Gog and Magog
A minority of Muslim commentators argue Gog and Magog here refers to some barbaric North Asian tribes from pre-Biblical times which have been free from Dhu al-Qarnayn's wall for a long time. "Qarn" also means "period" or "century", and the name Dhu al-Qarnayn therefore has a symbolic meaning as "He of the Two Ages", the first being the mythological time when the wall is built and the second the age of the end of the world when Allah's shariah, the divine law, is removed and Gog and Magog are to be set loose. Modern Islamic apocalyptic writers, holding to a literal reading, put forward various explanations for the absence of the wall from the modern world, some saying that Gog and Magog were the Mongols and that the wall is now gone, others that both the wall and Gog and Magog are present but invisible.