AntiChrist

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Antichrist amna raza abbasi (notes)

Here lies the reader who will never open this book. He is here forever dead -Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel

Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 2: O Gog, the land of Magog ........................................................................................................... 8 *** ............................................................................................................................................................ 8 Gog in lieu with Bible and Tanakh ........................................................................................................... 9 Islamic Gog Oracles ................................................................................................................................ 15 Dhul Qarnain and his Wall.................................................................................................................. 16 Chapter 3: Who are Gog and Magog, anyway? .......................................................................................... 19 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 19 The Khazaria Equation ........................................................................................................................... 20 How the conversion ............................................................................................................................ 22 Rhineland < Khazar Hypothesis ......................................................................................................... 22 State of Israel (Ashkenazim Jews) ...................................................................................................... 24 The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish (Das , Wexler and Pirooznia) .................. 27 Chapter 4: The Beast & Other Symbols of Anti-Christ .............................................................................. 35 The Beast ................................................................................................................................................ 35 Behemoth ................................................................................................................................................ 38 Lotan ....................................................................................................................................................... 39 DabatulArz .............................................................................................................................................. 39 Bit Coin as the mark of the beast ............................................................................................................ 41 The Grass Snake and the Basilisk: From Pre-Christian Protective House God to the Antichrist ........... 41 Chapter 5: The Antihero of the Book.......................................................................................................... 43 AntiChrist in Christian tradition ............................................................................................................. 43 AI and Antichrist..................................................................................................................................... 47 AntiChrist in Jewish Tradition ................................................................................................................ 48 Dajjal ....................................................................................................................................................... 48 Ahadiths on Dajjal .............................................................................................................................. 50 Dajjal (False Messiah), the leader of Gog and Magog( Imran N Hossein) ......................................... 55 Kaliki as Christ ....................................................................................................................................... 57 Hanumanda as Tibetan Antichrist ........................................................................................................... 58 Antichrist 2.0........................................................................................................................................... 60 Chapter 6: Other Concepts .......................................................................................................................... 63

Spatial/ Temporal complexity ................................................................................................................. 63 Hindu Cosmic Cycles ............................................................................................................................. 63 The Chaitya ............................................................................................................................................. 64 Hazrat Khidr............................................................................................................................................ 64 AntiChrist –son of artificial insemination ............................................................................................... 64 Jesus Christ – a cosmonaut ..................................................................................................................... 65 Sixth Extinction (Water Scarcity) ........................................................................................................... 65 Apocalypse and Anthropocene ........................................................................................................... 65 Space Authority of Antichrist / Gog Magog ........................................................................................... 67 Divine Days in Islam .............................................................................................................................. 67 Cyrus/Zoroaster/Dhulqarnain.................................................................................................................. 68 The Imam Mahdi and the Prophet Jesus: Muslim Eschatology .............................................................. 68 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 71

Chapter 1: Introduction Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, …. W. B. Yeats’ Second Coming, is more in waiting for the beast than the Messiah, but stuck in a global pandemic with a volatile geo-political situation of the world, the most plausible thing was to study what is God’s plan to culminate human history. But of course, When the pandemic halted everything, life, society, the Hajj, and the mere absurdity of the global pandemic starting with scores of people falling dead in the streets of Wuhan; the reverberations of an apocalypse were guaranteed. But hasn’t that been a voice in every age and time, Susan Sontag says “Apocalypse is now a long-running serial: not “Apocalypse Now” but “Apocalypse From Now On.” Apocalypse has become an event that is happening and not happening. It may be that some of the most feared events, like those involving the irreparable ruin of the environment, have already happened. But we don’t know it yet, because the standards have changed. Or because we do not have the right indices for measuring the catastrophe. Or simply because this is a catastrophe in slow motion. (Or feels as if it is in slow motion, because we know about it, can anticipate it; and now have to wait for it to happen, to catch up with what we think we know.) Modern” -Susan Sontag, Illness as a metaphor In the conundrum of Apocalypse Now to apocalypse to come we will try to make sense of whatever is apocalypse. According to Islamic sources the signs before apocalypse would be the coming of the Beast of the Earth, Sun rising in the west, Gog and Magog, appearance of the Anti-Christ, rising smoke, general turmoil leading to large scale massacres, and death of masses and individuals. In Christian eschatology the acme points of end times would be the return of Jesus Christ his second coming to rule over the kingdom. In Rev 20:1-10 there are six references mentioning that there would be a thousand year rule of Christ on earth. Before the millennia of Jesus rule, Satan

will be incarcerated inside a pit so that he cannot deceive the people. Those who were killed for their fate will be resurrected to rule alongside Christ. After the thousand years the Satan will be released so that he can mislead the humanity followed by Gog and Magog, these two will join forces to attack God’s people, eventually the people of God will be triumphant. According to the interpreters of old testament the Church will be raptured at the end of times as it was originally created in rejection of Jesus’ offer of the Davidic kingdom; which will be followed by the seven years of great tribulation. One of the Hadith’s of Prophet Muhammad says that at the end of times the housing and living structure will raise vertically towards the sky (skyscrapers) instead of horizontally, and men will cloth themselves like women. Interestingly a similar anecdote can be found in 19th century Christian works of St. Nilus of Mount Athos who saw cross dressing as an apocalyptic sign. “When the earth will be trembled with its quake,” begins the Quranic Ayat (99:1-3) foretelling the signs of the last days on earth, “and the earth will bring forth its burdens, And the man will say, what has happened to it?1” A mighty earthquake would be a signal of the coming of doomsday. A similar injunction can be found in Rev 16: 18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. (Rev 16: 18).2 Another sign is rapture which is an eschatological concept held by some Christians, particularly within branches of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, will rise “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” The bible states Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh (Matthew. 24:40-4). Similarly there is a hadith, for some interpreters similar to Christian concept of rapture Then Allah would send cold wind from the side of Syria that none would survive upon the earth having a speck of good in him or faith in him but he would die, so much so that even if some amongst you were to enter the innermost part of the mountain, this wind would reach that place also and that would cause his heath. (SAHIH MUSLIM Chapter 21, BOOK 41 Number 7023) Among other signs of the approaching end,    1 2

the sun will be darkened, the moon will not shine, and the stars will fall from the heavens.

Quranic references used from translation by Mufti Taqi Usmani All bible sources are used from Bible.com

 

People’s disheartening towards world When two Muslims confront one another with swords (in hands) both the slayer and the slain would be in Fire. Book 41, Number 6898  Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Last Hour would not come before the Euphrates uncovers a mountain of gold, for which people would fight. Ninety-nine out of each one hundred would die but every man amongst them would say that perhaps he would be the one who would be saved (and thus possess this gold). Book 41, Number 6918 Engleman quotes St Augustine’s summary of Christian eschatology from The City of God: Elias the Tishbite shall come; the Jews shall believe; Antichrist shall persecute; Christ shall judge; the dead shall rise; the good and the wicked shall be separated; the world shall be burned and renewed. The word jehoshaphat (yehoshafat in Hebrew) means ‘God has judged’, and this narrow furrow of land located between Temple Mount/Al Haram Ash Sharif and the Mount of Olives is where it is said the events of Judgment Day will take place (Joel 3:12) and all nations will be judged. At the southern end is a series of tombs dating from the Second Temple period. (lonelyplanet.com) An article in New York Time warn Christians that they shouldn’t be too happy about the Islamic Apocalypse the return of Mahdi and Christ A much-quoted hadith, to which the Dabiq headline was alluding, says, “The Son of Mary will soon descend among you as a just ruler; he will break the cross and kill the swine.” The usual interpretation of this prophecy is that when Jesus comes back, he will put an end to his own worship, symbolized by the cross, and re-establish the dietary laws that Christianity abandoned but Jews and Muslims still observe. (Akyol)

Chapter 2: O Gog, the land of Magog “O the two horned King! Gog and Magog are mischievous, they come pillaging our lands, and loot and plunder, please save our tribes from them,” with the plea of destitute people starts the story of Gog and Magog. They were called Yajuj and Majuj in Quran, forewarned about Gog, the land of Magog in Bible, discussed in length in Ezekiel, as Koka and Vikoka, two brothers in Sri Kalki Purana, and two giant statues standing outside London guildhall for hundreds of years. The domain of Gog and Magog to put in words of Will Noble has been increasingly chaotic, and "bewildering." Suffice to say that the stories and myths regarding Gog and Magog emerge all kinds of folklore and religious sermons from various countries, religions and eras — as people, giants, countries, armies and various other entities. In any space and time of human history, people have always wanted a piece of “— or was at least scared witless by — Gog and Magog.” From the ruthless consorts of the Anti-Christ himself, to whom the world will be beleaguered to, to merely plutonium and neptunium, the identity of Gog and Magog is a real treat for readers of eschatological studies. But they have been a symbolic figure for the world’s politics as well.

*** “On the one side is Gog, and on the other Magog. But be careful, my Lord Mayor, when you put them back to keep them from colliding with each other, for if that happens, both Gog and Magog would be smashed to atoms and we would all have to begin all over again — and begin from the bottom of the pit.” Winston Churchill at a speech at Guildhall London, 1951; commented about Gog and Magog’s resurrection, the two statues that had been there since 1554, and were destroyed when Hitler bombed London during world War II. After the gratitude, Churchill commented “that World politics, like the History of Gog and Magog, are very confused and much disputed”. And he went on to equate Gog and Magog to Russia and its Communists allies and US and its allied western democracies. Somehow or other these ideas about Gog and Magog seem to have some suggestive relationship to the discussions which are taking place in Paris at the present time ….On the one side stand all the armies and air forces of Soviet Russia and all their Communist satellites, agents, and devotees in so many countries. On the other are what are called “the Western democracies” with their far superior resources, at present only partly organized, gather themselves together around the United States with its possession of the mastery of the atomic bomb. A political analogy of then world’s situation to the figures which theologically are associated with the end of times. But the Gog and Magog, standing tall in London are two giant statues of pagan figures, taken from the mythical folklore of pre-Christian England. The effigies appeared in the reign of Henry V, initially in 1554 they were labeled as Gog-Magot and Cornelius later stationed outside Guildhall for everyone to see. With passage of time they became Gog and Magog. Bombed down in World War they were restored few years later. After a hiatus they were brought out in 1993 to the dismay of Members of English Clergy. Today they can still be seen with in guildhall great hall as Gog and Magog, the wicker giants, the traditional guardians of London

The Lord Mayor’s show describes them as the two remaining giants, descendants of thirty three notorious daughters of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Similar to these there are two brothers in Hindu mythology that fulfill the description of Gog and Magog, Koka and Vikoka. Surrounded by His army and invoking many celestial weapons, Lord Kalki fought with Koka and Vikoka, … These two brothers were the foremost among the demons, they were always intoxicated, and they were very expert fighters. They were like two halves of one body, exceedingly powerful, and a cause of great fear for the demigods. Their bodies were as hard as thunderbolts and thus impervious to weapons. They had been engaged in conquering all directions. When they fought together, they were so formidable that they could defeat even death personified. Surrounded by powerful soldiers, they fought with clubs in their hands. In the battle between Lord Kalki and the two brothers, Koka and Vikoka, the leaders of both armies fought fiercely. (Sri Kalki Purana3, Chapter twenty, Text 43-49). Later on there is a description how Lord Kalki severs the head of one brother but that rejoin again with the gaze of other brother. So on behest of Brahma, Lord Kalki unmounts and kills them both with his bare hands. Similarly in the mythical world of London’s Lord Mayor Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas came to now named Britain and took with him his best combatant Corineus, who fought and ultimately threw the leader of giants brood, –that were terrorizing the England long before, –from a height killing him. The giant killed was Gogmagog and the rock from where he hurled away was called Langnagog or ‘The Giants Leap’.

But similar to Churchill’ allegorical-political rendition of Gog/Magog and Communism/Capitalism, Gog and Magog has been a subject of political sleights as well. In 1971, then governor of California Ronald Reagan claimed that "Gog must be Russia". Using the biblical references and interpretations of Gog and Magog mentioned in the Bible. And so did George Bush, convincing Jacques Chirac in going at war with Iraq, asserting “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase His people’s enemies before a new age begins”. Aside from ulterior motives of politicians using religion for personal gains, it is important to look at this subject from the perspective of primary sources of majority religions, starting with Bible itself.

Gog in lieu with Bible and Tanakh The description of Gog and Magog come in Bible Revelation 20: 1-10, and Ezekiel 38: 1-23, Ezekiel 39: 1-29. These two texts asserts that Gog and Magog are accomplices of Satan and AntiChrist who will come after a thousand year reign of Christ, and will create anarchy and a setting for the end of times on Earth. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 3

Sri Kalki Purana translated by Bhumipati Das. (P. Das)

And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Revelation 20:7-10) In Christian eschatology the acme point of end times would be the return of Jesus Christ –his second coming to rule over his kingdom. In Rev 20: 1 – 10 there are six references mentioning that there would be a thousand years rule of Christ on earth before this millennia of Jesus’ rule, Satan will be incarcerated inside a pit so that he cannot deceive the people, those who were killed for their faith will be resurrected to rule alongside Jesus Christ, “they shall be priests of God and of Christ,” after the thousand years the Satan will be released so that he can mislead the humanity followed by Gog, Magog and antichrist himself. But the most vivid and descriptive test in regard to Gog and Magog is that of Ezekiel 38: 1—39:29. Various Christian interpreters like Hitzig, Herrmann, Hölscher, Taylor, Cody, Cooke, and Eichrodt consider Ezekiel 38: 1—39:29 as later added to the main Testament because its tone is different from the rest of Ezekiel. The natural flow of the Ezekiel –from Ezek 37: 28 that mentions ‘God’s sanctuary dwelling among his people to Ezek 40-48 discussing the temple seems to have been broken up by the apocalyptical nature of the Gog oracles. Contesting the claims of modern interpretations, the Jewish Study Bible, mention that despite the fact that various prophetic manuscripts like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Amos-show, indicates there has been excessive changes in the composition, similar claim about Ezekiel has less merit. “The book is formulated largely as an autobiographical composition in which God instructs the prophet to speak or act out to Israelite exiles, much as God instructed Moses and Moses in turn instructed Israel.” There has been later editorial work on the text but as a whole it cannot be completely disregarded. Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee. Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. (Ezekiel 38:2-7) Meshesh and Tubal were the fifth and sixth sons of Japheth, son of Noah. It is mentioned in Genesis 10: 2. And so are Gomer and Magog sons of Japheth; along with Madai, and Javan, and Tiras. And Togarmah of the north quarters are sons of Gomer. And Ezekiel move on to warn against them. Regarding Ezek 38—39, C. I. Scofield and J.N Darby both believed that Gog is Russia, and Darby went further to assert that Russia with a coalition will try to raid and ransack Israel. “Persia, Nubia (or Ethiopia), and Put (Libya) are distant lands from throughout the ancient Near Eastern world.” Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a

prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army: And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them? And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD. (Ezekiel 13-23) Old Russian King was used to be called Magog, Tubal is a place in Siberia, old Biblical interpretations associated Gog and Magog with Russia. . “Sheba, southern Arabia. Dedan, central Arabia, although some identify it as Rhodes. Tarshish, Tartessos in Spain”. Sheba and Deedan according to the lampstand, –a theo-political Australian commentator of Bible –is the region of Middle East that aligns with the merchants of Tarshish. And according to prophecy will work for the state of Israel against the impeding Russian (Gog’s) adventure. So when in Saudi Arabia, in 2016, Northern Thunder, a joint military operation in which some twenty countries including UAE, Senegal, Jordon, Sudan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan etc., participated; the joint effort was seen by lampstand as defiance to Russia and its under-dogs Iran and Syria. The interpretations of Bibles’ Gog and Magog change with the ever altering geo political situation of the world. In a post 1925 Christian interpretation of Bible Tubal became Turkey from Russia. The next chapter of Ezekiel also deals with Gog oracles. Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 39:1-5)

There are definite apocalyptic aspects Ezek 38:1—39:29 according to Paul Joyce: “radical eschatology, a strong emphasis on divine agency, and dualism, not only between present and future but also between good and evil.” And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD. o will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken. And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years: So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 39:6-10). But not everyone is of the opinion that Gog and Magog is Russia, Paul F. Beacham, thinks that it might be a possibility that Gog and Magog might be a symbolically denote any Gentile nation that will rebel against Jesus Christ at the end of kingdom-age.” Beachem later added that Gog and Magog might be any nation that will be lured by Satan to work against people of God at the end of millennium. Dr Wesley Myland thought that Gog Magog will be the people among Christians deceived by Satan. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call it The valley of Hamon–gog. And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord GOD. And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search. And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man's bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon–gog. (Ezekiel 39: 11-15) The original identity of Gog is uncertain, although some have identified him with Gyges, a 7thcentury ruler of Lydia in Asia Minor. The land of Magog appears together with Meshech, Tubal, Gomer (Cimmerians in central Asia Minor), and Togarmah (cf. Beth·togarmah, in Armenia), apparently in reference to lands in Asia Minor and Greece. Gomer, Magog, Meshech, and Tubal were sons of Japheth (Gen. 10.2), who is associated with Europe and Asia beyond the Middle East. And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land. And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel,

that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 39: 16-20)

And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward. 23And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name (Ezekiel 39: 21-25)

After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid. When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations; Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them anymore there. Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 39:26-29) C. I Scofield thinks that battle of Armageddon (Rev 16:16), and battle of Gog and Magog might be same, but battle of Gog and Magog could also be a post-millennium battle that Revelation 20:7—9 mentions. Scofield believe that Rev 19:11—21 tells us about the second coming of Jesus, followed by angels and saints later on Jesus Christ will annihilate the Gentile world power, headed up in the Beast,” Whatever will follow according to Scofield will be Armageddon (Rev 16:13—16 and Zech 12:1—9). Lastly, Satan will be castigated into a pit of fire where he will remain for eternity (Rev 20:7—10). According to Alicia F. Jackson, the Christian dispensational eschatology always gave a justification for violence through biblical references and the need to equate Russia with Gog came from that. “In medieval legends of Antichrist and the Last Emperor, Gog and Magog were allied with the armies of Satan. And in various prophetic texts, Gog and Magog participated in the persecutions led by Antichrist, preceded Antichrist as a sign of his coming, or emerged following the defeat of Antichrist in the struggle prior to the Last Judgment. According to Joachim of Fiore, a Calabrian abbot and theologian, Gog is the “Final Antichrist.” In Joachim’s view, Gog will come just

before the Last Judgment but only after the defeat of an earlier antichrist and a period of millennial peace.” According to Tanakh, The Jewish Study Bible, Ezekiel's oracles against Gog, ruler from the land of Magog, s an eschatological account of Israels ultimate win, against the nation that threaten Israel with the help of God. “God's initial instructions to Ezekiel present Gog as the leader of a host of nations that threaten Israel, a well-known motif in the tradition about Zion as an invincible fortress.” Incidentally Elizabeth Sisson sees these verses showing Jews as a feeble flock rescued supernaturally by God. According to encyclopedia Britannica, “One of the most important legends associated with Gog and Magog was that of Alexander’s Gate, said to have been built by Alexander the Great to imprison these uncivilized and barbaric people until the end of time.” Similar is the legend perceived through readings of Quran that mentions a certain Dhul Qarnain who built a wall against Gog and Magog, although initially Dhul Qarnain in Islamic scholarship was also considered Alexander the Great but later in depth studies found him to be King Cyrus of Persia. The reason for such interpretations could be a Syriac influences, namely the Christian liturgical texts of seventh century AD like Apocalypse of Pseudo Methodius, “the author of the Apocalypse, perhaps from the Monophysite community at Singara, near Mosul, wrote to reassure his fellow Christians that the rule of the sons of Ishmael, as he calls them, would pass away as abruptly as it had arrived.” The Apocalypse was also written to remind its readers that, however cataclysmic the Arab invasions might seem, they did not represent the apocalypse predicted by Christ and His apostles. The true harbingers of the End of Days are the Unclean Nations led by Gog and Magog, who will issue from the north and devastate the whole world before one of the commanders of God’s army defeats them in an instant (Apoc. 13.17-21). These Unclean Nations were first encountered by Alexander of Macedon on his campaign to the east (Apoc. 8.3-10). He recognized them as ugly and foul, especially in their appetites for unclean animals, corpses, and aborted fetuses, and he determined to prevent them from polluting the earth, and the Holy Land in particular. So he drove them into the inescapable “lands beyond the North” and after God, in answer to his prayer, drew the mountains together, Alexander fixed a bronze gate at the remaining gap to shut in the Unclean Nations until the consummation of the world. The gate or wall of Alexander that kept the mischievous Gog and Magog in their place, remained a part of majority scholarship on this subject. Similar is the case of Sallam al-Tardjuman, a language genius of Samara -he was ordered by Abbasi Caliph AlWathiq to search for the barrier of the two horned one. Sallam, studies suggests was a Khazari Jew, which would have enabled him to study the wall, that contained the Gog and Magog at the other side. Sallam’s description of Alexander’s wall shows a resemblance with the Syriac texts. If he travelled to the Central Asia, and discovered an iron wall it was probabaly, “in Caucasus, in the steppes north of the Tianshan Mountains and in the Tarim Basin.” The wars of Gog and Magog have come to be understood as essential to the Jewish eschatological vision of the end of days, a final battle between good and evil that will usher in a period of eternal peace. According to the prophecy contained in the 38th and 39th chapters of the Book of Ezekiel, on a “distant day” when the Jewish people are living secure in Israel, Gog will invade Israel and God will furiously retaliate against them. The invaders will be destroyed and the Jews will spend months burying the dead. Repeatedly God declares that through the battle

“the nations shall know that I the Lord am holy in Israel.” In its wake, Ezekiel promises the restoration of the descendants of Jacob, the Jewish exiles will be gathered back to their land, and never again will God’s face be hidden from the Jewish people. (MJL) R. C. T. Djurslev’s essay examines the sources that precede the Armenian version of the AR, where the episode of Alexander’s gates against the assault of Gog and Magog can be found. He demonstrates that the apocalyptic significance of this episode was absent from its early versions where such “gates” stood for the borders of safe, known and “civilized” lands. In order to support his idea, the author analyses some passages from De excidio urbis Hierosolymitanae. (Serio)

Islamic Gog Oracles Surah Kahf of Quran mentions about Gog and Magog through the story of Dhul Qarnain. They ask you about Dhul Qarnain. Say “I shall now recite to you an account of him.” Surely we gave him power on earth and gave him means to (have) everything (he needs). So he followed a course, until when he reached the point of sunset, he found it setting into a miry spring, and found a people near it. We said, “O Dhul-Qarnain, either punish them or adopt good behavior with them (18: 83-86).” He said, “ As for him who does wrong, we shall punish him, then he will be sent back to his Lord, and He will punish him with a severe punishment. As for the one who believes and acts righteously, he will have the best (life) as reward, and we shall speak to him politely in our directions (18:87-88).” Therefore he followed a course, until when he reached the point of sunrise; he found it rising over a people for whom We did not make any shelter against it. Thus it was, and Our knowledge fully comprehend whatever (wealth and equipment) he had with him (18: 89-91). Thereafter he followed a course, until when he reached between the two mountains, he found by them a people who were almost unable to understand anything said. They said, “O Dhul-Qarnain, the (tribes of) Ya’juj and Ma’juj (Gog and Magog) are mischief makers on the earth. So should we assign a tax for you on condition that you make a barrier between us and them (18:92-94)?” He said, “What my Lord has (already) given in my control is better enough (for me than the tax you are offering to me), so help me (only) with some (man) power, and I shall make a rampart between you and them. Bring me big pieces of iron.” (They proceeded accordingly) until when he leveled up (the gap) between the two cliffs, he said, “Blow.” (They complied) until when he made it (like) fire, he said, “Bring me molten copper and I will pour it upon this (18: 95-97).” So they (Ya’juj nd Ma’juj) were not able to climb it, nor were they able to make a hole in it (98). He said, “This is mercy from my Lord. Then, when the promise of my Lord will come, he will make it leveled to the ground. The promise of my Lord is true.” And on that day, (i.e. the Doomsday) We will leave them (all the people including Ya’juj and Ma’juj) surging over one another. And the Horn shall be blown, then We shall gather them together. (99)

And on that day We will bring Jahannam [hell] fully exposed before the infidels whose eyes were under a cover against My reminders, and they were not able to listen (18:100101). Dhul Qarnain and his Wall Although the early Muslim scholarship thought of Dhul qarnain and his wall attributed to Alexander, this changed in the beginning of 20th century by the research of Indian Islamic scholars like Maulana Muhammad Ali , Abul Kalam Azad that suggested that the Dhul Qarnain of Surah AlKahf is A Persian King. Later a study conducted by Karl F. Geldner asserted that Dhul Qarnain was an honorary title used to praise Cyrus the great. It was later ascertained by Maulana Maudodi as well. Majid Daneshgar suggests that accepting Dhul qarnain as a Persian leader is “Persian-shi’tizing of Quran (p. 77)” and Muslim’s answer to who was Dhul Qarnain depends upon their racial/sectarian prejudices. His claim itself falls flat on its face as he himself mention scholars like Ali, Azad, and maudodi –pioneers of Islamic scholarship of Dhul Qarnain is Cyrus. And all three of them were Sunnis. And Cyrus the great was a king, more than a century before the advent of Shiite Islam and his dominion was far greater that what Iran is today Taking the majority view that Dhul qarnain was the Achaemenid-Persian king Cyrus the great. The question lies where is the acclaimed wall that captivated or captivates the mischievous Gog and Magog, till the time God wills. According to two Hadith of Sahih AlMuslim, the geographical location of Gog and Magog can be narrowed down, one states: “. . . It will be under such conditions that Allah will reveal to Jesus against whom none will be able to fight; you take these people safely to the mountain, (fa yab’athullahu Y’ajūja wa M’ajūj) and then (in those periods of history which lead to such events) Allah will send or raise Gog and Magog (this does not necessarily imply that the release or unleashing of Gog and Magog will have to take place only after Jesus returns) and they will spread out in every direction or occupy every place of advantage. The first of them will pass by Lake Tiberias (i.e. the Sea of Galilee) and drink out of it, and when the last of them passes (and that would have to be a very long time later), he will say: ‘There was once water here . . . .’” Another states that, “Gog and Magog would walk until they reach the mountain of al- Khamr and it is a mountain of Bait al-Maqdis (i.e. Jerusalem)...” (Sahīh Muslim) According to the Qur’anic account of Dhūl Qarnain’s westward travel, theer must be a large body f water soo as that would have hindered DhukQarnain’s travel It had to be a very large body of water since it was not possible for him to travel beyond that sea any further westwards. It also had to be an unusually dark colored sea. Dhul qarnain traveled) until, when he came to the (land of the) setting sun, (since there was no land beyond, it appeared like the end of the Earth) and he found it setting in a dark, turbid sea; and nearby he found a people. We said, “O DhūlQarnain! (you have authority), either punish them or treat them kindly”.

He must also have encountered another sea on his eastward travel as well if we are to explain both the Qur’anic account of the ‘rising of the sun’ as well as the declaration the Rabbis of Madina that he traveled to the confines (i.e. the two ends) of the Earth. “Ask him what happened to the young men who disappeared in ancient days, for they have a marvelous story; Ask him about the mighty traveler who reached the confines of both East and West; And ask him what is the spirit (Ruh)! If he can give you the answer then follow him, for he is a Prophet. If he cannot, then he is a forger and treat him as you will. ” (Ibn Ishaq, p. 136) Similarly the Kahf (18:90) mentions the eastward journey a well when he moved the farthest to East, as there was no reachable land it felt like the end of the earth, and sun was rising after that point for whom there was no natural covering. The description according to Imran N Hosein tells us that it must be a land that is encompassed on West and East by seas but are also impassable because of some mountain range. So looking for a place where two seas are somewhat connected by a mountainous range and that too is near the domain of Cyrus the great. And as Kahf 97 mentions Dhul Qarnain was able to make aa huge wall of alloy. Gog and Magog were unable to penetrate. As mentioned, the Western sea of Dhul qarnain’s travels is miry and dark, and the black sea fulfills that description, the eastward sea would be the Caspian Sea. Now that we have located the two seas as well as the mountain range that extends all the way from one sea to the other, we have to find a solitary pass between the mountains and evidence of iron from the ruins of Dhul Qarnain’s barrier. Sure enough, the Georgian Military Highway that was built by the Russians in the 19th century is the only passable road that connects the area north of the mountains to the southern area. It is the main road running for 220km from Tbilisi in Georgia to Vadikavkaz in Russia. So named by Tsar Alexander I, this route actually dates from before the 1st century BC and is still important as one of the only links to Russia through the Caucasus Mountains. Information readily available on the internet describes it as “a spectacular highway, which winds its way through towering mountains, climbing to above 2300m at the Krestovy pass. Heading north from Tbilisi one first reaches the medieval fortress of Ananauri, overlooking the Aragvi river and valley. Nearing the Russian border, one comes to the town of Kazbegi, overlooked by the monumental Mount Kazbegi (5033m), the highest peak in the Georgian Caucasus. The last point is the Daryal Gorge, where the road runs some kilometres on a narrow shelf beneath granite cliffs 1500m high.” “Daryal was historically important as the only available passage across the Caucasus and has been long fortified at least since 150 BC. Ruins of an ancient fortress are still visible.” We must also look for evidence of iron ore (as mentioned by the Quranic verse) in and around the region south of the Caucasus Mountains since that is where the people would have had to locate the iron to bring pieces or blocks of iron for Dhūl Qarnain The Wekipedia article on Daryal Gorge which incorporates text from Encylopedia Britannica (11th edition) locates the origin of the name of the Gorge in Dār-e Alān meaning Gate of the Alans in Persian. The Gorge, alternatively known as the Iberian Gates or the Caucasian Gates, is mentioned in the Georgian annals under the names of Ralani, Dargani, Darialani.” In other words, the name Daryal has preserved the historical fact of some form of a barrier constructed from metal that once existed in that Gorge.

We also have to find a language spoken south of the Caucasus Mountains, which is different from all the other languages spoken in and around that region of the then known world. We need to do so because of Dhūl Qarnain’s experience when he arrived at that location and found people who could not understand his language: “(And he marched on) till, when he reached (a pass) between the two mountain-barriers, he found before them a people who could scarcely understand anything spoken (i.e. any utterance in his language).(18:93) Sure enough, the Georgian language which is spoken south of the Caucasus Mountains is precisely such a language. It is an insular pre-Indo-European language with no relatives that has been spoken for at least 5000 years. So around this region lies the people what Quran says are Yajuj and Majuj, the next chapter will discuss the possible race of Gog and Magog –the lengthy Hebraic research of Judeo-Christian and Islamic interpreters and will ultimately focus on the Khazaria Empire of seventh century A.D. Khazaria Empire was exactly located in the region that Dhul qarnain’s travels mentions and was a bustling empire some thirteen hundred years after Cyrus the great and have a unique and somewhat baffling history of a Kingdom converting to Judaism.

Chapter 3: Who are Gog and Magog, anyway? It is banned for (the people of) a town that we destroyed that they came back until when the Ya’juj and Ma’juj (Gog nd Magog) are released, while they run down from every height (Al Quran 21:95-96) Introduction Gog and Magog whereabouts are a part of a hefty Hebraic debate consuming the Scholars of Muslim Jewish and Christian eschatology. The ten lost Tribes of Israel perpetrate a lot of speculation in Judeo-Christian works that in them might be Gog and Magog. As mentioned earlier most biblical interpretations talk of Russia as Gog and Magog others like Muhammad Ali believe that the Germanic and Slavic races related as a subtle difference of ‘ma’ in Gog and Magog are the latter. For others the speculation regarding who the lucky men could be includes the Scythian, the tartars, the Vikings, the Scandinavian etc. the list is not exhaustive. In Apocalypse Pseudo Methodius, a seventh century Syrian Aramaic Christian writer talks about Alexandrian gates, that holds up Gog and Magog but tells us that Muslims are not Gog and Magog and that wasn't apocalypse yet, that has been true for 13th centuries. By some scholars Gog was believed to be Gyges, a late seventh century king of Lydia. Others thought Gog was Akkadian God and Magog meant land of Gyges. A Jew historian of first century equated Scythians as Gog and Magog. In some studies they were thought to be Huns, later thinkers also wrote that Magyars and Muslim might be Gog and Magog. Imran N Hosein, a Muslim eschatological studies scholar, thinks the case of Khazar Jews is best exemplification of Gog and Magog, in the very beginning they were the only ones to stop the fast moving expansion of Muslim Empire, that was conquering every land but had to halt at the Byzantine as they were stopped by the Khazarians in the Caucasus mountains which some years later would convert to Judaism. The place, the lost kingdom of Khazaria existed from seventh to tenth century is exactly where the wall of Dhul Qarnain is found. According to Islamic traditions Gog and Magog should have military prowess like no other: “I created servants of mine so powerful that none but only I can wage war against them.” We know they had that in middle ages. For Professor Dunlop the Arabs might have outnumbered the forces of Eastern Europe if it was not for the Khazaria and the history of Islam and Christendom might have been very different. The Khazaria Jews is a unique albeit baffling phenomenon of history that is not part of a contemporary narrative. Do you believe there was a Jew King Joseph twelve centuries ago, although we know about several Jew Kings who were two or even four millennia old? Khazaria –a tribe of Turkic origin along the banks of Caspian and Caucasus were once a thriving Kingdom. As mentioned in earlier Chapter the descriptions of Bible suggests that Gog and Magog will be descendants of Japheth. And we know that the Turks, Chinese, Russian and Mongols etc, are considered progenies of Japheth –son of Prophet Noah. Dr. Tamam Adi a Muslim scholar says that old Islamic traditions say that Gog and Magog will be from al-turk which should not be confused with present day Turkish people, although al-turk encompasses sons of Japheth including the Turkish people. We can see that both Hebraic conventions believe that the showstoppers of this epoch of civilizations will be from same race.

The Khazaria Equation Al Muqadasi the 10th century Muslim scholar mentions that in the kingdom of Khazaria there is an abundance of sheep, honey and Jews. The Khazaria Empire was at its peak during seventh to ninth century the inhabitants of Caucasus and Volga were ruled by a Jewish king. Constantine VI Prophrygenitus 913- 959 in a book on ceremonial protocol at Byzantium court correspondence to the Pope or Frankish emperor the letters had two gold coins attached while to the khazarian it had three gold coins. This shows real politics. Khazar might have lesser International standing then Charles the great and his later successors but nevertheless there positioning and reign was really important populating a land between the Caspian and Black Sea It was the military that let none pass through it the bulgars, Magyar, pechenges they were also able to stop the Vikings and the Russians. The undefeated Muslim Army couldn't rule past their land even when the skirmishes went on for a century The last of these hundred years wars between Muslims and Khazar ended in latters defeat but by the time the Holy impetus of Muslim Empire was dying. 5 years earlier Emperor Constantine took a Khazarian princess as a bride and their son was called Leo IV or Leo the Khazar And in 740 AD whole of Khazar Kingdom converted to Judaism with the ballooning Christian Empire of Byzantium at one end and Muslim at the other, acceptance of the religion of a people who were actually persecuted at that time is an indication of independent policy of the kingdom and the subject that will intrigues scholars to come. In 10th Century the Khazar khangate was dissipating and the citizens of that area emigrated to Hungary Crimea Ukraine and Lithuania and here comes the Koestler thesis that parts of Jewish residents of now Europe are non-Semitic. The very first mention of Turkish people in Chinese annals is about a sixth century Empires that spanned from Great Wall of China to the Black Sea those were to Koi Aur gok turks or sky turks to the turks confederation of nomads After this the expansion came in this area of the Khazar who settled in the east of Gok Turks and were Turk themselves. historyworld.net also mentions their conversion to Jewish faith is surprising to their contemporaries intriguing to historians a phenomenon that was equally mysterious and Powerful The location was much to their advantage the territory north of Black and Caspian Sea they had a trouble free access to each to their steppes while the Russian rivers give them access to north inland seas provided a safety barrier converting them into a stronghold who unlike their contemporaries were able to stop the Muslim conquest east of Black Sea and thanks to them the Byzantine Empire remain intact they had an upper hand over next door Slavs and Magyar

Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Rabīʿah was the Arab general of the early Caliphate. He may have been the brother of Salman ibn Rabiah, the military governor of Armenia under Caliph Umar I. He was charged with the task of conquering the Khazars and invaded the northern Caucasus for this purpose in the late 640s CE. Some sources say he died in the siege. Khazars were undefeatable. One century later these Khazars converted to Judaism their leader citing their link to Japheth. Scholars says that if it weren't for Khazars, Muslims would have conquered past Caucasus and the Byzantium empire in the very beginning as well and there would have been no Christendom. And the middle ages would have been only Islamic. Quite interestingly their baffling move to convert to Judaism make them on equal footing to deal with the Christian Byzantine empire at south-west and Islamic Caliphate in south. They reign for three centuries but in the 10th century the Russian needs to show their dominance so they successfully invaded the khazarian area north of Black Sea but Byzantines come over and make them flee. The Khazars were first expelled from the Dnieper valley in 883-85, and then, in about 965-68, Sviatoslav destroyed Khazaria and its capital Atil' (Davidson 1976, 112). A successor state may have survived in the Crimea but was subdued by the Byzantines in 1016. Two generation later while the Russian have now converted to Christianity they along with Byzantine invade Khazar. By late 1016 they were able to take control of the once Khazaria empire that encircled Crimea According to some Khazar means wandering or Nomadic whose modern day form is word Gezer their territory spanned over modern day Southern Russia, Western Kazakhstan, Eastern Ukraine large areas of Caucasus, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and even Crimea. They were allies of Byzantine against Sassanid Empire. One of the surviving evidence of that time is the response to letter of Hasdai ibn Sharput (915970 AD) –a Jewish Scholar, diplomat and courtesan of Umayyad Cordova Court. In his actual letter Hasdai asks for what it is like in a Jewish state, Omeljan Pristak observes that those letters were a diplomatic treatise by Hasdai bin Sharput for the Caliph and Islamic Empire but Hasdai’s main interest was the Jewish land beyond Andulasia. The reply by the King Joseph’s court mentions that Khazaria hosts the Jew refugees that were persecuted in their own homelands, Jews who were fleeing the idol-worshippers in Armenia. The idol-worshippers could be the Christians of Emperor Heraclius as Jews admonished Christians for worshipping the portraits made by them. An Arab chronicler makes an interesting statement: "As to the Khazars, they are to the north of the inhabited earth towards the 7th clime, having over their heads the constellation of the Plough. Their land is cold and wet. Accordingly their complexions are white, their eyes blue, their hair flowing and predominantly reddish, their bodies large and their natures cold. Their general aspect is wild." It is obvious that after a century of warfare, this Arab writer had no great sympathy for the Khazars. Nor had the Georgian or Armenian scribes, whose countries, of a much older culture, had been repeatedly devastated by Khazar horsemen. A Georgian chronicle, echoing an ancient tradition, associate them with the host of Gog and Magog wild men with hideous faces and the manners of wild beast, eaters of blood. An Armenian writer refers to "..the horrible multitude of Khazars with insolent, broad, lashless faces and long falling hair, like women". Lastly, the Arab geographer Istakhri, one of the main Arab sources, has this to say: "The Khazars do not resemble the Turks. They are black-haired, and are of two kinds, one called the Kara-Khazars, (Black

Khazars) who are swarthy verging on deep, black as if they were a kind of Indian, and a white kind (Ak-Khazars) (Ashkanazi), who are strikingly handsome." How the conversion “The Turks will take control of Kufa in southern Iraq and the Khazars the province of alJazira in northern Iraq” runs a popular quote of the early ‘Abbasid Caliphate. The patently false attribution to the Prophet notwithstanding, this hadith suggests that the Khazars, a militarised semi-nomadic Turkic people securely established in their Khaganate north of the Caucasus Mountains, loomed menacing and large in the imagination — and fears — of their settled neighbors. This is hardly a surprise. The Khazars, who had emerged as the hegemonic regional power after the fragmentation of the Gok Turk Empire, had grown rich as intermediaries in a north-south trading network, and from the tributes derived from their 25 subject peoples. They employed a centralized fiscal administration which allowed them to maintain a standing army of at least ten thousand, whose ranks could probably swell two-or-three-fold with the retinues of their notables and contributions from their subject tribes, and were ensconced within a network of fortifications that provided them with a degree of internal stability and potential for aggressive campaigning highly unusual within other steppe polities. According to the Schechter Document, Bulan achieved power due to his military prowess: There was (at the time) no king in the land of Qazaria; but rather whoever would achieve victories in war would they appoint over themselves as chief officer o f the army. (Thus was it) until the Jews once went out with them to do battle as was their wont. On that day a certain Jew prevailed with his sword and put to flight the enemies come against Qazar. So the men o f Qazar appointed him over them as chief officer of the army according to their ancient custom. We have established that it is plausible that a Jewish general could have taken control of Khazaria in the 830s Rhineland < Khazar Hypothesis The thirteenth Tribe was the book that started the speculations on the Khazaria equation and startled the world as well. The book asserted that the Ashkenazik Jews are descendants of Khazaria Jews, Shlomo Sand in The invention of the Jewish People, says that "while the Khazars scared off the Israeli historians, not one of whom has published a single paper on the subject, Koestler's Thirteenth Tribe annoyed and provoked angry responses. Hebrew readers had no access to the book itself for many years, learning about it only through the venomous denunciations". Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education editor Evan Goldstein states "Sand suggests that those who attacked Koestler's book did so not because it lacked merit, but because the critics were cowards and ideologues. 'No one wants to go looking under stones when venomous scorpions might be lurking beneath them, waiting to attack the self-image of the existing ethnos and its territorial ambitions.'" The main idea for Koestler to write the book on Khazars was to question the anti-semitism, proving Ashkenazik descended from the Khazars would blow off the foundations of the chosen race and also to prove the genius of Hungarian Jews had something to do with the Khazarian equation. The purose of Arthur Koestler was to question the racial basis of anti-Semitism. If he could prove that most of the Eastern European Ashkenazik Jews were descended from khazaria his work would be done. The thesis of Arthur Koestler book was to refute the claims of chosen race which is not the case for us but it is mentioned that Gog and Magog would be Jews according to Islamic tradition and gentile in biblical realm. The Khazar aren't Jews by birth or descendant from Levant but their

existence in a place where DhulQarnain made a war against Gog and Magog and their military might and their descriptions and their dominance on other Jews make them no less baffling A study on the DNA of Ashkenazim Jews shows us that they only share 3% of their DNA with the Jewish ancestral line of Levant Middle East, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan. Such a miniscule amount is what European as a whole would share with Neanderthals. In the sixth century when the persecuted Jews started settling in Persia thanks to their hospitality They assimilated in the Persian stratosphere so much so that they adopted Persian names customs social practices and very swiftly climbed up the social ladder attaining Monopoly quite unlike what we know about Jewish faith this paper mention that they started converting locals to Judaism hence increasing their power and authority. The converts spread across the shores of Black Sea ethnically including Alans (Iranian nomadic pastoral people) Slavic and Greeks. After the mass reformation towards Judaism they translated the Old Testament into Greek built shuls and had prosperity in the local trade around the area Jewish community later call themselves Ashkenazi. These Ashkenazim have a unique Y chromosome Asian mutation that relate them to Gok Turks The Gok Turks or the Nomadic Tribes of the region of Asia were governed by a Ashina tribe or Siberian Turkic people who were forced by Chinese Tang Emperor to move towards the Black Sea. So the military and tactical prowess of these people made them a powerful entity giving rise to Khazar Khangate. Later these Jews adopted Ashkenazim title whose DNA can be traced back to ancient Ashkenaz trade transactional route of Turks comprising of four villages. What happened there was that ashina Elite and common Khazarite who left shamanism for Judaism became Ashkenazim Erhan Elhaik also suggests for the sake of monopoly Ashkenazi Jews adopted the Slavic custom and created Yiddish as a secret language for their Mega trade network While when during the 10 century the Khazar Khangate started to collapse they all immigrated to Ukraine but lingua franca of the Jews remained Yiddish with Slavic grammar and assimilated German words. the Italian the Dutch the English took away the trade Monopoly from them Yiddish remained. Elhaik claims that some of the real Jews patriarch descended from Ashkenazim tribe So confirming this connection and knowing Ashkenazim Jews are actually 8th century converts of Caucasus region. Ashkenazim Jews are gentiles taking the Jewish choose race at the face value and they roam and rule Palestine and even Sephardic Jews. The competing “Khazarian Hypothesis” considers Eastern European Jews the descendants of ancient and late Judeans who joined the Khazars, a confederation of Slavic, Scythian, Sabirs, Finno-Ugrian, Alan, Avars, Iranian, and Turkish tribes who formed in the northern Caucasus one of most powerful and pluralistic empires during the late Iron Age and converted to Judaism in the 8th century CE. The Khazarian, Armenian, and Georgian populations forged from this amalgamation of tribes, followed by high levels of isolation, differentiation, and genetic drift in

situ. The population structure of the Judeo-Khazars was further reshaped by multiple migrations of Jews from the Byzantine Empire and Caliphate to the Khazarian Empire. The collapse of the Khazar Empire followed by the Black Death (1347-1348) accelerated the progressive depopulation of Khazaria in favor of the rising Polish Kingdom and Hungary. The newcomers mixed with the existing Jewish communities established during the uprise of Khazaria and spread to Central and Western Europe. The Khazarian Hypothesis predicts that European Jews comprise of Caucasus, European, and Middle Eastern ancestries and is distinct from the Rhineland Hypothesis in the existence of a large genetic signature of Caucasus populations. Because some Eastern European Jews migrated west and admixed with the neighboring Jewish and non-Jewish populations they became distinct from the remaining Eastern European Jews. Therefore, different European Jewish communities are expected to be heterogeneous. Many genetic studies attempting to settle these competing hypotheses yielded inconsistent results. Some studies pointed at the genetic similarity between European Jews and Middle Eastern populations such as Palestinians, while few pointed at the similarity to Caucasus populations like Adygei, and others pointed at the similarity to Southern European populations like Italians. Most of these studies were done in the pre-genomewide era, using uniparental markers and included different reference populations, which makes it difficult to compare their results. More recent studies employing whole genome data reported high genetic similarity of European Jews to Druze, Italian, and Middle Eastern populations. Motivated by the recent availability of genome-wide data for key populations, the current study aims to uncover the ancestry of Eastern and Central European Jews by contrasting the Rhineland and Khazarian Hypotheses. These hypotheses were tested here by comparing the biogeographical genetic profile of European Jews with indigenous Middle Eastern and Caucasus populations using a wide set of population genetic tools including principal component analyses (PCAs), identification of the biogeographical origins of European Jews, admixture, identity by descent (IBD), allele sharing distance (ASD), and finally by comparing haplogroup frequencies of Y and mtDNA. As the Judeans and Khazars have been vanquished and their remains have yet to be sequenced, in accordance with previous studies, contemporary Middle Eastern and Caucasus populations were used as surrogates. Palestinians were considered Proto-Judeans because they shared a similar linguistic, ethnic, and geographic background with the Judeans and were shown to share common ancestry with European Jews. Similarly, Caucasus Armenian and Georgians were considered Proto-Khazars because they emerged from the same cohort as the Khazars. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analyses corroborated the genetic similarity between Armenians and Georgians and estimated their approximate divergence time from the Turks and Iranians 600 and 360 generations ago, respectively. Although both the Rhineland and Khazarian Hypotheses depict a Judean ancestry and are not mutually exclusive, they are well distinguished, as Caucasus and Semitic populations are considered ethnically and linguistically distinct. Jews. The Caucasus Jews are the ones that are predominantly Ashkenazik State of Israel (Ashkenazim Jews) The Khazaria Empire never vanished they went through a makeover mgrated West and became the Jews of Eastern Europe. Yiddish speaking Rhineland inhabitants Harroll Rhome vents:

Benjamin Freedman always called them “so-called and self-styled Jews”. They are not the people seen in the Bible. They are not Semitic and certainly not Judean, but Judaism from AD1000 onward is almost entirely a Khazar creation. Moreover, their ideology and their behavior are truly elitist and racist, just as we see in their apartheid ministate. Even with other Judaics, Khazar supremacism rules. This is emphatically why the Sephardim, the few remaining Karaites, Mountain Jews, Ethiopian Falashas, the Kai Feng of China, Torah True Jews and other Judaic minorities, do not get along very well with the snobby Ashkenazis, who act as if all the others are inferiors. Note that all the Judaic minorities mentioned are non-Talmudic sects. While treated a little better than Palestinians, they are definitely victims of prejudice and animosity in New Khazaria. Oops, I mean “Israel”. Hebrew language and Jewish culture have been around for thousands of years. For much of that history, the Jews managed to maintain their heritage and cultural identity in the absence of a geographical state. Wanderings, settlements, and dispersal were thus a big part of their history. Is evidence for that history preserved in genome data? Eran Elhaik, a geneticist at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, thinks so. In a recently published study in Genome Biology Evolution (Elhaik 2012), he is calling for a rewrite of commonly held assumptions about Jewish ancestry. Instead of being primarily the descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel, present-day Jewish populations are, finds Elhaik, primarily the children of a Turkish people who lived in what is now Russia, north of Georgia, east of Ukraine. This civilization, the Khazars, converted from tribal religions to Judaism between the 7th and 9th centuries. The controversy cut into by Elhaik's work runs deep, far past the lab bench. Among some circles, his conclusions are bound to be unpopular. “This is the first scientific paper to prove the Khazarian Hypothesis and reject the Rhineland Hypothesis,” he says, “and with it about 40 years of research.” Although his findings will not be welcome in all circles, Elhaik's interest is more medical than political. “All I want is to help my colleagues who are studying genetic disorders,” he says. “I hope this work will open up a new era in genetic studies where population stratification will be used more correctly.” Jewish populations are used in many disease studies because of their presumed genetic homogeny. Some conditions, such as Tay–Sachs disease, are more common among select Jewish populations than other populations. However, Elhaik says, the acceptance of a flawed origin narrative is hampering the best science. For several decades, two hypothetical backgrounds of present-day European Jews have seemed plausible to historians and geneticists. In the favored “Rhineland Hypothesis,” Jews descended from Israelite–Canaanite tribes who left the Holy Land for Europe in the seventh century, following the Muslim conquest of Palestine. Then, in the beginning of the 15th century, a group of approximately 50,000 left Germany, the Rhineland, for the east. There they reproduced rapidly, in a kind of “hyper–baby boom.” Their breeding outpaced their non-Jewish neighbors by an order of magnitude—despite disease, persecutions, wars, and economic hardship—ballooning to approximately 8 million strong by the 20th century. Under this history, European Jews would be very similar to each other and would have Middle Eastern ancestry.

Several scholars prefer the “Khazarian Hypothesis,” Elhaik included. This suggests the Jewishconvert Khazars, with reinforcements from Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman Jews, formed the basis of Eastern Europe's Jewish population when they fled northeast, following the collapse of their empire at the 13th century. Elhaik first became fascinated by this idea 10 years ago when reading Arthur Koestler bestselling book The Thirteenth Tribe, published in 1976. Koestler calculated that Jews could not have numbered 8 million in Eastern Europe without the Khazar contribution. Upon reading his ideas, “I couldn’t wait for genetic data that would allow someone to publish an evaluation of this hypothesis,” says Elhaik. When Behar et al. published “The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people” in 2010, Elhaik decided to investigate the question that had intrigued him for so long. Using data published by Behar, he calculated seven measures of ancestry, relatedness, and geographical origin. Though he used some of the same statistical tests as prior studies, he chose different comparisons. “Results in the current literature are tangled,” Elhaik says. “Everyone is basically following the same assumption: Ashkenazi Jews are a population isolate, so they are all similar to one another, and this is completely incorrect.” Previous studies had, for example, combined the question of similarity among and between Jewish populations and the question of ancestry and relatedness to non-Jewish populations. Elhaik viewed these questions separately. Jewish communities are less homogeneous than is popularly thought, he says, with Jewish communities along the former Khazarian border showing the most heterogeneity. His second question centered on ancestry: When comparing Jewish communities to their nonJewish neighbors, Caucasus or Levant (Middle Eastern) populations—which is the closest to Jews? “All Eurasian Jewish communities are closer to Caucasus populations,” he writes, with Central European Jews closer to Italian non-Jews as the exception. Not one of the eight evaluated Jewish populations were closer to Levant populations. “I had the hardest time clearing myself from the mindset (of previous work),” Elhaik says. “I was on the train, thinking hard, when it came to me how to separate the questions. It was a great moment.” However, it would be a mistake, Elhaik says, to conclude present-day Jews have nothing to do with the ancient Judeans. “I found a signature of the Middle East. I’m not certain whether it suggests Judean or Iranian ancestry, but it's there.” Iranian, as well as Judean, Jews began joining the Khazarian empire as early as the 5th century B.C.E. “It might be strange given today's political situation, but it makes a lot of historical sense.” For Shlomo Sand, history professor at Tel Aviv University and author of the controversial book The Invention of the Jewish People, Elhaik's paper was a vindication of his long-held ideas. "It's so obvious for me," says Sand. “Some people, historians and even scientists, turn a blind eye to the truth. Once to say Jews were a race was anti-Semitic, now to say they're not a race is antiSemitic. It's crazy how history plays with us.“ “There is no Jewish genome and certainly no Jewish gene,” says the Israeli-born Elhaik. Instead, all humans are a mix of the same building blocks, built with slightly different architectures. “The confusion about European Jews results from their tragic history of persecutions and deportations,

creating multiple links between ancestry and geography. By dismantling our notions of genetically distinct populations and understanding our kinship, we can better appreciate our common history, and more importantly, our shared future.“ Due to their enforced in-breeding ashkenazik Jews are more apt to genetical diseases. That may have come from the founder’s effect. So hundreds of years ago mutations occurred in the gene of certain ashkenazik forefather,s with similar marrying and small communities a century later Ashkenazik Jews are more prone to genetic diseases like Gaucher disease, Cystic Fibroisis, tay Sachs disease, familial dysautonomia, Spinal Muscular autrophy. About 1 in 10 Ashkenazi Jews are carriers of a genetic mutation causing Gaucher disease. This is dramatically higher than nonJews, where about 1 in 100 people is a carrier. This led Eran Elhaik to do a deep research on genetical origin f Ashkenaz that lead them to 7th century Khazaria and medieval towns of Ashkenaz. Ashkenaz” is one of the most disputed Biblical placenames. It appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name of one of Noah’s descendants (Genesis 10:3) and as a reference to the kingdom of Ashkenaz, prophesied to be called together with Ararat and Minnai to wage war against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27). In addition to tracing AJs to the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz and uncovering the villages whose names may derive from “Ashkenaz,” the partial Iranian origin of AJs, inferred by Das et al. (2016), was further supported by the genetic similarity of AJs to Sephardic Mountain Jews and Iranian Jews as well as their similarity to Near Eastern populations and simulated “native” Turkish and Caucasus populations. There are good grounds, therefore, for inferring that Jews who considered themselves Ashkenazic adopted this name and spoke of their lands as Ashkenaz, since they perceived themselves as of Iranian origin. The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish (Das , Wexler and Pirooznia) Recently, the geographical origins of Ashkenazic Jews (AJs) and their native language Yiddish were investigated by applying the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) to a cohort of exclusively Yiddishspeaking and multilingual AJs. GPS localized most AJs along major ancient trade routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to primeval villages with names that resemble the word “Ashkenaz.” These findings were compatible with the hypothesis of an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for AJs and a Slavic origin for Yiddish and at odds with the Rhineland hypothesis advocating a Levantine origin for AJs and German origins for Yiddish. We discuss how these findings advance three ongoing debates concerning (1) the historical meaning of the term “Ashkenaz;” (2) the genetic structure of AJs and their geographical origins as inferred from multiple studies employing both modern and ancient DNA and original ancient DNA analyses; and (3) the development of Yiddish. We provide additional validation to the non-Levantine origin of AJs using ancient DNA from the Near East and the Levant. Due to the rising popularity of geo-localization tools to address questions of origin, we briefly discuss the advantages and limitations of popular tools with focus on the GPS approach. Our results reinforce the non-Levantine origins of AJs. BACKGROUND: The geographical origin of the Biblical “Ashkenaz,” Ashkenazic Jews (AJs), and Yiddish, are among the longest standing questions in history, genetics, and linguistics. Uncertainties concerning the meaning of “Ashkenaz” arose in the Eleventh century when the term shifted from a designation of the Iranian Scythians to become that of Slavs and Germans and finally of “German” (Ashkenazic) Jews in the Eleventh to Thirteenth centuries (Wexler, 1993). The first known discussion of

the origin of German Jews and Yiddish surfaced in the writings of the Hebrew grammarian Elia Baxur in the first half of the Sixteenth century (Wexler, 1993). It is well established that history is also reflected in the DNA through relationships between genetics, geography, and language (e.g., Cavalli-Sforza, 1997; Weinreich, 2008). Max Weinreich, the doyen of the field of modern Yiddish linguistics, has already emphasized the truism that the history of Yiddish mirrors the history of its speakers. These relationships prompted Das et al. (2016) to address the question of Yiddish origin by analyzing the genomes of Yiddish-speaking AJs, multilingual AJs, and Sephardic Jews using the Geographical Population Structure (GPS), which localizes genomes to where they experienced the last major admixture event. GPS traced nearly all AJs to major ancient trade routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to four primeval villages whose names resembl Ashkenaz:”˙I¸skenaz (or E¸skenaz), E¸skenez (or E¸skens), A¸shanas, and Aschuz. Evaluated in light of the Rhineland and Irano- TurkoSlavic hypotheses (Das et al., 2016, Table 1) the findings supported the latter, implying that Yiddish was created by Slavo- Iranian Jewish merchants plying the Silk Roads. We discuss these findings from historical, genetic, and linguistic perspectives and calculate the genetic similarity of AJs and Middle Eastern populations to ancient genomes from Anatolia, Iran, and the Levant. We lastly review briefly the advantages and limitation of bio-localization tools and their application in genetic research. THE HISTORICAL MEANING OF ASHKENAZ: “Ashkenaz” is one of the most disputed Biblical placenames. It appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name of one of Noah’s descendants (Genesis 10:3) and as a reference to the kingdom of Ashkenaz, prophesied to be called together with Ararat and Minnai to wage war against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27). In addition to tracing AJs to the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz and uncovering the villages whose names may derive from “Ashkenaz,” the partial Iranian origin of AJs, inferred by Das et al. (2016), was further supported by the genetic similarity of AJs to Sephardic Mountain Jews and Iranian Jews as well as their similarity to Near Eastern populations and simulated “native” Turkish and Caucasus populations. There are good grounds, therefore, for inferring that Jews who considered themselves Ashkenazic adopted this name and spoke of their lands as Ashkenaz, since they perceived themselves as of Iranian origin. That we find varied evidence of the knowledge of Iranian language among Moroccan and Andalusian Jews and Karaites prior to the Eleventh century is a compelling point of reference to assess the shared Iranian origins of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews (Wexler, 1996). Moreover, Iranian-speaking Jews in the Caucasus (the so-called Juhuris) and Turkic-speaking Jews in the Crimea prior to World War II called themselves “Ashkenazim” (Weinreich, 2008). The Rhineland hypothesis cannot explain why a name that denotes “Scythians” and was associated with the Near East became associated with German lands in the Eleventh to Thirteenth centuries (Wexler, 1993). Aptroot (2016) suggested that Jewish immigrants in Europe transferred Biblical names onto the regions in which they settled. This is unconvincing. Biblical names were used as place names only when they had similar sounds. Not only Germany and Ashkenaz do not share similar sounds, but Germany was already named Germana,” or “Germamja” in the Iranian (“Babylonian”) Talmud (completed in the Fifth century A.D.) and, not surprisingly, was associated with Noah’s grandson Gomer (Talmud, Yoma 10a). Name adoption also occurred when the exact place names were in doubt as in the case of Sefarad (Spain). This is not the case here, as Aptroot too notes, since “Ashkenaz” had a known and clear geographical affiliation (Table 1). Finally, Germany was known to French scholars like the RaDaK (1160–1235) as “Almania” (Sp. Alemania, Fr. Allemagne), after the Almani tribes, a term that was also adopted by Arab scholars. Had the French scholar Rashi (1040?-1105), interpreted aškenaz as “Germany,” it would have been known to the RaDaK who used Rashi’s symbols.

Therefore, Wexler’s proposal that Rashi used aškenaz in the meaning of “Slavic” and that the term aškenaz assumed the solitary meaning “German lands” only after the Eleventh century in Western Europe as a result of the rise of Yiddish, is more reasonable (Wexler, 2011). This is also supported by Das et al.’s major findings of the only known primeval villages whose names derive from the word “Ashkenaz” located in the ancient lands of Ashkenaz. Our inference is therefore supported by historical, linguistic, and genetic evidence, which has more weight as a simple origin that can be easily explained than a more complex scenario that involves multiple translocations. THE GENETIC STRUCTURE OF ASHKENAZIC JEWS: AJs were localized to modern-day Turkey and found to be genetically closest to Turkic, southern Caucasian, and Iranian populations, suggesting a common origin in Iranian “Ashkenaz” lands (Das et al., 2016). These findings were more compatible with an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for AJs and a Slavic origin for Yiddish than with the Rhineland hypothesis, which lacks historical, genetic, and linguistic support (van Straten, 2004; Elhaik, 2013). The findings have also highlighted the strong social-cultural and genetic bonds of Ashkenazic and Iranian Judaism and their shared Iranian origins (Das et al., 2016). Thus far, all analyses aimed to geo-localize AJs (Behar et al., 2013, Figure 2B; Elhaik, 2013, Figure 4; Das et al., 2016, Figure 4). identified Turkey as the predominant origin of AJs, although they used different approaches and datasets, in support of the IranoTurko-Slavic hypothesis. The existence of both major Southern European and Near Eastern ancestries in AJ genomes are also strong indictors of the Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis provided the Greco-Roman history of the region southern to the Black Sea (Baron, 1937; Kraemer, 2010). Recently, Xue et al. (2017) applied GLOBETROTTER to a dataset of 2,540 AJs genotyped over 252,358 SNPs. The inferred ancestry profile for AJs was 5% Western Europe, 10% Eastern Europe, 30% Levant, and 55% Southern Europe (a Near East ancestry was not considered by the authors). Elhaik (2013) portrayed a similar profile for European Jews, consisting of 25–30% Middle East and large Near Eastern–Caucasus (32– 38%) and West European (30%) ancestries. Remarkably, Xue et al. (2017) also inferred an “admixture time” of 960–1,416 AD (_24–40 generations ago), which corresponds to the time AJs experienced major geographical shifts as the Judaized Khazar kingdom diminished and their trading networks collapsed forcing them to relocate to Europe (Das et al., 2016). The lower boundary of that date corresponds to the time Slavic Yiddish originated, to the best of our knowledge. The non-Levantine origin of AJs is further supported by an ancient DNA analysis of six Natufians and a Levantine Neolithic (Lazaridis et al., 2016), some of the most likely Judaean progenitors (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2002; Frendo, 2004). In a principle component analysis (PCA), the ancient Levantines clustered predominantly with modern-day Palestinians and Bedouins and marginally overlapped with Arabian Jews, whereas AJs clustered away from Levantine individuals and adjacent to Neolithic Anatolians and Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans. To evaluate these findings, we inferred the ancient ancestries of AJs using the admixture analysis described in Marshall et al. (2016). Briefly, we analyzed 18,757 autosomal SNPs genotyped in 46 Palestinians, 45 Bedouins, 16 Syrians, and eight Lebanese (Li et al., 2008) alongside 467 AJs [367 AJs previously analyzed and 100 individuals with AJ mother) (Das et al., 2016) that overlapped with both the GenoChip (Elhaik et al., 2013) and ancient DNA data (Lazaridis et al., 2016). We then carried out a supervised ADMIXTURE analysis (Alexander and Lange, 2011) using three East European Hunter Gatherers from Russia (EHGs) alongside six Epipaleolithic Levantines, 24 Neolithic Anatolians, and six Neolithic Iranians as reference populations (Table S0). Remarkably, AJs exhibit a dominant Iranian (g88%) and residual Levantine (f3%) ancestries, as opposed to Bedouins (g14% and g68%, respectively) and Palestinians (g18% and g58%, respectively). Only two AJs exhibit Levantine ancestries typical to Levantine populations. Repeating the analysis with qpAdm (AdmixTools, version 4.1) (Patterson et al., 2012), we found that AJs admixture could be modeled using either three- (Neolithic Anatolians [46%], Neolithic Iranians [32%], and EHGs [22%]) or two-way (Neolithic Iranians [71%] and EHGs [29%]) migration waves (Supplementary Text).

These findings should be reevaluated when Medieval DNA would become available. Overall, the combined results are In a strong agreement with the predictions of the Irano-Turko- Slavic hypothesis (Table 1) and rule out an ancient Levantine origin for AJs, which is predominant among modern-day Levantine populations (e.g., Bedouins and Palestinians). This is not surprising since Jews differed in cultural practices and norms (Sand, 2011) and tended to adopt local customs (Falk, 2006). Very little Palestinian Jewish culture survived outside of Palestine (Sand, 2009). For example, the folklore and folkways of the Jews in northern Europe is distinctly pre-Christian German (Patai, 1983) and Slavic in origin, which disappeared among the latter (Wexler, 1993, 2012). THE LINGUISTIC DEBATE CONCERNING FORMATION OF YIDDISH The hypothesis that Yiddish has a German origin ignores the mechanics of relexification, the linguistic process which produced Yiddish and other “Old Jewish” languages (i.e., those created by the Ninth to Tenth century). Understanding how relexification operates is essential to understanding the evolution of languages. This argument has a similar context to that of the evolution of powered flight. Rejecting the theory of evolution may lead one to conclude that birds and bats are close relatives. By disregarding the literature on relexification and Jewish history in the early Middle Ages, authors (e.g., Aptroot, 2016; Flegontov et al., 2016) reach conclusions that have weak historical support. The advantage of a geolocalization analysis is that it allows us to infer the geographical origin of the speakers of Yiddish, where they resided and with whom they intermingled, independently of historical controversies, which provides a data driven view on the question of geographical origins. This allows an objective review of potential linguistic influences on Yiddish (Table 1), which exposes the dangers in adopting a “linguistic creationism” view in linguistics. The historical evidence in favor of an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for Yiddish is paramount (e.g., Wexler, 1993, 2010). Jews played a major role on the Silk Roads in the Ninth to Eleventh century. In the midNinth century, in roughly the same years, Jewish merchants in both Mainz and at Xi’an received special trading privileges from the Holy Roman Empire and the Tang dynasty court (Robert, 2014). These roads linked Xi’an to Mainz and Andalusia, and further to sub-Saharan Africa and across to the Arabian Peninsula and India-Pakistan. The Silk Roads provided the motivation for Jewish settlement in AfroEurasia in the Ninth to Eleventh centuries since the Jews played a dominant role on these routes as a neutral trading guild with no political agendas (Gil, 1974; Cansdale, 1996, 1998). Hence, the Jewish traders had contact with a wealth of languages in the areas that they traversed (Hadj-Sadok, 1949; Khordadhbeh, 1889; Hansen, 2012; Wexler TBD), which they brought back to their communities nested in major trading hubs (Rabinowitz, 1945, 1948; Das et al., 2016). The central Eurasian Silk Roads were controlled by Iranian polities, which provided opportunities for Iranian-speaking Jews, who constituted the overwhelming bulk of the world’s Jews fromthe time of Christ to the Eleventh century (Baron, 1952). It should not come as a surprise to find that Yiddish (and other Old Jewish languages) contains component and rules from a large variety of languages, all of them spoken on the Silk Roads (Khordadhbeh, 1889; Wexler, 2011, 2012, 2017). In addition to language contacts, the Silk Roads also provided the motivation for widespread conversion to Judaism by populations eager to participate in the extremely lucrative trade, which had become a Jewish quasi-monopoly along the trade routes (Rabinowitz, 1945, 1948; Baron, 1957). These conversions are discussed in Jewish literature between the Sixth and Eleventh centuries, both in Europe and Iraq (Sand, 2009; Kraemer, 2010). Yiddish and other Old Jewish languages were all created by the peripatetic merchants as secret languages that would isolate them from their customers and non-Jewish trading partners (Hadj-Sadok, 1949; Gil, 1974; Khordadhbeh, 1889; Cansdale, 1998; Robert, 2014). The study of Yiddish genesis, thereby, necessitates the study of all the Old Jewish languages of this time period.

There is also a quantifiable amount of Iranian and Turkic elements in Yiddish. The Babylonian Talmud, completed by the Sixth century A.D., is rich in Iranian linguistic, legalistic, and religious influences. Fromthe Talmud, a large Iranian vocabulary has entered Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic, and from there spread to Yiddish. This corpus has been known since the 1930s and is common knowledge to Talmud scholars (Telegdi, 1933). In the Khazar Empire, the Eurasian Jews, plying the Silk Roads, became speakers of Slavic—an important language because of the trading activities of the Rus’ (pre-Ukrainians) with whom the Jews were undoubtedly allied on the routes linking Baghdad and Bavaria. This is evident by the existence of newly invented Hebroidism, inspired by Slavic patterns of discourse in Yiddish (Wexler, 2010). We advocate for implementing a more evolutionary understanding in linguistics. That includes giving more attention to the linguistic process that alter languages (e.g., relexification) and acquiringmore competence in other languages and histories When studying the origin of Ashkenazic Jews and Yiddish, such knowledge should include the history of the Silk Roads and Irano-Turkish languages. INFERENCE OF GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGINS Deciphering the origin of human populations is not a new challenge for geneticists, yet only in the past decade highthroughput genetic data were harnessed to answer these questions. Here, we briefly discuss the differences between the available tools based on identity by distance. Existing PCA or PCA-like approaches (e.g., Novembre et al., 2008; Yang et al., 2012) can localize Europeans to countries (understood as the last place where major admixture event took place or the place where the four ancestors of “unmixed” individuals came from) with less than 50% accuracy (Yang et al., 2012). The limitations of PCA (discussed in Novembre and Stephens, 2008) appear to be inherent in the framework where continental populations plotted along the two primary PCs cluster in the vertices of a trianglelike shape and the remaining populations cluster along or within the edges (e.g., Elhaik et al., 2013). There is therefore reason to question the applicability of ambitious PCA-based methods (Yang et al., 2012, 2014) aiming to infer multiple ancestral locations outside of Europe. Overall, accurate localization of worldwide individuals remains a significant challenge (Elhaik et al., 2014). The GPS framework assumes that humans are mixed and that their genetic variation (admixture) can be modeled by the proportion of genotypes assigned to any number of fixed regional putative ancestral populations (Elhaik et al., 2014). GPS employs a supervised ADMIXTURE analysis where the admixture components are fixed, which allows evaluating both the test individuals and reference populations against the same putative ancestral populations. GPS infers the geographical coordinates of an individual by matching their admixture proportions with those of reference populations. Reference populations are populations known to reside in a certain geographical region for a substantial period of time in a time frame of hundreds to a thousand years and can be predicted to their geographical locations while absent from the reference population panel (Das et al., 2016). The final geographic location of a test individual is determined by converting the genetic distance of the individual to m reference populations into geographic distances (Elhaik et al., 2014). Intuitively, the reference populations can be thought of as “pulling” the individual in their direction with a strength proportional to their genetic similarity until a consensus is reached (Figure S1). Interpreting the results, particularly when the predicted location differs from the contemporary location of the studied population, demands cautious. Population structure is affected by biological and demographic processes like genetic drift, which can act rapidly on small, relatively isolated populations, as opposed to large non-isolated populations, and migration, which occurs more frequently (Jobling et al., 2013). Understanding the geographyadmixture relationships necessitates knowing how relative isolation and migration history affected the allele frequencies of populations. Unfortunately, oftentimes we lack information about both processes. GPS addresses this problem by analyzing the relative proportions of admixture in a global network of reference populations that provide us with different “snapshots” of historical admixture events. These global admixture events occurred at

different times through different biological and demographic processes, and their long-lasting effect is related to our ability to associate an individual with their matching admixture event. In relatively isolated populations the admixture event is likely old, and GPS would localize a test individual with their parental population more accurately. By contrast, if the admixture event was recent and the population did notmaintain relative isolation, GPS prediction would be erroneous (Figure S2). This is the case of Caribbean populations, whose admixture proportions still reflect the massive Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries’ mixture events involving Native Americans, West Europeans, and Africans (Elhaik et al., 2014). While the original level of isolation remains unknown, these two scenarios can be distinguished by comparing the admixture proportions of the test individual and adjacent populations. If this similarity is high, we can conclude that we have inferred the likely location of the admixture event that shaped the admixture proportion of the test individual. If the opposite is true, the individual is either mixed and thereby violates the assumptions of the GPS model or the parental populations do not exist either in GPS’s reference panel or in reality. Most of the time (83%) GPS predicted unmixed individuals to their true locations with most of the remaining individuals predicted to neighboring countries (Elhaik et al., 2014). To understand how migration modifies the admixture proportions of the migratory and host populations, we can consider two simple cases of point or massive migration followed by assimilation and a third case of migration followed by isolation. Point migration events have little effect on the admixture proportions of the host population, particularly when it absorbs a paucity of migrants, in which case the migrants’ admixture proportions would resemble those of the host population within a few generations and their resting place would represent that of the host population. Massive demographic movements, such as large-scale invasion or migration that affect a large part of the population are rare and create temporal shifts in the admixture proportions of the host population. The host population would temporarily appear as a two-way mixed population, reflecting the components of the host and invading populations (e.g., European and Native American, in the case of Puerto Ricans) until the admixture proportions would homogenize population-wise. If this process is completed, the admixture signature of this region may be altered and the geographical placement of the host population would represent again the last place where the admixture event took place for both the host and invading populations. GPS would, thereby, predict the host population’s location for both populations. Populations that migrate from A to B and maintain genetic isolation would be predicted to point A in the leave-one-out population analysis. While human migrations are not uncommon, maintaining a perfect genetic isolation over a long period of time is very difficult (e.g., Veeramah et al., 2011; Behar et al., 2012; Elhaik, 2016; Hellenthal et al., 2016), and GPS predictions for the vast majority of worldwide populations indicate that these cases are indeed exceptional (Elhaik et al., 2014). Despite of its advantages, GPS has several limitations. First, it yields the most accurate predictions for unmixed individuals. Second, using migratory or highly mixed populations (both are detectable through the leave-one-out population analysis) as reference populations may bias the predictions. Further developments are necessary to overcome these limitations and make GPS applicable to mixed population groups (e.g., African Americans). CONCLUSION The meaning of the term “Ashkenaz” and the geographical origins of AJs and Yiddish are some of the longest standing questions in history, genetics, and linguistics. In our previous work we have identified “ancient Ashkenaz,” a region in northeastern Turkey that harbors four primeval villages whose names resemble Ashkenaz. Here, we elaborate on the meaning of this term and argue that it acquired its modern meaning only after a critical mass of Ashkenazic Jews arrived in Germany. We show that all bio-

localization analyses have localized AJs to Turkey and that the non-Levantine origins of AJs are supported by ancient genome analyses. Overall, these findings are compatible with the hypothesis of an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for AJs and a Slavic origin for Yiddish and contradict the predictions of Rhineland hypothesis that lacks historical, genetic, and linguistic support (Table 1)

Open questions

Rhineland hypothesis

Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis

The term “Ashkenaz

Originally affiliated with the people living north of Biblical Israel (Aptroot, 2016) or north of the Black Sea (Wexler, 1991). Used in Hebrew and Yiddish sources from the Eleventh century onward to denote a region in what is now roughly Southern Germany (Wexler, 1991; Aptroot, 2016

Denotes an Iranian people “near Armenia,” presumably Scythians known as aškuza, ašguza, or išguza in Assyrian inscriptions of the early Seventh century B.C. (Wexler, 2012, 2016).

The ancestral origin of Ashkenazic Jews

Judaean living in Judaea until 70 A.D. who were exiled by the Romans (King, 2001) and remained in relative isolation from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora (Hammer et al., 2000; Ostrer, 2001). This scenario has no historical (Sand, 2009) nor genetic support (Figure 1B) (e.g., Elhaik, 2013, 2016; Xue et al., 2017).

A minority of Judaean emigrants and a majority of IranoTurko-Slavic converts to Judaism (Wexler, 2012).

The arrival of Jews to German lands

After the arrival of Palestinian Jews to Roman lands, Jewish merchants and soldiers arrived to German lands with the Roman army and settled there (King, 2001). This scenario has no historical support (Wexler, 1993; Sand, 2009).

Jews from the Khazar Empire and the former Iranian Empire plying the old Roman trade routes (Rabinowitz, 1945, 1948) and Silk Roads began to settle in the mixed Germano-Sorbian lands during the first Millennium (Sand, 2009; Wexler, 2011).

Evidence in favor of the Irano-TurkoSlavic hypothesis GPS analysis uncovered four primeval villages in northeastern Turkey whose names resemble “Ashkenaz,” at least one of which predates any major Jewish settlement in Germany (Das et al., 2016). “Ashkenaz” is thereby a placename associated with the Near East and its inhabitants both Jews and nonJews. AJs exhibit high genetic similarity to populations living in Turkey and the Caucasus (Das et al., 2016). All bio-location analyses predicted AJs to Turkey (Figure 1A). Ancient DNA analyses provide strong evidence of the Iranian Neolithic ancestry of AJs (Figure 1B) (Lazaridis et al., 2016). Ashkenazic Jews were predicted to a Near Eastern hub of ancient trade routes that connected Europe, Asia, and the northern Caucasus (Das et al., 2016). The findings imply that migration to Europe took place initially through trade routes going west and later through Khazar lands.

Yiddish’s emergence in the 9th century

Between the Ninth and Tenth centuries, French- and Italianspeaking Jewish immigrants adopted and adapted the local German dialects (Weinreich, 2008).

Upon arrival to German lands, Western and Eastern Slavic went through a relexification to German, creating what became known as Yiddish (Wexler, 2012).

Growth of Eastern European Jewry

A small group of German Jews migrated to Eastern Europe and reproduced via a so-called “demographic miracle” (Ben-Sasson, 1976; Atzmon et al., 2010; Ostrer, 2012), which resulted in an unnatural growth rate (1.7–2% annually) (van Straten and Snel, 2006; van Straten, 2007) over half a millennium acting only on Jews residing in Eastern Europe. This explanation is unsupported by the data.

During the half millennium (740–1,250 CE), Khazar and Iranian lands harbored the largest Eurasian Jewish centers. Ashkenazic, Khazar, and Iranian Jews then sent offshoots into the Slavic lands (Baron, 1957; Sand, 2009

Das et al

Xue et al.’s (2017) inferred “admixture time” of 960–1,416 AD corresponds to a time period during which AJ have experienced major demographic changes. At that time, AJs were speculated to have absorbed Slavic people, developed Slavic Yiddish, and intensified the migration to Europe (Das et al., 2016 Most of the Ashkenazic Jews were predicted to Northeastern Turkey and the remaining individuals clustered along a gradient going from Turkey to Eastern European lands (Das et al., 2016). This is in agreement with the recorded conversions of populations living along the southern shores of the Black Sea to Judaism (Baron, 1937). A German origin of AJs is unsupported by the data (Figure 1A).

Chapter 4: The Beast & Other Symbols of Anti-Christ When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? The picture leading to the entry of our anti-hero doesn’t even start without the mention of the beast.

The Beast Bible’s book of revelation mentions two beasts. The Revelation to John refers to this figure as “the Beast from the Abyss” (11:7) and “the Beast from the Sea” (13:1). Beast’s complete description is mentioned in Rev 13:1-10 Book of Daniel has an anecdote about the beast: The four beasts in the Book of Daniel which come up out of the sea, Engleman interprets as four world empires. The last beast, with ten horns, three of which are torn out to make room for a little horn ‘speaking pompous words’ is interpreted as Rome, which is extended to cover the several world empires which arose out of Western Christendom, including the coming New World Order. According to St Hippolytus, the ‘little horn’ is Antichrist. The fourth beast is analogous to the Beast of the Apocalypse, having seven heads and ten horns, which many see as seven successive kingdoms and ten contemporary kings. The sea from which the four beasts in Daniel and the Beast of the Apocalypse emerge is interpreted as the tempestuous sea of collective humanity. (I tend to see it more as the ‘collective unconscious’, the mass psychological condition of the fallen human soul, which comes to essentially the same thing. As the ‘sea’ is mass psychology, so the ‘air’ is the psychic plane per se, inhabited by those subtle beings called in the Bible ‘the powers of the air’, who are generally considered demonic.) The global empire of the fourth beast in Daniel will be the base of operations for Antichrist. The Jews will return to their homeland. The Temple will be restored. In it the Antichrist will be acknowledged by the Jews as their Messiah, and later as God. Most of Christendom will abandon its doctrines to follow him. The end times will be times of mass apostasy and demonic deception. Such apostasy cannot be stopped; the best one can do is avoid being influenced by it, which in itself will be a kind of lifeor-death struggle. When the Antichrist arises, it is time to return to the catacomb church, since the ‘above-ground’ church, even Orthodoxy itself, will for the most part worship him. If Satan is the ape of God, Antichrist can be called the ape of Christ. He will counterfeit the life experiences and miracles of Christ, even, as far as possible, the resurrection. Like Christ, he will be a teacher. He will be a king of this world, as Christ is a monarch of a kingdom not of this world; he will be a high priest of all religions, requiring that all men worship him as God. He

will begin his reign with a show of mildness, which will quickly become a reign of terror. He will deceive many—including himself, according to some, since he will not know that he is really Antichrist. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. (Rev 11:7) And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? (Rev 13:1-4) And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. (Rev 13: 5-10) While more description of this first beast can be found in Revelation 17 as well. And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be

fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. (Rev 17:7-18) The second beast is the assister of the first one mentioned in Revelation 13. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six (Rev 13: 11-18) Revelation 16 furthers the story, the two beasts are aligned with the dragon in opposition to God. They persecute the "saints" and those who do "not worship the image of the beast [of the sea]" and influence the kings of the earth to gather for the battle of Armageddon And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon (Rev 16:13-16). The two beasts will be defeated by Christ and are thrown into the lake of fire mentioned in Revelation 19:18-20 That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. (Rev 19:18-20)

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God,

and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years (Revelation 20:4)

Behemoth Behemoth is mentioned in a speech from the mouth of God in chapter 40 of the Book of Job, a primeval creature created by God and so powerful that only God can overcome him: 15 Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. 16 Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. 17 He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. 18 His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. 19 He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! 20 For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. 21 Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. 22 For his shade the lotus trees cover him; the willows of the brook surround him. 23 Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. 24 Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare? (Job 40:15-25, ESV) The passage pairs Behemoth with the sea-monster Leviathan, both composite mythical creatures with enormous strength which humans like Job could not hope to control, yet both reduced to the status of divine pets. In Jewish apocrypha and pseudepigrapha such as the 2nd century BCE Book of Enoch, Behemoth is the primal unconquerable monster of the land, as Leviathan is the primal monster of the waters of the sea and Ziz the primordial monster of the sky. According to this text Leviathan lives in "the Abyss", while Behemoth the land-monster lives in an invisible desert east of the Garden of Eden (1 Enoch 60:7–8). A Jewish rabbinic legend describes a great battle which will take place between them at the end of time: "they will interlock with one another and engage in combat, with his horns the Behemoth will gore with strength, the fish [Leviathan] will leap to meet him with his fins, with power. Their Creator will approach them with his mighty sword [and slay them both];" then, "from the beautiful skin of the Leviathan, God will construct canopies to shelter the righteous, who will eat the meat of the Behemoth and the Leviathan amid great joy and merriment." In the Haggadah, Behemoth's strength reaches its peak on the summer solstice of every solar year (around 21 June). At this time of year, Behemoth lets out a loud roar that makes all animals tremble with fear, and thus renders them less ferocious for a whole year. As a result, weak animals live in safety away from the reach of wild animals. This mythical phenomenon is shown as an example of divine mercy and goodness. Without Behemoth's roar, traditions narrate, animals would grow more wild and ferocious, and hence go around butchering each other and humans. Modern interpretations of Behemoth tend to fall into three categories: 1. he is an animal of the natural world, most often the hippopotamus, although the elephant, the crocodile and the water buffalo have been suggested; 2. he was an invention of the poet who wrote the Book of Job; 3. he is a mythical chaos-beast like Leviathan but not to be identified with him.

Lotan Lotan is a servant of the sea god Yam defeated by the storm god Hadad-Baʿal in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle. possibly with the help or by the hand of his sister ʿAnat. Lotan seems to have been prefigured by the serpent Têmtum represented in Syrian seals of the 18th–16th century BC, and finds a later reflex in the sea monster Leviathan, whose defeat at the hands of Yahweh is alluded to in the biblical Book of Job and in Isaiah 27:1. Lambert (2003) went as far as the claim that Isaiah 27:1 is a direct quote lifted from the Ugaritic text, correctly rendering Ugaritic bṯn "snake" as Hebrew nḥš "snake". Lotan (ltn) is an adjectival formation meaning "coiled", here used as a proper name; the same creature has a number of possible epitheta, including "the fugitive serpent" (bṯn brḥ) and maybe (with some uncertainty deriving from manuscript lacunae) "the wriggling serpent" (bṯn ʿqltn) and "the mighty one with seven heads" (šlyṭ d.šbʿt rašm). The myth of Hadad defeating Lotan, Yahweh defeating Leviathan, Marduk defeating Tiamat (etc.) in the mythologies of the Ancient Near East are classical examples of the Chaoskampf mytheme, also reflected in Zeus' slaying of Typhon in Greek mythology and Thor's struggle against Jörmungandr in the Gylfaginning portion of the Prose Edda. The Litani River that winds through the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon is named after Lotan as the river was believed to be the personification of the god.

DabatulArz

‫داۃباالرضےکقلعتماامعتسل رشحات اورزایدہرت ویحاانت ۔امدہدبب۔ادلبوادلبیب(رضب)ےکینعمآہتسہےنلچاوررےنگنیےکںیہہیظفل‬ ‫ینعیذیایحتزیچےکقلعتماامعتسلوہاتےہآرآن دیجںیماور ویحان رپوبالاجاتےہرگمتغلرہ وھگڑے وہاتےہہیظفلوگرعفاعمںیماخصرک‬ ‫)اوردخاےنرہےتلچرھپےتاجونروکاپینےسدیپاایک۔‬42:42(‫ہگجےہواہللقلخلکداۃبنمامء‬ Substance d b b. The meaning of al-dab and al-dabib (stroke) is to walk slowly and to crawl. This word is used for animals and most of the insects of the earth. It is used in the Holy Qur'an and there is a place "Wallah Khalq kal daba min ma'a" (24:25) And God created every moving animal from water. There are Hadith’s with definite features of Dabba as it will be a four legged creature that will be faster than a horse. Its features will be like that of a chimera of Greek mythology. Old Muslim interpreters have probably taken from other biblical Beast explanations. ‫و‬

‫و و‬ ‫تِكلّم‬ ‫ل‬ ‫و ل عل ْي‬ ‫و‬ ِ ‫ه‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ه‬ ِ ِ ّ ‫ج ْمدا ّب ًة ّما ْ ُ ْرض ْمأ ّن‬ َ‫الُسك ُِقنابُِب ُُت ُ ِق ِنُنن‬ ُ ْ‫خ‬ ‫وإذاوقا ْق ْون ِل ْمأ ْ ر‬

‫مہزنیمےسانےکےیلاکیاجونراکنںیلےگوجانےسابںیترکاتوہاگہکولگامہریآوتیںرپنیقیںیہنرکےتےھت۔‬،‫بجانےکاورپذعاباکودعهاثتبوہاجےئاگ‬ 24‫آتی‬:42‫وسرۃالمنل‬ When the promise of punishment is confirmed upon them, we will bring forth for them from the earth an animal that will speak to them that the people did not believe in our revelations.

Dabatul Arz means animal/vermin of the earth. Quran only mentions that it will come out talking to people. Some ahadith say that the Beast will be one of the first signs of the Last Day. According to the medieval Sunni theologian Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, there is nothing mentioned in the reports attributed to Muhammad about the nature of this creature, but it is mentioned in narrations circulating around the time of his successors. Wahb ibn Munabbih stated that such a "beast" spoke to the people of Sodom from under the earth. Traditional Description Features: dabatul Arz head =human, body=horse, legs=camel legs, buttocks- deer, tail = cow, horns on his head 60ft height. Move with stealth and speed. Will ouch and differentiate believer from disbelievers. A tradition attributed to Ibn al-Zubayr also describes the Beast carrying the Seal of Solomon and Moses' staff. Alternative Description The author Muhammad Ali thinks that dabatul arz are the Europeans who have kept the Muslims under enslavement in form of colonialisation for two centuries (1). While the majority of scholars accept the traditional explanation of the Beast as a literal creature who will appear in the end times, some modern interpreters such as Fethullah Gülen interpret the Beast as possibly being made of various parts, including diseases like HIV. Another interpretation holds that the Dabba is related to materialistic tendencies, thus Dabba does not appear at the end of the world, but will doom a nation or society. Dr. Prof. Sulyman ate belief that the ahadith are influenced by Jewish tradition. The tradition says that an animal came out in Sodom and talked to people, and similar will come before apocalypse But in other place Dabatul arz is used for tree worm that ate King Solomon’s staff:

ْ‫و و ل‬ ‫ل ّ ِه‬ ‫و‬ ْ‫ل‬ ِِ ْ ‫مبوةإ ّ ُداب ِوةا ْ ُ ْرض و ُب‬ ْ ََ‫نَلََك ُِقناَتعْلمِوننََالْغ ْثبََمَُلب ِثوناَف‬ ‫ُْكمبس ُا ْب ِةَۖفلمّاَُخََّتب ّبثَبََا ج ّنََِأ ّ ْ ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫لَع‬ ‫م‬ ْ ٰ ‫فلمّاُقض ْبباُعل ْبةا م ْونتمُد‬ ّ ِ ‫لْم‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ب‬ ﴾٤١﴿ََ‫الْعذابََا ن‬ 42‫وسرہابسآتی‬Fetehullah Gulen also alludes to the fact that dabatul arz could be HIV 

Coronavirus as Dabatul Arz **

-The beast of the Koran is clearly neither the Antichrist nor the False Prophet of the Apocalypse. Yet both the beast of the Koran and the False Prophet rise from beneath the earth, from the abode of the dead, which in many traditions stands for all that has been repressed and forgotten in the individual or collective human soul. The False Prophet perhaps symbolizes the human evil hidden in that soul, just as the first beast, the Antichrist, who rises not from the earth of the

human world but from the sea of the ‘collective unconscious’, symbolizes the part of that soul which is open to, and controlled by, a trans-human, satanic evil, the Dragon. But the beast of the Koran would seem to stand for the totality of the collective human soul, the hidden good as well as the hidden evil—the nafs on every level, whether commanding, accusing, or at peace, now speaking the full truth of its nature under the compulsion of the Spirit. As also happens on the spiritual Path, where travelers ‘die before they are made to die,’ the descent of the Word or Spirit causes all that has been concealed in the soul to rise into plain view; and when this process is complete, the possibility of individual action, and thus of individual repentance, is ended, either by physical death or by annihilation in God. In the light of the Word it is men’s deeds, as measured against the staff of Moses (representing the law), and their psychic dispositions, as divined by Solomon’s seal (representing his power over the Jinn, i.e., the realm of the psyche) which testify definitively as to who is destined for the Garden and who for the Fire. The faces of both groups are sealed by the seal-ring of Solomon because, according to Islamic doctrine, ‘acts are judged by their intent.’ Bit Coin as the mark of the beast The collapse and possible disappearance of the US dollar is a matter of absolutely central importance for Israel since it would eventually bring down in its wake all the non-redeemable paper currencies in the world. Jerusalem is based on God of David and Solomon but European Christians and Jews believe in no God **UN, assister of antichrist As a consequence some Muslims fell into Dajjāl’s ‘fire’ while others enjoyed the ‘cool waters’ of his river. The masses of Muslims belonging to communities such as Somalia, Bangladesh and Indonesia that resisted Dajjāl became impoverished and imprisoned in destitution while treacherous so-called Muslim elite belonging to client states of the West and who served the interests of those enemies of Islam became more and more wealthy. Sterling Pound