(Netanya, Israel) — Interest in the prophecies of Gog & Magog seem to be growing in recent years. With the Russian-Iranian alliance strengthening, and significant turbulence in the Middle East, I’m seeing more and more Christians and Jews — pastors, Rabbis, scholars and lay people — studying the prophecies found in Ezekiel 38-39, and the distinctly different but similarly named prophecy found in Revelation 20. I’m even seeing more people Tweeting about Gog & Magog.
When I wrote The Ezekiel Option as a novel in 2005 about how the “last days” prophecy involving a Russian-Iranian alliance might come to pass, I had no idea the depth of interest there would be. Nor did I anticipate the depth and breadth of interest I found when I wrote the non-fiction book, Epicenter (originally released in 2006, and later released in a paperback 2.0 edition), explaining the prophecies in more detail.
But what has really intrigued me is that there is also growing interest in the Muslim world. In part, this is because the Qur’an refers to these prophecies. Recently, I learned that an Islamic scholar published a free ebook in 2009 entitled, An Islamic View of Gog and Magog in the Modern World. I have only begun to read it, but I didn’t want to wait to bring it to your attention. The Islamic author, Imran N. Hosein, makes the case the war will be against Israel. He argue that Russia is “Magog.” He claims that “Gog” is the “Anglo-American alliance.” He believes the war is approaching, and bemoans the fact that not enough Muslim leaders are focused on this issue.
“I began my study of Gog and Magog more than fifteen years ago in the early 90’s while resident in New York,” writes Hosein. “My subsequent public lectures on the subject never failed to provoke keen interest from my Muslim audiences in several parts of the world. The evidence and arguments presented in the chapter on Gog and Magog in my book, ‘Jerusalem in the Qur’an’, succeeded in convincing many who read the book that we now live in a world dominated by Gog and Magog. They were easily convinced that the ‘town’ mentioned in the Qur’ān in Sūrah al-Anbiyāh’ (21:95-6) was Jerusalem and hence, that Gog and Magog (and Dajjāl) explained the ominously unfolding ‘war on Islam’ with slaughter and destruction of Muslims in so many parts of the world. As a consequence, such readers also understood Israel’s mysterious imperial agenda, and many have been making efforts to extricate themselves and their families from the embrace of Gog and Magog – an embrace that will take 999 out of every 1000 of mankind into the hellfire. Despite my best efforts, however, I failed miserably, again and again, to convince my learned peers, the scholars of Islam, that Gog and Magog were even released into the world. I earnestly hope and pray that this book might make a difference Insha’ Allah.”
Expect interest in Gog & Magog to keep growing around the world and in all three major monotheistic religions.
