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Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance: Difference between revisions
Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance (view source)
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It has been well understood for many centuries that legendary accounts of Alexander's life began shortly after his death in 323 BC. These were popular across most of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Persia and even India and China. In the subsequent centuries after his death, the historical accounts of Alexander were largely forgotten and legendary accounts of his deeds and adventures replaced them in popular folklore. It is these legendary depictions of Alexander that would have been known in the 7<sup>th</sup> century and not the historically accurate accounts of his life. It was not until the Renaissance in the 16<sup>th</sup> century that the first historical accounts of Alexanders life were rediscovered and investigated. | It has been well understood for many centuries that legendary accounts of Alexander's life began shortly after his death in 323 BC. These were popular across most of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Persia and even India and China. In the subsequent centuries after his death, the historical accounts of Alexander were largely forgotten and legendary accounts of his deeds and adventures replaced them in popular folklore. It is these legendary depictions of Alexander that would have been known in the 7<sup>th</sup> century and not the historically accurate accounts of his life. It was not until the Renaissance in the 16<sup>th</sup> century that the first historical accounts of Alexanders life were rediscovered and investigated. | ||
===Alexander and the Water of Life=== | |||
In addition to the Dhu'l Qarnayn episode and its relationship with the Syriac Alexander legend, the immediately preceeding story about Moses in Surah al Kahf has long been noticed to derive from another story in the Alexander Romance tradition about Alexander's quest to find the water imparting immortality, featuring his cook, a dead fish that springs back to life from this water and escapes, and a wise sage. In {{Quran-range|18|60-65}}, Moses travels to the junction of the two seas with his servant, who later realises that they have left their fish behind there, which has come back to life and swam away through a passage. Moses then meets a sage who imparts wisdom to him. As Tomasso Tesei notes, "The most ancient versions of this story are found in three sources preceding or contemporaneous to the rise of Islam: the Rec. β of the Alexander Romance (fourth/fifth century), the Babylonian Talmud (Tamīd, 32a–32b), and the so-called Syriac Alexander Song (ca. 630–635)".<ref>Tomasso Tesei (2015) [https://www.almuslih.org/Library/Tesei,%20T%20-%20Some%20Cosmological%20Notions%20from%20Late%20Antiquity.pdf Some Cosmological Notions from Late Antiquity in Q 18:60–65: The Quran in Light of Its Cultural Context] Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1</ref> | |||
==Parallels to the Syriac Legend== | ==Parallels to the Syriac Legend== | ||
In 1889, the renowned scholar and philologist, Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, translated five Alexander stories from Syriac manuscripts into English. One of these stories was a legend that detailed the exploits of Alexander, the son of Philip the Macedonian, and how he traveled to the ends of the world, made a gate of iron, and shut behind it the Huns so they might not come forth to spoil the land.<ref name="Budge" /> | In 1889, the renowned scholar and philologist, Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, translated five Alexander stories from Syriac manuscripts into English. One of these stories was a legend that detailed the exploits of Alexander, the son of Philip the Macedonian, and how he traveled to the ends of the world, made a gate of iron, and shut behind it the Huns so they might not come forth to spoil the land.<ref name="Budge" /> Titled as the Neṣḥānā d-leh d-Aleksandrōs, “the victory of Alexander”, the parallels between this Syriac legend and the story of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an are detailed below. | ||
===Two Horns=== | ===Two Horns=== | ||
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===Views of Modern Scholars=== | ===Views of Modern Scholars=== | ||
Van Bladel in his book sums up the relation between the Qur'an and the | Van Bladel in his book sums up the relation between the Qur'an and the Syriac legend: | ||
{{Quote|The Alexander legend in the Qur‘an 18:83-102, p. 182| | {{Quote|The Alexander legend in the Qur‘an 18:83-102, p. 182| | ||
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As it is, the correspondences shown earlier are still so exact that it is obvious in comparison that the two texts are at least connected very closely. They relate the same story in precisely the same order of events using many of the same particular details.<ref name="VanBladel"/>}} | As it is, the correspondences shown earlier are still so exact that it is obvious in comparison that the two texts are at least connected very closely. They relate the same story in precisely the same order of events using many of the same particular details.<ref name="VanBladel"/>}} | ||
== | ==Relationship with the Syriac Legend== | ||
The parallels between the Syriac Legend and the Qur'an are quite striking | The parallels between the Syriac Legend and the Qur'an detailed above are quite striking. As to the question of dependency, Van Bladel has argued that the Syriac Legend is a direct source for the Quranic account.<ref name="VanBladel"/> Tommaso Tesei concurs with van Bladel's thesis, though allows for the possibility that they share a common source.<ref name="Tesei2013">Tommaso Tesei (2013) [https://www.academia.edu/10863446/_The_prophecy_of_%E1%B8%8E%C5%AB_l_Qarnayn_Q_18_83_102_and_the_Origins_of_the_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81nic_Corpus_Miscellanea_arabica_2013_2014_273_90 The prophecy of Dhu-l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83-102) and the Origins of the Qurʾānic Corpus] Miscellanea arabica 2013–2014: 273-90</ref> He notes that, while the final part of the legend concerns Alexander's battles with the Persian king and is an allegory of the bloody conflict between Byzantines and Sasanids with a propaganda purpose to glorify Heraclius (important in dating its final redaction), it is clear that in the rest of the story, there are indeed multiple streams of earlier elements, which it shares with the Qur'an. Crucially, these appear in the same order in both versions. Tesei argues that while this sequencing could go back to a common source, he finds it more plausible that the Syriac legend originated the particular composition, agreeing with van Bladel's argument that Alexander's journeys are intended to form the shape of a cross, and adding his own hypothesis that the story originally involved a failed attempt to reach paradise, removed in order to better glorify Heraclius. The elements pre-dating both the Qur'an and Syriac legend by many centuries including folklore found in earlier Christian and Jewish writings. Parallels to the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh and the Biblical story of Gog and Magog can be clearly identified in the story as well. | ||
===Epic of Gilgamesh=== | ===Epic of Gilgamesh=== | ||
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{{Quote|Revelation 20:7-9|When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.<ref name="NIV1">New International Version of the Bible. Zondervan 1971. [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2020&version=NIV Rev 20:7-19].</ref> }} | {{Quote|Revelation 20:7-9|When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.<ref name="NIV1">New International Version of the Bible. Zondervan 1971. [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2020&version=NIV Rev 20:7-19].</ref> }} | ||
===Prophecy about Gog and Magog=== | |||
Tesei notes that Czeglédy has argued convincingly that a 6th century ex-eventu prophecy recorded by John of Ephesus (d. 586 CE) about the invasion of the Huns/Sabirs in 514-15 CE was incorporated into the Syriac legend as its first, ex-eventu prophecy of invasion by Gog and Magog (distinct from the second ex-eventu prophecy about the Khazars around 627 CE, which extends into a failed prognostication by the author, crucial to its dating).<ref name="Tesei2013" /> It is, then, possible that this is another element that could have formed part of a common source shared by the Syriac legend and Qur'anic story. However, Tesei notes that evidence is lacking to link at that earlier time the prophecy with the tales of Gog and Magog behind Alexander's wall, which were also in circulation in the 6th century, nor yet with the other elements forming the shared sequence between the Syriac and Qur'anic stories. | |||
===Dating the Syriac Legend=== | ===Dating the Syriac Legend=== | ||
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===Dating the Qur'anic Verses=== | ===Dating the Qur'anic Verses=== | ||
According to the traditional Muslim narrative, Al-Kahf (The Cave) was generally revealed in Mecca, except verse 28 and verses 83-101 which were revealed in Medina.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://tanzil.net/pub/ebooks/History-of-Quran.pdf|title= The History of the Quran|publisher= Al-Tawheed|author= Allamah Abu Abd Allah al-Zanjani, Mahliqa Qara'i (trans.)|page=34|date= |archiveurl= |deadurl=no}}</ref> Based on this information, the story of Dhul-Qarnayn, contained in verses 83-101, would be dated to after the Hijra in June 622 CE and before Muhammed's death in June 632 CE; a more specific date is difficult to ascertain with any certainty from the Islamic narrative. Since the community of Muslims in Mecca were far from well known outside of Arabia, the possibility of their story influencing Christians in Syria is extremely remote. The Syriac work also contains no references to the Arabic phrases used in the Qur'anic account, which would be expected if the Syrian story was using that as its source.<ref name=" | According to the traditional Muslim narrative, Al-Kahf (The Cave) was generally revealed in Mecca, except verse 28 and verses 83-101 which were revealed in Medina.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://tanzil.net/pub/ebooks/History-of-Quran.pdf|title= The History of the Quran|publisher= Al-Tawheed|author= Allamah Abu Abd Allah al-Zanjani, Mahliqa Qara'i (trans.)|page=34|date= |archiveurl= |deadurl=no}}</ref> Based on this information, the story of Dhul-Qarnayn, contained in verses 83-101, would be dated to after the Hijra in June 622 CE and before Muhammed's death in June 632 CE; a more specific date is difficult to ascertain with any certainty from the Islamic narrative. Van Bladel dismisses the possibility that the Quran could be a source for the Syriac legend.<ref name="VanBladel" /> Since the community of Muslims in Mecca were far from well known outside of Arabia, the possibility of their story influencing Christians in Syria is extremely remote. The far more expansive Syriac work also contains no references to the Arabic phrases used in the Qur'anic account, which would be expected if the Syrian story was using that as its source. Tesei concurs with van Bladel's arguments here.<ref name="Tesei2013" /> | ||
===Spread of the Syriac Legend to Arabia=== | ===Spread of the Syriac Legend to Arabia=== | ||