Embodiments of Evil: Gog and Magog Iranian Studies Series The Iranian Studies Series publishes high-quality scholarship on various aspects of Iranian civilisation, covering both contemporary and classical cultures of the Persian cultural area. The contemporary Persian-speaking area includes Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Central Asia, while classi- cal societies using Persian as a literary and cultural language were located in Anatolia, Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. The objective of the series is to foster studies of the literary, historical, reli- gious and linguistic products in Iranian languages. In addition to research monographs and reference works, the series publishes English-Persian criti- cal text-editions of important texts. The series intends to publish resources and original research and make them accessible to a wide audience. Chief Editor: A.A. Seyed-Gohrab (Leiden University) Advisory Board of ISS: F. Abdullaeva (University of Oxford) I. Afshar (University of Tehran) G.R. van den Berg (Leiden University) J.T.P. de Bruijn (Leiden University) N. Chalisova (Russian State University of Moscow) D. Davis (Ohio State University) F.D. Lewis (University of Chicago) L. Lewisohn (University of Exeter, UK) S. McGlinn (Unaffiliated) Ch. Melville (University of Cambridge) D. Meneghini (University of Venice) N. Pourjavady (University of Tehran) Ch. van Ruymbeke (University of Cambridge) S. Sharma (Boston University) K. Talattof (University of Arizona) Z. Vesel (CNRS, Paris) R. Zipoli (University of Venice) Embodiments of Evil: Gog and Magog Interdisciplinary Studies of the ‘Other’ in Literature & Internet Texts A.A. Seyed-Gohrab, F. Doufikar-Aerts and S. McGlinn (eds.) Leiden University Press Cover design: Tarek Atrissi Design ISBN 978 90 8728 090 1 e-ISBN 978 94 0060 011 9 NUR 630 © A.A. Seyed-Gohrab, F. Doufikar-Aerts, S. McGlinn / Leiden University Press, 2011 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written per- mission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Dedicated to E.J. van Donzel Contents In Europe W.P. Gerritsen, Gog and Magog in Medieval and Early Modern Western Tradition 9 W.J. Aerts, Gog, Magog, Dogheads and Other Monsters in the Byzantine World 23 In the Arab world F.C.W. Doufikar-Aerts, Dogfaces, Snake-tongues, and the Wall against Gog and Magog 37 R. Kruk, Gog and Magog in Modern Garb 53 A. Jaber, Is my firewall secure? Gog and Magog on the Internet 69 In the Berber tradition H.J. Stroomer, A note on Gog and Magog in Tashelhiyt Berber of South Morocc 81 In the Persian tradition A.A. Seyed-Gohrab, Unfathomable Evil: the Presentation of Gog and Magog in Persian Literature 91 J.G.J. ter Haar, Gog and Magog in Contemporary Shiite Quran-commentaries 109 In Javanese tradition E. Wieringa, Juja-Makjuja as the Antichrist in a Javanese End-of-Time Narrative 121 Gerard Mercator, World Map ‘ad usum navigantium’(1569), sheet 12 (detail). Gog and Magog in Medieval and Early Modern Western Tradition Willem P. Gerritsen Scaliger Professor Leiden University The publication in 1569 of Gerard Mercator’s Map of the World for the use of seafarers (ad usum navigantium) marks a decisive step in the history of cartography.1 It was the first map devised according to Mercator’s discovery of a method for projecting the globe on a flat surface in such a way as to enable seafarers to represent the course of a ship following a constant compass bearing by a straight line on a map based on a grid of meridians and parallels. The map consisted of eighteen huge sheets fitting sideways together. One of the most salient features was the enormous polar landmass which, as a result of the new projection, occupied nearly the entire width of the map. A second aspect was the way Mercator had mapped those parts of the world about which virtually no information was available. The emptiness of the unexplored interior of North America was partly veiled by a panel explaining the map’s purpose. The easternmost regions of Asia presented a similar problem. About the arctic seas, Mercator had been able to gather some information, but for the east coast of Asia and its interior he had had to rely on the accounts of medieval travellers. On Mercator’s world map the easternmost part of Asia is depicted as a bulging peninsula criss-crossed by several mountain ranges.2 One of those, which follows a winding course more or less parallel to the east coast, is transected by another chain of mountains, which stretches roughly from east to west and is called Belgian Mons. According to an engraved legend, the country lying in the northwesterly quadrant confined by these two mountain ranges is called Mongul quae a nostris Magog dicitur (“Mongul, which we call Magog”). The country on the opposite side of the mountains is labelled Ung quae a nostris Gog dicitur (“Ung, which we call Gog”). On the top of the mountains lying north of Ung one can discern two tiny human figures blowing trumpets. The legend explains that they represent the bronze statues of two trumpet blowers which in all probability were erected here by the Tartars, in perpetual memory of the liberty they gained when they crossed over the highest of these mountains on their way to safer regions.3 1 See Crane: Mercator, pp. 229-37; Krämer: Mercator, pp. 236-48. 2 Mercator, Weltkarte ad usum navigantium, sheet 12 and the reproduction on p.8 . 3 Hic in monte collocati sunt due tubicines aerei, quos verisimile est Tartaros in perpetuam vindicatae libertatis memoriam eo loci [lege: loco] posuisse, qua per summos montes in tutiora loca commigrarunt. Willem P. Gerritsen An attempt to sort out this information can best begin with the identification of the names Mongul and Ung as Magog and Gog. It has long been known that Mercator derived this identification from the travel account of Marco Polo. He describes a country in Central Asia, lying to the west of Cathay (which is his name for China), ruled by a Christian king called George, who is a descendant of the renowned priest-king Prester John. Nowadays, Marco adds, the people are subject to the Great Khan of the Mongols: This is the place which we call in our language Gog and Magog; the natives call it Ung and Mungul. Each of these two provinces was inhabited by a separate race: in Ung lived the Gog, in Mungul the Tartars. 4 By locating Gog and Magog somewhere in central Asia, Marco Polo deviates from an older tradition according to which Alexander the Great constructed a barrier in the Caucasus in order to shut out barbarian tribes (which in many accounts are identified with Gog and Magog). In fact, he mentions Alexander’s construction of the Iron Gates earlier in his account, pointing out that the tribes involved were not Tartars, as the Alexander Book wrongly calls them, but Comanians, “because there were no Tartars at that time.”5 For Marco Polo, writing about 1300, the Mongol conquest of Asia was a fact of recent history. He describes how the Tartars, who previously had been subject to Prester John, had migrated to the north and had eventually settled in the land of Chorcha, “a country of far-stretching plains, with no habitations in the form of cities or towns but with good pasturage, wide rivers, and no lack of water.”6 Marco Polo goes on to relate how in the year 1187 the Tartars elected Chinghiz [Genghis] Khan to be their leader and how he succeeded in rallying a multitude of nations under his rule. According to Marco, the nations Chinghiz conquered were happy to join his following “when they saw his good government and gracious 4 The quotation is from Marco Polo, The Travels, transl. Latham, p.106. Some manuscripts add: “And therefore the Tartars are sometimes called Monguls.” Mercator knew Polo’s account by way of Ramusio’s Navigazioni e viaggi, which had appeared in 1559. The present quotation can be found in Ramusio, Navigazioni e viaggi, ed. Milanesi, vol. 3, p.146. 5 Marco Polo, Travels, transl. Latham, p. 49; Ramusio, Navigazioni e viaggi, vol. 3, p. 93 (“Ma non è vero che siano stati Tartari, perché a quel tempo non erano, anzi fu una gente chiamata Cumani, e di altre generazioni e sorti”). The editor, Marica Milanesi, provides an interesting footnote. 6 Ibid, pp. 92-3 (the translator explains that Chorcha is in Manchuria); Ramusio, Navigazioni e viaggi, vol. 3, p.132, mentions “Giorza e Bargu” (a footnote explains that both names refer to Mongol tribes, originally living in Manchuria and east of Lake Baikal). 10 Gog and Magog in Medieval and Early Modern Western Tradition bearing.” Throughout the Travels, Marco views the conquests of the Mongols in a remarkably favourable light. At the time of his travels in Asia, between 1271 and 1292, the great Mongol empire founded by Chinghiz had disintegrated into a loose structure of rival khanates. For travellers from the West, however, the overland trade routes from the Black Sea ports to the Far East still lay open, and travellers still enjoyed a modicum of protection by Mongol rulers. In fact, this ubiquitous Mongol presence was what had enabled Marco and his kinsmen to travel without undue hindrance through territories under Chinghizide control.7 This in part explains Marco’s attitude, which deviated from the negative judgement prevailing in the West.