Dhul-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring - Part One: Difference between revisions

Dhul-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring - Part One (view source)

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 The square brackets show a 3<sup>rd</sup> instance of almashriq and almaghrib (this time singular), which is omitted in the quoted translation.
-This does not mean that Ibn Ishaq (or his source) did not believe that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached the setting and rising places of the sun. Unlike the commentators quoted above, Ibn Ishaq is not denying that Dhu’l Qarnayn did so. It literally says that there was nothing from creation behind these places, so it must mean the edges of a flat Earth, and the setting-place would be at the western edge and the rising place at the eastern edge. He even uses a different word order: mashriq then maghrib rather than maghrib then matliAA as in the Qur’an. This suggests he was simply quoting a common phrase to summarize Dhu’l Qarnayn’s adventure.
+This does not mean that Ibn Ishaq (or his source) did not believe that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached the setting and rising places of the sun. Unlike the commentators quoted above, Ibn Ishaq is not denying that Dhu’l Qarnayn did so. In the Arabic it literally says that there was nothing from creation behind these places, so it must mean the edges of a flat Earth, and the setting-place would be at the western edge and the rising place at the eastern edge. He even uses a different word order: mashriq then maghrib rather than maghrib then matliAA as in the Qur’an. This suggests he was simply quoting a common phrase to summarize Dhu’l Qarnayn’s adventure.
 Incidentally, at the beginning of the same work in a section about pre-Islamic traditions<ref>Guillaume op. cit. p.12</ref>, Ibn Ishaq quotes some lines of verse by a Yemeni king called Tubba’ who says that Dhu’l Qarnayn witnessed the sun setting in its resting place into a muddy pool. See section 6.5.1 below for a quote by al-Tabari of these same lines.