Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance: Difference between revisions

The story of Dhul-Qarnayn (in [[Arabic]] ذو القرنين, literally "The Two-Horned One", also transliterated as Zul-Qarnain or Zulqarnain) is found in the 18^th [[Surah]] of the Qur'an, al-Kahf (the Cave).  While he is never mentioned explicitly by name, the story is clearly based upon a legendary account of Alexander the Great.  For centuries, most Muslim historians and Qur'anic commentators endorsed the identity of Dhul-Qarnayn as Alexander, though some also proposed alternatives. In recent years, this identification of Dhul-Qarnayn has become particularly problematic and controversial for Muslim scholars, as the Qur'an's understanding of Alexander differs remarkably from the image of him in history as a Greek [[Pagan Origins of Islam|pagan]] who fashioned himself as a [[god]]. This has prompted some [[apologists]] to create and advance alternative theories that identify  Dhul-Qarnayn as other prominent historical kings, most notably Cyrus the Great. These alternative theories, though, have major deficiencies and fall short of the strong parallels between the Qur'anic story and legends of Alexander that date to the early 7^th century. The theory that Dhul-Qarnayn is some other figure such as Cyrus the Great has little evidence in its favor compared to the overwhelming evidence that the story is actually based on a legendary version of Alexander. The story in the Qur'an in fact parallels a medieval Syriac legend of Alexander quote closely; both narratives portray him as a believing king who traveled the world and built a barrier of iron which holds back the tribes of Gog and Magog until Judgement Day. Almost every major element of the Qur'anic story can be found in Christian and Jewish folklore about Alexander which dates back hundreds of years prior to the time of Prophet Muhammad. Most early Muslim commentators and scholars identified Dhul-Qarnayn as Alexander the Great, and some modern ones do too. Historical and Archaeological evidence, though, quite plainly reveal that the real Alexander was a polytheistic pagan who believed he was the literal son of Greek and Egyptian gods. In addition, the story speaks of a giant wall built by Dhul-Qarnayn to hold back the nations of Gog and Magog, yet today, there is no such giant wall of iron and brass between two mountains that is holding back a tribe of people; it likely never existed and was originally a legendary embellishment of the original Alexander legend.  

The gargantuan conquests of Alexander the Great, stretching from Macedonia in the West to the river Indus in the East, left an indelible mark on all the regions where his troopers trode. Alexander founded cities, declared himself a god and the son of a god, solved the famous Gordian knot, initiated a new chapter in the history of civilizational exchange and spread Greek Hellenic culture far and wide. Dying at 33 of either alcohol overdose or perhaps poisoning, his legend quickly became larger than life. First Jews and then Christians claimed his as their own, though according to Theodor Nöldeke the origin of their Alexander Romances was actually a Pahlavi Persian Alexander romance (though probably written by a Syriac-speaking Christian) <ref> Encyclopedia of Islam Volume IV E. J. Bril 1997, p. 127</ref>. As the legend of Alexander spread, so too did the claims of his miraculous deeds grow in scope and size.  

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>  

Dr. Kevin Van Bladel, professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, states in his comparison of the two stories, that the water at the place where the sun sets is 'fetid' in both texts, a coincidence of two uncommon synonyms (Syriac saryâ, Arabic hami'a).<ref name="VanBladel"> Van Bladel, Kevin, “The Alexander legend in the Qur‘an 18:83-102″, in [http://books.google.com/books?id=DbtkpgGn4CEC&pg=PA175 "The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context"], Ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds, New York: Routledge, 2007.</ref> Similar connections can be found in Islamic poetry contemporary to the time of Muhammad. Muhammad ibn Ishāq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār recorded many pre-Islamic Arabic poems in his [[Sirat Rasul Allah]] (Biography of Muhammad);  This included a poem about Dhul-Qarnayn that he claims was composed by a pre-Islamic king of ancient Yemen.  Here we can see that the sun sets into a pool of water that is described as being both muddy and fetid, a perfect linking of the two adjectives in both the Qur'anic and Syriac stories.

{{Quote|The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah|

Conquered kings thronged his court, East and west he ruled, yet he sought Knowledge true from a learned sage. He saw where the sun sinks from view, In a '''pool of mud and fetid slime'''.<ref> Ibn Ishaq; Guillaume, Alfred, ed. (2002) [?-767 AD]. "The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah". Oxford University Press. pp. 138–140. ISBN 978-0-19-636033-1.</ref>}}

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 include 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.

As early as the 399 CE, local stories of Alexander building a wall against the Huns had made their way into Christian writings as well.  St. Jerome, an early church father, writes about rumors of attacks against Jerusalem by invaders from the north.  He refers to these invaders as Huns who live near the gate that was built by Alexander.

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" />

The popularity of the Syriac legend of Alexander is evidenced by its inclusion in other works soon after its composition. The "Song of Alexander", composed a few years later but before the Arab conquest of Syria sometime between 630 CE and 636 CE. The Syriac apocalypse, "De Fine Munid" composed between 640 CE and 683 CE and the "Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius" composed around 692 CE.<ref name="VanBladel" /> Since the work was composed as a piece of propaganda, its intentional dissemination makes sense of its rapid adoption and popularity in the region. This would have included Christian Arabs of the Ghassanid.  It is even possible that early Muslim followers heard the story of the Syrian legend during their raids on Mu'ta on the borders of Syria around September 629 CE.<ref name="VanBladel" />

It is clear that all the major elements of the Alexander story were in place by the 4^th century, predating both the Qur'anic and the Syriac account by hundreds of years. Their reliance upon common sources for these elements is also clear. In effect, the story of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an is simply another example of the widespread inclusion of Alexander folklore into the stories and traditions of the religious groups in the Middle East.  Rebecca Edwards in a address to the American Philological Association in 2002 states:

 

 

===Turning-point of Alexander as Dhul-Qarnayn===

Since most early Muslim scholars and commentators believed that Dhul-Qarnayn was Alexander, any defense of the Cyrus theory is first obligated to state why Alexander should be rejected from consideration.<ref name="Azad" /> Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, one of the first to advance the theory of Cyrus, gives a typical justification for his rejection of Alexander by appealing to the historical man as an unrighteous polytheist:

===Two Horns===

[[File:Cyrushorns.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Sketch of a relief of Cyrus.]]

In order to connect Cyrus to the epithet Dhul-Qarnayn (i.e. man with two-horns), proponents of this theory have pointed to a relief found on a doorway pillar near the tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae, Iran.  In these depictions, a set of horns can be seen at the bottom of an elaborate head dress. Some scholars believe this to be a depiction of Cyrus, whose name was once inscribed at the top of the monument above the pillars.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mallowan |first1=Max |last2= |first2= |date=1972 |title=“Cyrus the Great (558-529 B.C.). |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4300460 |journal=Iran |volume= |issue=10 |pages=1-17 |doi=10.2307/4300460 |access-date=8 March 2021}}</ref> Others note that the complex also once included human-headed winged bulls with crowns, and regard this as a protective doorway figure, inspired by Assyrian winged genii, and the words to be a "foundation inscription", also visible in two of the other palaces there.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/pasargadae |title=PASARGADAE |last=Stronach |first=David |date=2009 |website=Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition |publisher=Encyclopædia Iranica |access-date=8 March 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://iranicaonline.org/articles/herzfeld-ernst-ii |title=HERZFELD, ERNST ii. HERZFELD AND PASARGADAE  |last=Stronach |first=David |date=2003 |website=Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition |publisher=Encyclopædia Iranica |access-date=8 March 2021}}</ref> We have no other physical engravings or any other archaeological evidence that connects Cyrus with the epithet "two horns".

===Questions from the People of the Book===

Some Apologists argue that the identity of Dhul-Qarnayn must have been well known to the Jews and should therefore be found in the Bible. However, no justification is ever given as to why only the Bible is considered and not other literature used by Jews and Christians of the 7^th century.  This includes the Talmud, apocryphal books, and other non-canonical writings. In fact, this very account refers to another non-canonical story, [[Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in the Quran|the Sleepers of the Cave]], which is a 5^th century legend popular in both Syria and Arabia. In point of fact the Alexander Romance was well known to both Christian and Jewish audiences in late antiquity, so the assumption that the story is well known to the audience of this verse once again points to the Alexander Romance.  

Another detail about this account is that the audience of the verse is not asked to simply identify Dhul-Qarnayn. If that were the case, the answer would have been something such as "he is Alexander" or "he is Cyrus". The speaker in the verse actually asks the audience to relate a ''story'' about Dhul-Qarnayn. This once again points to a well known narrative about Dhul-Qarnayn, the Alexander Romance.  In order for the audience to know the "right" answer to that question, they must already know the details of this story. This story does not appear anywhere in the Bible; but it does occur, point-by-point and detail-by-detail in the Alexander legend. Therefore, they must be using the Alexander legend as their source for the "right" answer.

===Reference in the Bible===

===Building a Wall===

As for the story itself, either in the Romance or in the Qur'an, it would seem to be almost entirely legendary. Besides the fact that Alexander was not a Christian, Muslim, or "believer" of any type all of the adventures of the Romance have no basis in the historical sources available on Alexander. The trope about Alexander damming up Gog and Magog till the end of the world is clearly mythical, feeding into established Judeao-Christian tropes on the end of the world, and has no basis in history or archaeology as there is no giant iron wall anywhere on the earth which is containing an entire nation of people. The very existence of such a wall for the past 2300 years would defy all of logic and science as it is known, and in any event would have been spotted by modern satellite technology, which it has not been.  

That one day Allah's Apostle entered upon her in a state of fear and said, "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah! Woe to the Arabs from the Great evil that has approached (them). Today a hole has been opened in the dam of Gog and Magog like this." The Prophet made a circle with his index finger and thumb. Zainab bint Jahsh added: I said, "O Alllah's Apostle! Shall we be destroyed though there will be righteous people among us?" The Prophet said, "Yes, if the (number) of evil (persons) increased."}}