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

This is part one of a two-part article providing a comprehensive survey of the different interpretations of Qur'an 18:86 and 18:90, detailing a lot of arguments and evidence not found in other discussions of the topic.

The Dhu'l Qarnayn episode in Surah al-Kahf, or “The Cave”, Quran 18:83-101, is derived from the mid-6th century Syriac Alexander Legend according to the consensus of historians. This Quranic passage says that Allah empowered a person called Dhu’l Qarnayn, “Possessor of the two horns”, and gave him means or ways to all things. He is said to have used these to reach three unusual places where people live. Regarding the first two destinations in this story, the meanings of verses 18:86 and 18:90 are a matter of considerable controversy. Critics argue that according to these verses, Dhu'l Qarnayn reached the physical locations where the sun sets and rises, and in particular found that the sun sets into a muddy spring, whereas Muslims typically propose alternative interpretations.

Translation (Yusuf Ali)

Transliteration

Part One: The destinations reached by Dhu'l Qarnayn in 18:86 and 18:90

The Dhu’l Qarnayn episode can be divided into three journeys, the first two of which are described in verses 18:86 and 18:90. In the first phrase of 18:86, Dhu’l Qarnayn travels until he reaches maghriba l-shamsi (مَغْرِبَ الشَّمْسِ), and in the first phrase of 18:90, he travels until he reaches maṭliʿa l-shamsi (مَطْلِعَ الشَّمْسِ).

Three possible interpretations of the Arabic words maghriba l-shamsi in 18:86 and maṭliʿa l-shamsi in 18:90 have been claimed:

1. The west and the east
2. The time when the sun sets and the time when the sun rises
3. The place where the sun sets and the place where the sun rises

Part one of this article surveys each of these interpretations in context. Then Part two discusses what these two verses say happened when Dhu’l Qarnayn arrived at each location and at broader questions concerning how this passage of the Qur’an was meant to be understood.

Derivation of the words maghrib and maṭliʿ

The word l-shamsi, which immediately follows the words maghriba and maṭliʿa in 18:86 and 18:90, means “of the sun”. Maghrib and maṭliʿ are nouns derived from the roots of the verbs gharaba, to set, and ṭalaʿa, to rise, respectively. They are special types of nouns meaning either the place where the action of the verb happens or the time when it happens (the place or time of the sun setting or rising). If it indicates a place, such a noun is called an ism makan. If it means a time, it is called an ism zaman. In either case, these nouns are formed by adding the ma- prefix and using a kasrah (transliterated as ‘i’) after the 2^nd letter to create the words maghrib and maṭliʿ.^[1]

The fatha, or -a suffix is added to maghrib and maṭliʿ in 18:86 and 18:90 for the accusative grammatical case to indicate that they are the objects of the verb balagha, "he reached". The definite article, al, as in al-maghrib, is missing but implied in these verses. That’s because in the genitive construction called ’idāfa (indicating possession, as in the X of Y), the definite article is implied for the first word when it is used for the genitive word, which in this case is l-shamsi, meaning “of the sun”.^[2]

First interpretation: He reached the west and east

The most common Muslim interpretation is that maghriba l-shamsi in 18:86 and maṭliʿa l-shamsi in 18:90 could be referring to the west and east such that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached the westernmost and easternmost parts of his travels in the direction of sunset and sunrise, but not literal setting and rising places of the sun.

Supporting this claim is the fact that al-maghrib is a common Arabic idiom for the west, used in this way elsewhere in the Qur’an and hadith (indeed, the Arabic name for Morocco is al-Mamlakah al-Magribiyya, commonly called al-Maghrib for short). Supporters of this interpretation also point out that it was the one given in some classical commentaries of the Qur’an.^[3]

Words used to mean the east and west in the Qur’an

Looking outside of 18:86 and 18:90, there are two ways in which the west and east are referred to in the Qur’an. Derived from the verb sharaqa (“to rise / shine”) is the word al-mashriq, which literally means the place or time of the sun’s rising / shining, and is used to mean the east in many verses in the Qur’an (this is not, however, the word used in 18:90, which is maṭliʿa). In the following verses in the Qur’an, al-maghrib is usually translated as the west or western, and al-mashriq as the east or eastern:

2:115; 2:142; 2:177; 2:258; 7:137; 26:28; 43:38; 55:17; 70:40; and 73:9.^[4]

In verses 19:16; 24:35 and 28:44, gharb (from the same root as maghrib) is used in an adjectival form to mean western or of the west and sharq (from the same root as mashriq) is used in an adjectival form to mean eastern or of the east.

The next few sections set out five major criticisms which have been made against the claim that maghriba l-shamsi in 18:86 means the west and maṭliʿa l-shamsi in 18:90 means the east.

Al-shams was not used with al-maghrib to mean the west in the Quran nor hadith

The word al-shams means “the sun”, and the -i suffix (an Arabic kasrah) in 18:86 and 18:90 is for the genitive case, which indicates possession (“of the sun”). Looking at how maghrib is used elsewhere in the Qur’an to mean west (see list above), it is always used as a stand-alone word without al-shams, in contrast to 18:86. Critics question why is l-shamsi added in 18:86 when it is not in the other instances if not to emphasize a literal meaning. Al-shams is not even used with maghrib when it means the west anywhere in the major hadith collections.^[5]

Lane’s Lexicon of classical Arabic, long regarded as authoritative and drawing on many classical Arabic dictionaries and sources, says that al-maghrib can signify the west, and also the time of sunset, but originally signified the place (or point) of sunset, as also the phrase maghriba l-shamsi.^[6] That is what the words in this phrase are used to mean in hadiths, where they explicitly mean the place where the sun physically sets. Such was a common belief at that time and region where one finds other versions of the same story (all of this evidence is detailed below in the section on the third interpretation: places where the sun sets and rises).

maṭliʿ was not used to mean the east in the Quran nor hadith

The word in 18:90, al-maṭliʿ, means “the rising place” or “the rising time” (of the sun) and is the first word in the phrase maṭliʿa l-shamsi in 18:90. Critics have noted that maṭliʿ, with or without al-shams, is not used to mean east anywhere else in the Qur’an, nor anywhere in the major hadith collections.^[5] The verb ṭalaʿa (“to rise”), from which it is derived, is not used in this connection either.

If verse 18:90 was about the east, then al-mashriq or al-sharq would likely have been used, as is always the case elsewhere when the Qur’an mentions the east. Outside 18:86, every verse in the Qur’an that uses maghrib to mean west also uses mashriq to mean east. For aesthetic reasons, the verse would then also probably replace ṭaluʿu with tashruqu in 18:90 (both mean “it rising” and are forms of the verbs from which maṭliʿ and mashriq are derived, respectively).

Furthermore, Lane’s Lexicon does not give the slightest indication that maṭliʿ, with or without l-shamsi,^[7] nor related words like ṭalaʿa^[8] can be used in an idiom meaning the east. The Lexicon is freely available online and links to cited pages are in the References below.

The only hadith^[5] where maṭliʿ might seem to be used in an idiom meaning the east is in Sahih Muslim:

Here, qibala means direction and maṭliʿi l-shamsi is translated as “of sunrise”, literally meaning the direction of the rising-place of the sun. The very next hadith is another version of the same hadith:

This version of the hadith ends with “qibala l-mashriqi”, translated, “towards the East”. As mentioned above, al-mashriq usually appears as an idiom to mean the east. This does not indicate that the two are exact synonyms, however. Even if l-mashriq means the east in Sahih Muslim 52i (rather than literally, “the rising point”, as in Qur’an 37:5 and 70:40), both the east and the imagined setting-place of the sun would be in the same direction. These hadith rather show that the directions (“qibala”) of these two things (“maṭliʿi l-shamsi” and “l-mashriq”) are interchangeable.

More explicit evidence on the meaning of maṭliʿi l-shamsi in this hadith comes a little earlier in the first version of it listed in Sahih Muslim, hadith 51. This version points towards “where emerge the two horns of Satan”, which many other hadith tell us is where the sun rises.^[9]

wajadahā refers back to the sun as a literal object

The next words after maghriba l-shamsi in 18:86 are wajadahā taghrubu, meaning “he found it setting”. Right after maṭliʿa l-shamsi in 18:90 are the words wajadahā ṭaluʿu, meaning “he found it rising”.

In both cases, wajadahā (وَجَدَهَا) means “he found it”. That “it”, the feminine -hā suffix to wajada, refers to the previous word, the sun, as the object of the verb.^[10] Thus, the words are equivalent to “he found the sun setting” and “he found the sun rising”. However, critics note that in the west and east interpretation the sun has only been mentioned as one part of an idiom for the west or the east, yet wajadahā clearly refers back to it as a literal object. In other words, the west and east interpretation would only make sense if in the next clause the sun was mentioned explicitly as a literal entity I.e. It would probably omit l-shamsi at the start of both verses, and then say, “wajada l-shamsa taghrubu…” (“he found the sun setting…”), and “wajada l-shamsa taṭluʿu…” (“he found the sun rising…”).

According to the same reasoning, neither can maghriba l-shamsi nor maṭliʿa l-shamsi in those verses be the names of nations or places (for example, the Japanese characters for Nippon (the Japanese name for Japan) means “sun origin”, and it is sometimes called The Land of the Rising Sun).

Better still, critics often argue, these verses would be worded completely differently. For them, the idea that the words in 18:86 and 18:90 are just meant as a poetic description of the west and east would entail that the author had made an extraordinarily poor choice of words since early listeners reasonably and predictably understood them to be about the literal setting and rising places of the sun (see later in the article). Serious interpretative difficulties would arise throughout the Qur’an if its words commonly (and when the context suggests) mean a particular thing, but in one place mean a different concept, for which it uses a different word everywhere else.

An extraordinary coincidence

The simplest and perhaps greatest difficulty for the west-east interpretation according to some critics is the striking combination of the two key elements in each of verses 18:86 and 18:90. Not only did Dhu’l Qarnayn reach “the setting place of the sun”, but there also he found the sun setting in a certain place. Not only did he reach “the rising place of the sun”, but there he found the sun rising in a certain way.

Thus, an extraordinary coincidence is said to be required. Under this interpretation, it just so happens that straight after the verses inform us that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached places that merely mean the west and east, but are distinctively and literally worded as the setting and rising places of the sun, the verses speak of the sun’s behaviour.

Commentators use knowledge unknown to 7th century Arabs

Finally, there are the commentators of the Qur’an. There were certainly commentators who claimed that the verses just mean that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached the west and east and viewed the appearance of the sun. Academic scholar Omar Anchassi in his paper Against Ptolemy? Cosmography in Early Kalām traces the earliest metaphorical reading of these verses to Abu Ali Al-Jubba'i (d. 915 CE).^[11]

Critics note that the reasoning of commonly cited classical commentators is based not on narrated traditions or linguistic or contextual analysis, but rather on their knowledge that the obvious interpretation describes something that is impossible. The reasoning of the commentators who are frequently cited on this topic to deny the obvious interpretation and support the west / east idiom interpretation is highlighted in bold:

The knowledge of these commentators that the obvious interpretation is impossible would not, however, be likely to have been known to Muhammad and the earliest Muslim community. This knowledge came to the Arabs after Ptolemy’s Almagest was translated into Arabic in the 8^th century CE after the Qur’an was completed. Ptolemy recorded in book five of his Almagest in the mid-2^nd century CE the discovery of Hipparchus, and of Aristarchus before him, that the sun is much larger than the earth and much more distant than the moon.^[13]

In reference to the Dhu’l Qarnayn episode and other tales in the Qur’an, Professor Kevin Van Bladel says:

David A. King writes:

Contemporary Muslim and non-Muslim sources demonstrate that in the early Islamic era before the translation and study of Indian and Greek astronomy under the Abbasid Caliphate, there was a widespread popular belief in the region that the world is flat and that the sun had literal rising and setting places (see below). The above commentaries are attempts to make the verses fit scientific knowledge acquired later, not evidence that the verses have those intended meanings or were originally understood in that way.

Some observe that the commentators not only give the invented interpretation, but they also have to deny the literal setting and rising places interpretation (or for al-Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir, a caricature of it), thus confirming that the place where the sun sets on Earth was the interpretation that had been understood by Muslims before scientific knowledge was acquired later.

It is worth briefly discussing the passage relating to Dhu’l Qarnayn in Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Messenger of God) by Ibn Ishaq (died mid 8^th century CE and was the first biographer of Muhammad), which survives in a copied and edited version by Ibn Hisham (died 833 CE). It contains a tradition concerning the occasion Sura al-kahf was revealed. Muhammad’s enemies are said to have challenged him to tell them about “the mighty traveler who reached the confines of both East and West. ” literally, “the easts of the Earth and the wests of it”^[16] (…mashāriqa l-arḍi wamaghāribahā…).^[17]

The same Arabic phrase occurs again shortly afterwards in this passage:

The square brackets show a 3^rd instance of l-mashriq and l-maghrib (this time singular), which is omitted in the quoted translation.

Unlike the commentators quoted above, Ibn Ishaq here neither affirms nor denies that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached the setting and rising places of the sun and simply uses the general words for east and west. However, in the Arabic it also says literally that there was nothing from creation behind these places, which seems to imply the edges of a flat Earth. The setting-place would be at the western edge and the rising place at the eastern edge. Interestingly, he uses a different word order: mashriq then maghrib rather than maghrib then maṭliʿ as in the Qur’an. This could suggest 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^[19], Ibn Ishaq quotes some lines of poetic verse which say that Dhu’l Qarnayn "witnessed the setting of the sun in its resting place into a pool of black and foetid slime". See the end of the section on hadith below for a full quote by al-Tabari of these same lines.

Second interpretation: He reached [a place at] the time of sunset and sunrise or he reached those times

Zakir Naik, a prominent Muslim public speaker, claims that “balagha maghriba l-shamsi” means “he reached at the time of sunset”,^[20] and another interpretation appears on Osama Abdallah’s website, that it means “he reached the time of sunset”.^[21] In support of the time interpretation is the fact that both maghrib and maṭliʿ can be used as an ism zaman (a noun to indicate the time that a verb happens). Maghrib is not used as an ism zaman anywhere in the Qur’an, but outside the Qur’an, al-maghrib is the name given to the prayer that takes place at the time of sunset (one of the 5 daily prayers for Muslims). The phrase maghriba l-shamsi is also used to mean the time of sunset in two hadith, each with two versions (maghrib has an “-i” suffix here as it follows a preposition):

The other version of this hadith is Sahih Bukhari 5021.

Sahih Muslim has the following:

There is one example in the Qur’an where maṭliʿ is used as an ism zaman. Verse 97:5 has, hattā maṭlaʿi l-fajri (“until the rise of morn”).

There is nowhere in the Qur’an where the words maṭliʿa l-shamsi are used to mean the time of sunrise. Nor are they used with this meaning in the major hadith collections.^[5] Many other criticisms of this interpretation have been made. Discussed next are those that apply to it in general and then those specific to Zakir Naik’s and Osama Abdallah’s interpretations.

Idhā and balagha

In the above examples ḥattā, “until”, is used without idhā, “when”, and without balagha, “he/it reached”. Critics of the time interpretation have argued that there is no need for idhā or balagha in verses 18:86 or 18:90 either if they mean that Dhu’l Qarnayn followed a way until the time of sunset/sunrise.

Contextual issues

Various contextual issues with this interpretation have also been noted. Verse 18:84 has Allah giving Dhu’l Qarnayn “min kulli shayin sababan”, which in the word-for-word translation says, “of everything a means”. The word sababan is used again in the next verse, “ fa-atbaʿa sababan”, word-for-word translation, “So he followed a course”. The word fa (prefixed to atbaʿa) means “And so” or “thus”, clearly in reference to the preceding phrase.

Allah is said to have given Dhu’l Qarnayn a course/way/road to everything, yet does not then state anything about the physical locations of the peoples he visited that made this a remarkable achievement in the time interpretation.

A similar issue raised is that verses 18:86 and 18:90 seem to be explaining the reason why Dhu’l Qarnayn followed the ways mentioned in the previous verses. It could be argued that the purpose of each journey was to find a people, but the locations reached in each verse seem to suggest that the intention related to the sun and that this unexpectedly resulted in the discovery of some people. He would be traveling distances in order to reach the times of sunset and sunrise, which seems rather pointless.

A related argument is that if he just followed a way until the time when the sun sets rather than until he reached the place where the sun sets, there is no reason to then describe what he found the sun to be doing.

Verses 92-93 use the exact same wording as 85-86 and 89-90 to mean reaching a location

A highly significant contextual evidence is that verses 18:92 – 93 use exactly the same introductory phrase:

The next two words are bayna l-sadayni (“between two mountains”), clearly describing the location reached, and each of the three journeys of Dhu’l Qarnayn begins with the same phrase. Critics of the interpretation question why the exact same phrase would be used to say that he reached a time or an unstated location at a time in the first two instances, but explicitly a location in the third.

Wording used elsewhere when the time of sunset is meant

In the Qur’an, there are three verses that mention the times when the sun rises and sets (and three more that just mention the time of sunrise – those will also be shown below). The verbs gharaba, used in 18:86 in the form “taghrubu”, “it set”, and taṭluʿa, used in 18:90 in the form taṭluʿu, “it rise” are used for this purpose in those three verses (in a noun form of the verbs in the latter two cases) along with a time adverb, “when”, or “before”.

Critics of the interpretation have suggested that verses 18:86 and 18:90 could have simply followed this pattern if they were meant to express the time of sunset and sunrise, saying that he followed a way “until when the sun set” (ḥattā idhā gharabat l-shamsu) and “until when the sun rose” (ḥattā idhā ṭalaʿat l-shamsu), similar to 18:17. Alternatively, he followed a way “til the setting of the sun” (ilā ghurūbi l-shamsi) and “til the rising of the sun” (ilā ṭulūʿi l-shamsi), similar to 50:39 and 20:130.

Similar phrases are used many times in the hadith. For example:

The other way that the time of sunrise is referred to in the Qur’an uses the verb sharaqa, “to rise” in the form of an active participle or verbal noun as in the following verses:

If the Qur’an in 18:90 meant the time of sunrise, a typical option would have been the formulation similar to these using a derivative of ashraqa or using taṭluʿat / ṭulūʿi as in the other 3 verses.

Interpretation that it means he reached [a place at] the setting and rising time of the sun

As well as the criticisms above, there are some specific to Zakir Naik’s claim that the relevant words mean “until when he reached at the time of sunset, he found it…”. The verb balagha is always transitive when it means to reach, and always has an explicit object elsewhere in the Qur’an, but in Naik’s interpretation, balagha is used as an intransitive verb, which even if it was technically allowed, would make no sense here. It is allowed in Arabic for the object (maf’ul bihi) of a transitive verb to be omitted (mahdhuf), but only if the object has already been mentioned, since otherwise the sentence would make no sense.^[22] That is not the case here, so the reader wouldn’t know what Dhu’l Qarnayn reached and the sentence would make no sense.

As noted at the beginning of this article, maghriba and maṭliʿa have the accusative case ending because they are the objects of the verb balagha ("he reached"). If however maghriba l-shamsi and maṭliʿa l-shamsi are not the things reached, but instead are redundantly stating the time of day (redundant because it mentions the sun setting/rising immediately afterwards), they would interrupt the flow of the sentence before it continues with the wajadahā phrase (“he found it…”). For this reason Naik's interpretation has been frowned upon by native Arabic speakers.

Balagha interpreted to mean that a person reached the time of an external event

It would be very unusual for balagha to be used to mean someone reaching a time of day in Arabic, and it is not used in that way in the Qur’an. Various verses have been used by Osama Abdallah to support the claim that balagha (بَلَغَ), translated “he reached”, means that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached the time of sunset in 18:86 and reached the time of sunrise in 18:90.^[21] As well as reaching a location, balagha can mean reaching an age or milestone in one’s life. It is used in this way in the following verses (“old age”; “marriageable age”; “his full strength”; “puberty”; “work with his father”; “forty years”):

3:40; 4:6; 6:152; 12:22; 17:23; 17:34; 18:82; 19:8; 22:5; 24:58-59; 28:14; 37:102; 40:67; 46:15

Critics counter the interpretation that Dhu'l Qarnayn reached certain times of day in a number of ways: Age is an attribute of a person, who is reaching a point on the human age scale. There is also a clear difference between saying that a man has reached 40 years (a personal duration - the sun has been orbited 40 times since his birth) and saying that he has reached a particular year or time of day, which is not a measurement of duration from a personal milestone.

The setting time of the sun is a point that the sun (or time of day at a particular location) can appear to reach on the daily cycle at that location. Dhu’l Qarnayn, who is doing the reaching in 18:86 and 18:90, does not have a personal attribute that can be described in those terms. Balagha is not used in the Qur’an to describe the time that a person is experiencing in terms of the time when an external event occurs rather than a personal milestone. Perhaps the sun can be said to “balagha” its setting time (or to be precise, “balaghat” – this interpretation is examined further below), but it would be very unusual to say that Dhu’l Qarnayn did so.

Other examples of balagha

In verse 68:39, balagha is used in reference to a covenant “reaching till the day of judgement”, bālighatun ilā yawmi l-qiyāmati (ilā means “till” or “to”). One could also speak of a covenant “reaching till the time of sunset”, bālighatun ilā maghribi. However, in these cases balagha has a different meaning to the examples above. Here it refers to the valid duration of the covenant. It always had this duration from the moment it was defined. It always could be said to reach till the day of judgement. Perhaps, when the day of judgement happened it could also be said that the covenant had “reached the day of judgement”, balagha yawma l-qiyāmati. Here it would mean that the covenant had now reached that point on its duration attribute, which can be described in terms of external events. Dhu’l Qarnayn is not like a covenant, as a person has no such attribute (a person’s age is described in terms of personal events and milestones, as noted above). He could not be described as a man reaching until the day of his death or until sunset.

There are some other verses (2:231-232; 2:234-235; 6:128; 7:135; 40:67; 65:2) where balagha is used to refer, in the word-for-word translation, to widows reaching “their term” (ajalahuna), “a prescribed term its end” (l-kitābu ajalahu), evil doers reaching “our term which you appointed for us” (ajalanā alladhī ajjalta lanā), the people of Pharaoh reaching “a term” (ajalin), or the listener addressed by the Qur’an reaching “a term specified” (ajalan musamman). In these verses, ajala means a term or period of duration.^[23]

They have the same meaning of balagha as in 46:15 mentioned above (“forty years”, arbaʿīna sanatan) where it refers to a period of duration. In these verses the attribute of the person or people or prescribed term is the quantity of time that has passed since the period began and the point that they reach is “the term” or “its end”. As with the age examples, they are not referring to the time of an external event that someone one other than those described as doing the reaching could also reach. Only the widows could be said to reach their term. No one other than Pharaoh’s people could be said to reach the term mentioned in 7:135. Most people reach marriageable age, but on the day when a specific woman reached marriageable age, it could not be said (in English or Arabic) that this is something that other people reached on that same day just because they were alive at the time when it happened to her. It was a personal event.

The above surveys how balagha may be used in reference to an event in time. In contrast, the time interpretation of 18:86 and 18:90 requires balagha to mean that Dhu’l Qarnayn reached the time of an external event, not a personal event. Lane’s lexicon provides further information, defining balagha thus:

Here and in the usage of balagha in the Qur’an, even when it is used in reference to a time, that time is distinguished as one that is reached (unlike any other time) because something is intended for that time (e.g. widows can remarry after waiting their term, a righteous man prays for gratitude when he is 40 years old etc.). Critics often argue that the wajada phrases suggest that Dhu’l Qarnayn’s intention for his reaching would have been to find out what the sunset and sunrise looked like, whereas a person needn’t follow a road to reach the time of sunset.

Interpretation that balagha means “it reached”

An alternative version of the time interpretation also appears in Abdallah's article on this topic when he attempts to use the following argument from common usage:

To apply this argument, balagha in 18:86, which has the masculine 3rd person singular perfect tense suffix, -a, meaning he/it,^[24] would have to mean “it reached”(where “it” refers to the sun) rather than “he reached”, referring to Dhu’l Qarnayn mentioned earlier. This is not grammatically possible for two reasons.

Firstly, the words following balagha, “maghriba l-shamsi” (“the setting place/time of the sun”), can only be the object of the verb balagha. It is not grammatically possible that the sun is the subject of balagha since it only appears as part of a genitive construction (called ’idāfa) with maghriba, which has the accusative case ending (indicating the object of the transitive verb, balagha). If balagha meant “it reached”, where “it” meant the sun, the verse would be grammatically incomplete since there would be no referent to which “it” refers.^[25] The same grammatical problem would also occur in 18:90. Note also that in Arabic, the word balagha cannot implicitly refer to the time of day as the subject. One cannot just say, “balagha l-maghriba”, meaning “It reached sunset” (i.e. that the time of day had advanced to sunset), as someone might occasionally say in English.

Secondly, l-shamsu is a feminine noun, so verbs must use the feminine gender when the sun is their subject.^[26] This is seen also in the next parts of the verses, which use the feminine 3rd person singular imperfect tense prefix, ta-, in words referring to the sun, taghrubu (“it/her set”) in 18:86, and taṭluʿu (“it/her rise”) in 18:90.^[27] Balagha, as noted above, uses the masculine suffix, -a (called fatha in Arabic), rather than the feminine suffix –at, so it cannot refer to the same subject (the sun) as taghrubu and taṭluʿu do. Dhu’l Qarnayn must be the subject of balagha.

An interpretation invented in modern times

Nowhere in the Qur’an nor in the hadith^[5] is there a phrase where al-shams or maghrib or maṭliʿ are used with balagha to describe reaching a time. Thus the time interpretation requires a very unusual, perhaps unique, and certainly misleading phrase usage according to its critics considering the above context. No classical commentators took this interpretation for 18:86 or 18:90, which did not arise for centuries. Of the most popular Muslim translators of the Qur’an into English (A.Y. Ali, M. al-Hilali and M. Khan, M. Ali, M.H. Shakir, M. Asad, M. Pickthall and many others), none of them use the time interpretation.^[28] At most they use the non-committal phrase, “he reached the setting of the sun”.

Third interpretation: He reached the places where the sun sets and rises

Similar word usage in the Qur’an

Firstly, as noted at the beginning, al-maghrib and al-maṭliʿ can each be used as an ism makan (a noun referring to the place of the action of the verb from whose root it is derived). This indeed is how maghriba l-shamsi and maṭliʿa l-shamsi are translated by the Muslim translators M. Khan / M. al-Hilali (“the setting place of the sun”, “the rising place of the sun”), M. Ali (“the setting-place of the sun”, “the (land of) the rising sun”), M. Pickthall and M.S. Ali (“the setting-place of the sun”, “the rising-place of the sun”), M.H. Shakir (“the place where the sun set”, “the land of the rising of the sun”), and others.^[28]

In 55:17 and 70:40 mentioned above, which are the only other verses in the Qur’an that refer to the place of sunset (depending on translation), maghrib is used (although without l-shamsi). Maṭliʿ is not used elsewhere in the Qur’an to mean the place of sunrise (37:5, 55:17 and 70:40 are the only other possible references to the place of sunrise and mashriq is used there). On the other hand, gharaba (from which root maghrib is derived) and taṭlaʿa (from which root maṭliʿ is derived) are used later in 18:86 and 18:90 to mean setting and rising with a place preposition (fī, meaning “in” and ʿalā, meaning “on”).

These words mean the setting and rising places in the hadith

Far more significantly, the words used in 18:86 and 18:90 are also used in hadith that concern the behaviour of the sun. Proponents of this view use them simply as contemporary evidence of how Arabic words and phrases were used without assuming that these are historically accurate reports of Muhammad.

The hadith below that refer to the setting or rising place of the sun use maghrib or maṭliʿ followed by the suffix –hā (meaning “of it” or “its”) or –ki (meaning “your”) in reference to l-shamsu, “the sun”, mentioned earlier in those hadith. They are thus equivalent to maghriba l-shamsi and maṭliʿa l-shamsi.

Numerous hadith relating to the end of the world use these phrases. For example:

Similarly, Sahih Muslim has the following:

The next hadith has, even more significantly:

Here, mina maṭliʿihā is translated literally as “from its rising place”, mina maghribiki as “from the place of your setting” (critics here note that the sun is commanded to go somewhere and hence is not an idiomatic way of commanding the Earth to rotate), and mina maghribihā as “from the place of its setting”, all in reference to l-shamsu, “the sun”. Maghribihā and maghribiki can only mean the sun’s setting-place (“from the west” would have been mina l-maghribi).

There is some inconsistency about the way the English translators of Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari translate maghribihā (its setting place) in other versions of the same hadith, often translating it as "the west". See the footnote for further details.^[29]

Finally, there are examples of maṭliʿa l-shamsi meaning the rising-place of the sun in Sahih Muslim 52h discussed above) and in Sunan al-Nasa'i, which has the phrase:

A literal translation would be “Bilal said, 'I will'. So he faced the rising-place of the sun…”^[30]

It describes how Bilal volunteered to stay up to make sure the dawn prayer was not missed. He faced the rising place of the sun, and they awoke when the sun shone on them. It is similar to Sahih Muslim 680a.

Another example is found in a hadith in Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, which says that faith in Allah alone, then jihad, then hajj are as preferable to other work as the distance between the rising place of the sun to the setting place of it (“kamā bayna maṭlaʿi l-shamsi ilā maghribihā”).^[31]

Proponents observe from such evidence that whenever maṭliʿ and maghrib are followed by l-shamsi (or indirectly as when l-shamsu is the referent of maṭliʿihā and maghribihā in the hadith), then the phrases mean the rising place of the sun and the setting place (or occasionally setting time, but maybe not rising time) of the sun. Probably l-shamsi is added to maghrib to avoid the ambiguity that would arise if just al-maghrib without l-shamsi is used, since the latter can be an idiom for the west.

Balagha in this interpretation

There are numerous examples of balagha meaning to reach a location in the Qur’an and the hadith. It is worthwhile highlighting some important examples in this context.

Of most importance are verses 18:92 – 93 discussed above. These have the exact same phrase as in 18:85-86 and 18:89-90, fa-atbaʿa sababan ḥattā idhā balagha (“Then followed he (another) way, until when he reached”), used there to describe reaching a place.

Immediately preceding the passage about Dhu’l Qarnayn is one about Moses:

There are at least four other examples of balagha meaning to reach a location in the Qur’an (6:19; 13:14; 16:7; 48:25;) and far more in the hadith, which contain a lot of brief historical narratives from Muhammad’s lifetime.

Finally, it was noted above that balagha implies an intention. Finding the setting and rising places of the sun would be suitably remarkable intentions for Dhu'l Qarnayn to follow the roads / ways provided by Allah, according to proponents.

Contextual support

For its supporters, this interpretation explains the purpose of the second phrase in verse 18:84 discussed above ("We gave him the ways and the means to all ends") because reaching the setting and rising places of the sun would be an extraordinary feat and the desire to relate it to Allah is understandable.

Lane’s Lexicon indicates that a sabab (which Dhu’l Qarnayn follows to reach his destinations and is translated way / means / road in 18:84, 18:85, 18:89, and 18:92) is a means to an end:

It is also worth mentioning that Kevin Van Bladel has written some interesting things about what may be the cosmographic meaning of this word.^[32][33]

Proponents also note that mentioning that Dhu’l Qarnayn found the sun setting in a spring also makes sense if he was at the place where it sets. Otherwise it could have just said that he found a people by a spring without mentioning the sun. Similarly, mentioning the people in 18:90 only in terms of how the sun affects them fits the rising place interpretation perfectly.

Compatibility with contemporary beliefs

There are some explicit statements in the hadith about the sun. Regardless of whether or not these hadith authentically reflect Muhammad's utterances, they do at least show some of the contemporary beliefs of the early Muslims, which may help one judge the likelihood that Muhammad could have believed and intended a literal interpretation of 18:86 and 18:90. Later below are presented some early commentaries, early-Islamic poetry and a highly significant contemporary legend.

It’s worth noting beforehand that in the same article just mentioned^[34], Van Bladel describes how Christian theologians in the region of Syria in the sixth century CE shared the view that the Earth was flat and the sky or heaven was like a tent above the Earth, based on their reading of the Hebrew scriptures. This was a rival view to that of the churchmen of Alexandria who supported the Ptolemaic view of a spherical Earth surrounded by celestial spheres. He says, “Clearly the Ptolemaic cosmology was not taken for granted in the Aramaean part of Asia in the sixth century. It was, rather, controversial.”

Hadith

Some of the hadith that describe the sun having setting and rising places which it goes into and comes out from were already shown above. The following hadith is graded Sahih (authentic) by Dar-us-Salam (Hafiz Zubair 'Ali Za'i) and has a chain of narration graded as Sahih by al-Albani. It is from Sunan Abu Dawud, book XXV - Kitab Al-Ahruf Wa Al-Qira’at (Book of Dialects and Readings Of The Qur’an):

There is also another version of the hadith in Musnad Ahmad (this time the spring is muddy rather than warm - the Arabic words sound similar and the same variant readings exist for Qur’an verse 18:86). The same hadith is also recorded by al-Zamakhshari (1075-1143 CE) in his commentary on the Qur’an, al-Kashshaf.^[37] Regardless of whether this is an authentic report about Muhammad, for proponents it is at least further evidence that early Muslims understood 18:86 to mean a literal setting place, and the possibility that Muhammad ever claimed a different interpretation thus further diminishes.

There are also numerous sahih hadith that state that the sun rises and sets between the horns of Satan, for example:

These imply a belief that there were locations where the sun sets and rises. There are a few versions of the hadith below, which implies a bounded, flat Earth belief:

The following hadith (also found in Sahih Muslim 1747) demonstrates a belief that the sun actually moves through the sky each day:

As S. Shamoun and J. Katz point out,^[38] Al-Tabari (839-923 CE) gives a lengthy hadith in the first volume of his History of the Prophets and Kings, which claims that Ibn ’Abbas gave an account of what Muhammad said about the sun and moon and the setting and rising places. Their quote has been verified in a library copy of Franz Rozenthal’s translation of this hadith for the purposes of this article. Whether or not Muhammad said the things attributed to him here (or said anything similar), this hadith demonstrates a belief in literal rising and setting places among the early Muslims.

The hadith continues with a description of an angel who releases parts of a veil of darkness each night, and how the sun and moon will behave at the end of the world.

In volume 5 of the same work, al-Tabari quotes some lines of verse attributed to a Yemeni king, Tubba’ (though seem to be post-Islamic):

Tafsir (Commentaries on the Quran by Islamic scholars)

The earliest surviving authentically attributed tafsir, Tafsir Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d. 767 CE), i.e. who lived closer to the time of Muhammad than any other scholar quotes the companion Ibn ‘Abbas on a change the sun undergoes when it sets and rises in the context of this passage.

Shamoun and Katz quote al-Tabari’s commentary (tafsir) on the Qur’an, in which he says at the beginning of his commentary on 18:86:

The end of the 3^rd and 2^nd from last sentences literally say, “In other words: it sets in a spring of muddy water” and, “That is to say that it sets in a spring of hot water”. Al-Tabari does not say wajada (“he found”) in these sentences. His ensuing discussion reports the uncertainty as to which Arabic word was used to describe the spring (muddy or hot), incidentally revealing that the sun setting in some kind of spring was understood literally. These variant readings continue to be recited today, and translators take different choices between muddy, hot, or both.

Al-Tabari continues the same passage giving reports concerning the different interpretations of ḥamiʾatin. He even gives some from Ibn ‘Abbas, such as:

The phrase reported of Ibn ‘Abbas is word for word, “And he said mud black, it sets in it, the sun”). Abu Salih, another companion of Ibn ‘Abbas, made a very similar report narrated through another chain recorded by al-Farra (d. 822 CE) in his Ma'ani al-Qur'an regarding this verse:

Al-Tabari's commentary for the 18:86 includes yet further reports such that Ibn ‘Abbas and another companion disagreed on whether the spring was hot or muddy. They sent to Ka'b al-Ahbar, who according to various accounts said, "As for the sun, it becomes hidden in tha'at" (which al-Tabari defines as mud), or he said, "It becomes hidden in black mud". For another translation of al-Tabari's tafsir for 18:86 in full, see here.

Al-Tabari’s commentary thus reveals that it was understood by early Muslim communities that 18:86 meant that the sun actually sets in a spring (which would also imply that they understood the verse to say that Dhul Qarnayn reached the place where the sun sets).

Shamoun quotes from al-Baydawi’s commentary on the Quran, The Secrets of Revelation and The Secrets of Interpretation (Asrar ut-tanzil wa Asrar ut-ta’wil; 13th century CE) in which he gives this among various interpretations for 36:38:38:

Tanwir al-Miqbas Tafsir Ibn ‘Abbas attributed to the prophet's cousin Ibn Abbas, though in reality is by an unknown author(s) at a later date has for 18:86:

Tafsir al-Thalabi (also known as Al-Kashf wa-l-bayān; 11th century CE) reports the following view from Abu al-Aliya (d. 93 H) for verse 18:86:

This narration is recorded even earlier in one of the oldest hadith books, Sunan Sa'id ibn Mansur (d. 227 H), hadith number 1359. Each narrator in the isnad (chain of transmission) is of very high repute among hadith scholars.^[47]

The views reported in these commentaries understand these verses to mean literal setting and rising places (most early commentators include no opinion). Hadiths and commentaries reveal that there was interest in what happens to the sun when it is beyond view. There is no evidence of Muhammad ever giving an alternative interpretation.

A close similarity with the Syriac legend about Alexander the Great

It has been known since 1890 thanks to Theodore Nöldeke that there is a very close similarity between the account in the Qur’an of Dhu’l Qarnayn and the Alexander Legend. This was written by a Syriac Christian in the mid-6th century CE (with a small interpolation inserted around 629-630 CE), but incorporates older traditions such as that of the iron gate built by Alexander to enclose Magog dating to at least the time of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the 1^st century CE^[48] and journeys to the rising and setting place of the sun from the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[49]

It is part of a larger collection of legends about Alexander the Great known as the Alexander Romance. The Alexander Legend begins with Alexander expressing his desire to explore the ends of the Earth. It then has Alexander saying that God has given him horns on his head and he asks for power over other kingdoms. After collecting seven thousand iron and brass workers from Egypt, he goes to the fetid sea at the end of the Earth. He makes some evildoers go to the shore of the fetid sea, and they die. He and his men go to the window of heaven into which the sun sets between the fetid sea and a bright sea (although it does not say that the sun actually sets into this sea). The place where the sun rises is over the sea and the people who live there must flee from it and hide in the sea. The story then describes how the sun^[50] prostrates before God and travels through the heavens at night to the place where the sun rises. He then visits some mountains and the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Next it has Alexander coming to some people who tell him about the Huns within the Northern mountains (Gog, Magog and other kings are listed). He offers to build an iron and brass gate to close up the breach between the mountains, does so and prophesises that God will destroy the gate at the end of the world and the Huns will go forth through it. Next there is a battle with the Persians and their allies after they were told of his gate. It then ends with Alexander worshiping in Jerusalem and his death in Alexandria.^[51]

Kevin Van Bladel sums up the correspondence with the Qur’an passage in his recent article:

It is often denied by modern Muslims that Dhu’l Qarnayn is meant to be Alexander because it is now known that he was not a monotheist. However, it is often noted that in the Alexander Legend and other sources he was widely believed in Muhammad’s time and region to have been pious and to have worshipped the God of Abraham. In this sense the Qur’anic story derives from his mythical legend rather than the historical Alexander.

Whatever the historical relationship between these texts^[53] and whether or not Dhu’l Qarnayn is meant to be Alexander the Great, the setting and rising places interpretation of 18:86 and 18:90 was entirely compatible with contemporary beliefs in the region. Verse 18:83 moreover indicates that what follows was supposed to relate to an already known story (“They ask thee concerning Zul-qarnain”).

Early Muslim poetry

Stories influenced by the Alexander legends appear in Arabic poetry around the time of Muhammad. Richard Stoneman says, “the poet Imru’ l-Qays (Diwan 158) referred to a Yemeni hero who undertook a similar campaign against Gog and Magog. … In addition, the pre-Islamic poet al-’Asha and the contemporary of Muhammad Hassan ibn Thabit both composed verses referring to the conquest of Gog and Magog and the furthest east by Dhu ’l-Qarnayn.”^[54]

Those lines attributed to Imru’ l-Qays (died c. 540 CE) are most likely post-Islamic,^[55] though clearly mention the literal rising of the sun:

The lines attributed to Hāssan b. Thābit, a poet who for a time was employed by Muhammad himself, appropriate elements of the Alexander Legend to a king in the line of Himyar (called Tubba‘ by the Muslims):

A literal setting in a spring is mentioned (in the Arabic those lines are literally, “he followed the sun nearby its sunset to observe it in its spring while lowly”).^[58] See also the poem at the end of the Hadith section above for another example quoted by Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari ("He witnessed the setting of the sun in its resting place into a pool of black and foetid slime"). These poems are only known from Islamic sources, and it is likely that they were composed or edited after Muhammad’s death. Even so, these too demonstrate how the story was understood in the early Islamic era.

Arguments against this interpretation

Places on the horizon behind which the sun appears to set and rise

Before getting into specific arguments that people have raised against the ism makan (setting/rising place) interpretation, it is worth briefly looking at some subtly different ways of interpreting the phrases maghriba l-shamsi and maṭliʿa l-shamsi.

The root word from which maghrib is derived is gharaba, meaning “to set” in the context of the sun. This word also means “to go away” such that something can no longer be seen.^[59] Thus one might argue that maghriba l-shamsi is the area of land on the horizon, from Dhu’l Qarnayn’s perspective, behind which the sun disappears at sunset. maṭliʿ is derived from taṭlaʿa, meaning “to rise”^[60] in the context of the sun. Thus some might similarly propose that maṭliʿa l-shamsi could have meant the place on the horizon that the sun rises from behind.

The first criticism which has been raised against such an explanation is that there are no single places on the Earth behind which the sun seems to set and rise, but rather it depends on the observer’s location. It would be a moving target unless one supposes that maghriba l-shamsi means the point on the horizon that the sun disappeared behind from the perspective of Dhu’l Qarnayn’s starting position. Such a reading would read quite a lot into the text and make no sense given the context as there would be no reason to follow a special road / way to get there, nor to mention the sun setting, now hidden by a 2^nd horizon. Another issue raised is that if maghriba means the disappearing place or the place where the sun goes away, it is questionable that one would describe a place on the horizon as the place where a much more distant object disappears. More naturally, the place where something disappears would be in the same location as the thing that is disappearing. An ism makan, after all, is the place where an action occurs. Since the Earth’s rotation hides the sun from a location-specific viewpoint, a literal horizon interpretation doesn’t work as an ism makan, but a specific place that the sun literally sets into does work. A similar set of arguments is applied to maṭliʿa.

Neither can these words be successfully interpreted as simply places which the sun sets or rises on as the Earth revolves, according to critics. Anywhere outdoors is such a place. The same place would also simultaneously be a setting and rising place of the sun. There is no evidence in the Qur’an, hadith or Lane’s Lexicon that maghriba l-shamsi and maṭliʿa l-shamsi had any of these meanings.

Critics also reject any notion that the words here could mean the apparent directions towards the horizon where the sun appears to set and rise when viewed from a particular location since they are not places (i.e. how could Dhu’l Qarnayn reach them?), and such interpretations lack supporting evidence.

Other verses in the Qur’an – the sun’s rounded course

It would be too lengthy to discuss here the controversy over whether or not the Qur’an says or implies that the Earth is flat / egg-shaped / some other shape, that it is stationary or rotates on its axis and that it supports a geocentric or heliocentric solar system. However, there is a phrase that occurs in the Qur’an twice and is of direct relevance here. It is sometimes used to suggest that 18:86 and 18:90 cannot mean literal setting and rising places of the sun.

Both verses end with kullun fī falakin yasbaḥūna (literally, “all in a rounded course floating/swimming”).

If this phrase meant to say that the sun moves in a circle around the galactic center or around the Earth, then some argue that it would apparently preclude the existence of setting and rising places. Tafsir Ibn kathir comments on 36:40:

However, Ibn Kathir comments on verse 31:29 that Ibn 'Abbas also said that the sun runs in the sky / heaven (fī l-samāi) in its rounded course (falakhā) during the day, and when it sets it runs at night (bi-al-layli - omitted in the translation) in its falak beneath the Earth until it rises from its rising point (ḥattā taṭluʿa min mashriqihā):

In the hadith given by al-Tabari quoted earlier, the sun circling the sky above a flat Earth and setting and rising in springs was believed to be compatible with the “falakin” phrase in the Qur’an:

Thus, proponents argue, no conflict was seen between the falakin phrase in the Qur’an and the setting and rising places interpretation for 18:86 and 18:90.

It is worth noting in any case that falak does not necessarily mean a sphere. Arabs would have understood the phrase to mean a hemisphere, according to Lane’s Lexicon entry for al falak:

Another argument is made by Mahir Karaosmanovic.^[64] He quotes the following hadith in Tasfir Ibn Kathir when it comments on verse 36:38 to claim that the verse conflicts with a daily setting and rising event.

This is given by Ibn Kathir as an alternative view to the one expressed in the hadith that have the sun prostrating under Allah’s throne each night, which is the “destination” referred to in the commentary. The commentary then cites the following verse to support this view:

The Arabic word dāibayni is translated as the phrase “both diligently pursuing their courses”. This does not actually conflict with the setting and rising place interpretation according to its proponents since the commentators and other hadith quoted above showed a belief that the sun keeps moving after passing through its setting place (springs in al-Tabari’s History) and into heaven (or according to the Ibn ‘Abbas hadith quoted above, under the earth, or along an underground spring according to Abu al-Aliya in al-Thalabi's tafsir also quoted above) and continues back to its rising place. Unlike the hadith, the Qur’an does not mention the sun stopping to prostrate (even in the hadiths, that seems to be a stage of its daily course which happens reliably every day until judgement day). Either view is compatible with the setting and rising places interpretation of 18:86 and 18:90.

Another possible explanation is that these verses are not consistent with a single cosmology. Ibn Ishaq’s Sirah tells us that the question about Dhu’l Qarnayn and other stories in Surah al-Kahf was asked by Jews to test Muhammad’s claim of prophetic knowledge (though some academic scholars suggest the questioners in Surah al-Kahf were Christians). If, per this tradition and verse 83, Muhammad was challenged to give a recitation about Dhu’l Qarnayn, any need for it to neatly fit existing verses may have been of less importance. The already known story of the great traveler had Dhu’l Qarnayn reaching these places, so Muhammad's version had to do so as well in order to pass the test of the questioners, some argue. Various verses have been used to argue that the Quranic story was nevertheless meant to be understood as recounting historical events (see part two of this article).

Multiple setting and rising places

The Earth's tilt causes the apparent places of the sun's setting and rising to shift back and forth along the horizon during the course of a year. A flat Earth believer might imagine there were many places where the sun sets and rises (see above for the set of springs or places the commentators mention), but 18:86 and 18:90 only refer to one of each. The plurals l-maghārib and l-mashāriq in 37:5, 55:17 and 70:40 are usually translated as the easts and wests (or in 55:17, the two easts and the two wests). As noted earlier however, other translations have here the points of sunrise and sunset or explanatory notes to that effect. The commentators say that these verses are referring to the points from which the sun rises and sets from the Summer to Winter solstices. See for example Tafsir Ibn Kathir,^[65] Tafsir al-Jalalayn,^[66] Tafsir al-Tabari,^[67] and Tafsir Ibn ‘Abbas.^[68] This is open to interpretation as points on the horizon (from a flat earth perspective) or actual setting and rising places (though they are not mutually exclusive).

Hadith were quoted above referring to “the rising place”, “the setting place”, “its rising place” and “your setting place” in the singular. Both these and the Dhu'l Qarnayn story are somewhat ambiguous as to the possibility of multiple such places as they could merely describe the place where the sun set and the place where it rose on those particular days whether one or many were imagined to exist.

If it occurred to him at all, a possibility is that Muhammad imagined there were many springs in the sky-ocean like al-Tabari’s hadith. In one early narration of the legend, Alexander sees the sun set in one of 360 immense, black, boiling springs like those in Tabari’s hadith.^[69] It was at least not apparently a problem in the Syriac Alexander Legend, which has the sun set and rise through windows of heaven over the sea encircling the world. The rising place also has people living there, like the Quran (perhaps people were imagined to live all along the range where it rises, or maybe just in the place Alexander went to on that day). The Quranic muddy spring is derived from the fetid sea of the Alexander Legend according to Van Bladel. Muhammad may have felt bound to follow the outline of the existing legend (insofar as he correctly remembered or was informed about it) to meet the challenge of the questioners in 18:83.

Only the people in 18:90 lacked shelter

Unlike 18:90, verse 86 does not say anything about the people near the spring suffering from the sun's close proximity at sunset. There are a few possible explanations compatible with the setting and rising place interpretations. Proponents have suggested that Muhammad was simply following the outline of the popular legend he was using. The Syriac Alexander Legend itself only mentions the lack of shelter for the people at the rising place. The creator of the story may have imagined that the people in verse 86 did have shelter, unlike those in verse 90. Finally, it is suggested that Muhammad might not have thought about or considered it worth mentioning how the sun affected the people in 18:86, just as he doesn’t mention what Dhu’l Qarnayn said or did (if anything) to the people in verse 90.

End of Part One

This is the end of part one of the two-part article. See Dhul-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring (Part Two) regarding the various interpretations regarding what Dhu'l Qarnayn found upon reaching his destinations.

See Also

• Dhul-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring (Part Two)
• Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance
• Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth

External Links

• The early Muslims and the sun in the spring - The Islam Issue
• Forum discussion showing Shi'ite hadith also confirm a literal meaning to the sun "setting in a muddy spring"
• Does the Quran really say the Sun sets in a muddy spring? - The Masked Arab - YouTube video
• The Physical Setting of the Sun, The Sun sets in a Murky Water - islamwhattheydonttellyou164 - YouTube video

Notes on translations, transliterations, and sources

Useful resources for verification

References and Footnotes