribes of the plateau area. In one village, a visitor in the late 1960s counted sixteen still-venerated tombs.

Coteries of disciples frequently clustered around particular saints, especially those who preached an original tariqa (devotional "way"). Brotherhoods of the followers of such mystical teachers appeared in North Africa at least as early as the eleventh century and in some cases became mass movements. The founder ruled an order of followers, who were organized under the frequently absolute authority of a leader, or shaykh. The brotherhood was centered on a zawiya (pl., zawaya).

Because of Islam's austere rational and intellectual qualities, many people have felt drawn toward the more emotional and personal ways of knowing God practiced by mystical Islam, or Sufism. Found in many parts of the Muslim world, Sufism endeavored to produce a personal experience of the divine through mystic and ascetic discipline.

Sufi adherents gathered into brotherhoods, and Sufi orders became extremely popular, particularly in rural areas. Sufi brotherhoods exercised great influence and ultimately played an important part in the religious revival that swept through North Africa during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Libya, when the Ottoman Empire proved unable to mount effective resistance to the encroachment of Christian missionaries, the work was taken over by Sufi-inspired revivalist movements. Among these, the most forceful and effective was that of the Senussi, which extended into numerous parts of North Africa.

Senussi

The Senussi movement was a religious revival adapted to desert life. Its zawaayaa could be found in Tripolitania and Fezzan, but Senussi influence was strongest in Cyrenaica. The Senussi's first theocracy was in the city of Bayda, located in Cyrenaica, and that was the center for them in 1841. After the Italian occupation, the focus turned from government to seminary education and then to the creation of an Islamic University which became in 1960 the University of Mohammed bin Ali al-Sanusi. The arrival of Muammar Gaddafi's rule changed the course of the university. It is now known as the Omar Al-Mukhtar University. Rescuing the region from unrest and anarchy, the Senussi movement gave the Cyrenaican tribal people a religious attachment and feelings of unity and purpose.

The Senussis formed a nucleus of resistance to the Italian colonial regime (see Italian Colonialism, ch. 1). As the nationalism fostered by unified resistance to the Italians gained adherents, however, the religious fervor of devotion to the movement began to wane, particularly after the Italians destroyed Senussi religious and educational centers during the 1930s. Nonetheless, King Idris, the monarch of independent Libya, was the grandson of the founder of the Senussi movement, and his status as a Senussi gave him the unique ability to command respect from the disparate parts of his kingdom.

Despite its momentary political prominence, the Senussi movement never regained its strength as a religious force after its zawaayaa were destroyed by the Italians. A promised restoration never fully took place, and the Idris regime used the Senussi heritage as a means of legitimizing political authority, rather than of providing religious leadership.


After unseating Idris in 1969, the revolutionary government placed restrictions on the operation of the remaining zawaayaa, appointed a supervisor for Senussi properties, and merged the Senussi-sponsored Islamic University with the University of Libya. The movement was virtually banned, but in the 1980s occasional evidence of Senussi activity was nonetheless reported. Senussi inspired activists were instrumental in freeing Cyrenaica from Gaddafi's control during the Libyan Civil War.

Islam in Gaddafi's Libya

Under the revolutionary Gaddafi government, the role of orthodox Islam in Libyan life became progressively more important. Muammar al-Gaddafi was a highly devout Muslim, with an expressed desire to exalt Islam and to restore it to its proper—i.e., central—place in the life of the people. He believed that the purity of Islam had been sullied through time, particularly by the influence of Europeans, both during and after the colonial period, and that Islam's purity must be restored by such actions as: the restoration of sharia to its proper place as the basis of the Libyan legal system, the banning of "immodest" practices and dress, and the symbolic purification of mosques.

Gaddafi also believed in the value of the Quran as a moral and political guide for the contemporary world, as is evident from his tract, The Green Book, published in the mid-1970s (see The Green Book, ch. 4). Gaddafi considered the first part of The Green Book to be a commentary on the implications of the Quranic injunction that human affairs be managed by consultation. For him, this meant direct democracy, which is given "practical meaning" through the creation of people's committees and popular congresses. Gaddafi felt that, inasmuch as The Green Book was based solely on the Quran, its provisions should be universally applicable—at least among Muslims.

Soon after taking office, the Gaddafi government showed itself to be devoutly conservative by closing bars and nightclubs, banning entertainment deemed provocative or immodest, and making use of the Muslim calendar mandatory. The intention of reestablishing sharia was announced, and Gaddafi personally assumed chairmanship of a commission to study the problems involved. In November 1973, a new legal code was issued that revised the entire Libyan judicial system to conform to the sharia, and in 1977 the General People's Congress (GPC—see Glossary) issued a statement that all future legal codes would be based on the Quran.

Among the laws enacted by the Gaddafi government were a series of legal penalties prescribed during 1973 which included the punishment of armed robbery by amputation of a hand and a foot. The legislation contained qualifying clauses making its execution unlikely, but its enactment had the effect of applying Quranic principles in the modern era. Another act prescribed flogging for individuals breaking the fast of Ramadan, and yet another called for eighty lashes to be administered to both men and women guilty of fornication.

In the early 1970s, Islam played a major role in legitimizing Gaddafi's political and social reforms. By the end of the decade, however, he had begun to attack the religious establishment and several fundamental aspects of Sunni Islam. Gaddafi asserted the transcendence of the Quran as the sole guide to Islamic governance and the unimpeded ability of every Muslim to read and interpret it. He denigrated the roles of the ulama, imams, and Islamic jurists and questioned the authenticity of the hadith, and thereby the sunna, as a basis for Islamic law. The sharia itself, Gaddafi maintained, governed only such matters as properly fell within the sphere of religion; all other matters lay outside the purview of religious law. Finally, he called for a revision of the Muslim calendar, saying it should date from Muhammad's death in 632, an event he felt was more momentous than the hijra ten years earlier.

These unorthodox views on the hadith, sharia, and the Islamic era aroused a good deal of unease. They seemed to originate from Gaddafi's conviction that he possessed the transcendent ability to interpret the Quran and to adapt its message to modern life. Equally, they reinforced the view that he was a reformer but not a literalist in matters of the Quran and Islamic tradition. On a practical level, however, several observers agreed that Gaddafi was less motivated by religious convictions than by political calculations. By espousing these views and by criticizing the ulama, he was using religion to undermine a segment of the middle class that was notably vocal in opposing his economic policies in the late 1970s. But Gaddafi clearly considered himself an authority on the Quran and Islam and was not afraid to challenge traditional religious authority. He also was not prepared to tolerate dissent.

The revolutionary government gave repeated evidence of its desire to establish Libya as a leader of the Islamic world. Moreover, Gaddafi's efforts to create an Arab nation through political union with other Arab states were also based on a desire to create a great Islamic nation. Indeed, Gaddafi drew little distinction between the two.

The government took a leading role in supporting Islamic institutions and in worldwide proselytizing on behalf of Islam. The Jihad Fund, supported by a payroll tax, was established in 1970 to aid the Palestinians in their struggle with Israel. The Faculty of Islamic Studies and Arabic at the University of Benghazi was charged with training Muslim intellectual leaders for the entire Islamic world, and the Islamic Mission Society used public funds for the construction and repair of mosques and Islamic educational centers in cities as widely separated as Vienna and Bangkok. The Islamic Call Society (Ad Dawah) was organized with government support to propagate Islam abroad, particularly throughout Africa, and to provide funds to Muslims everywhere. The symbolic purification major urban mosques took place in 1978.

Gaddafi was forthright in his belief in the perfection of Islam and his desire to propagate it. His commitment to the open propagation of Islam, among other reasons, caused him to oppose the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian-based fundamentalist movement that used clandestine and sometimes subversive means to spread Islam and to eliminate Western influences. Although the Brotherhood's activities in Libya were banned in the mid-1980s, it remained present in the country maintaining a low profile. In 1983 a member of the brotherhood was executed in Tripoli, and in 1986 a group of Brotherhood adherents was arrested after the murder of a high-ranking political official in Benghazi. The Muslim Brotherhood had spread throughout Libya, but were particularly strong in the cities of Benghazi, Bayda, Derna and Ajdabiya. Gaddafi challenged the Brotherhood to establish itself openly in non-Muslim countries and promised its leaders that, if it did, he would financially support its activities. No support was ever forthcoming.


Gaddafi stressed the universal applicability of Islam, but he also reaffirmed the special status assigned by Muhammad to Christians. He likened Christians to misguided Muslims who strayed from the correct path. Furthermore, Gaddafi assumed leadership of a drive to rid Africa of Christianity as well as of the colonialism with which he associated it, despite the fact that Christianity's presence in Libya long predates Islam or its presence in much of Europe.