Whoever claims that Gog and Magog were produced from a drop of Adam’s semen when he experienced a nocturnal emission—which then mixed with soil so that they were fashioned from it—and that they therefore do not descend from Eve, is merely repeating a position mentioned by Shaykh Abū Zakariyyā al-Nawawī (1) in his commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim and elsewhere. The scholars judged it weak, and rightly so, for it rests on no proof and openly contradicts what we have already cited from the Qur’an: that all people living today are from the progeny of Noah.

Likewise, the sayings that describe Gog and Magog as having wildly disparate forms and extraordinary sizes—some allegedly as tall as towering palm-trees, others extremely dwarfish, and still others said to spread one ear on the ground as a mattress and draw the other over themselves as a blanket—are all assertions made without evidence; mere conjecture about the unseen (2).

The sound view is that they are human, children of Adam, sharing the general human form and characteristics. The Prophet (ﷺ) said: “Allah created Adam sixty cubits tall… and humanity has continued to diminish in stature up to the present day.” (3) This statement provides the decisive criterion in this and similar questions.

As for the report that none of them dies until he has seen a thousand of his own descendants, if it is established by a reliable ḥadīth we will accept it; otherwise we neither affirm nor deny it, for reason allows the possibility and the transmitted texts could point in that direction—Allah knows best. In fact, a narration explicitly to that effect has been transmitted—if it is sound. Al-Ṭabarānī relates:

“ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Iṣbahānī told us; Abū Masʿūd Aḥmad ibn al-Furāt told us; Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī told us; al-Mughīrah told us, from Muslim, from Abū Isḥāq, from Wahb ibn Jābir, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, from the Prophet (ﷺ):

‘Gog and Magog are of the offspring of Adam. Were they to be released, they would ruin people’s livelihoods. No man among them dies without leaving a thousand or more descendants. And beyond them are three nations: Tāwīl, Tārīs, and Mansak.’”

This ḥadīth is extremely odd, its chain of transmission is weak, and it contains severe dissonance.

As for the report cited by Ibn Jarīr in his History (4)—that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) went to them on the Night of the Ascension, invited them to Allah, and they refused to respond, whereas the peoples called Tārīs, Tāwīl, and Mansak accepted—this is a fabricated ḥadīth concocted by Abū Naʿīm ʿUmar ibn al-Ṣubḥ (5), one of the notorious liars who openly admitted inventing traditions. Allah knows best.