The description of the barrier has already been given in the Tafsīr and at the beginning of this book.
Al-Bukhārī records in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1), in a muʿallaq report, that a man said to the Prophet ﷺ, “I have seen the barrier.” He asked, “How did you find it?” The man replied, “Like a richly patterned mantle (burd muḥabbar).” [He said, “Then you have (2) truly seen it.”]
They also relate that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Rabiʿah said to Shahrbarāz, “How much was the value of your gift?” He answered, “One hundred thousand in my own land, and three million in those foreign regions.”
[The remainder of the account of the barrier]
Our teacher, the ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Dhahabī (3), recorded for this year what the author of Masālik al-Mamālik transmitted on the authority of Salām the interpreter. Al-Wāthiq bi-Amr Allāh ibn al-Muʿtaṣim had seen in a dream that the barrier had been opened, so he dispatched this Salām (4), wrote letters to the surrounding kings recommending him, and sent with him two thousand mules laden with provisions. They travelled from Sāmarrāʾ to Isḥāq in Tiflis. Isḥāq wrote on their behalf to the Ṣāḥib al-Sarīr, who wrote to the king of the Alans, who wrote to Qabalan Shāh, who in turn wrote to the king of the Khazars, and he assigned five guides (5) to accompany them. They journeyed for twenty-six days.
They reached a foul-smelling black land where they could scarcely breathe without sniffing vinegar (6). They crossed it in ten days, then arrived at ruined cities through which they travelled for twenty-seven days—cities once ravaged by Gog and Magog and desolate ever since, to this very day. Next they came to a fortress (7) near the barrier and found a people who knew both Arabic and Persian, had memorised the Qur’an, and maintained schools and mosques. The envoys marvelled at them and were asked whence they had come. They replied that they were delegates of the Commander of the Faithful, al-Wāthiq, but the people had never heard of him.
They then reached a smooth, barren mountain (8). There stood the barrier, built of blocks of iron embedded in copper. It towered so high that the eye could scarcely reach its summit and was crowned with iron battlements. In its centre was a massive gate with two leaves, tightly shut, each one hundred cubits wide, one hundred cubits high, and five cubits thick. Upon it hung a lock seven cubits long and a span in breadth. Salām mentioned many other details, and at that spot there were sentries