Alexander the Great in the

Quran

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The story of Dhul-Qarnayn (in Arabic ‫ذو اﻟﻘﺮﻧﻴﻦ‬, literally "The

Two-Horned One", also transliterated as Zul-Qarnain or
Zulqarnain), mentioned in the Quran, may be a reference to
Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BC), popularly known as
Alexander the Great.[1] Western and traditional Muslim
scholars generally identify Alexander the Great as Dhul-
Qarnayn (Quran 18:83–94).[2][3] However, some early Muslim
scholars believed it to be a reference to a pre-Islamic
monarch from Persia or south Arabia,[4] with, according to
Maududi, modern Muslim scholarship also leaning in favour
of identifying him with Cyrus the Great.[5]

Peter Bietenholz argues that the story of Dhul-Qarnayn has

its origins in legends of Alexander the Great current in the
Middle East in the early years of the Christian era.[6]
According to these legends, the Scythians, the descendants
of Gog and Magog, once defeated one of Alexander's
generals, upon which Alexander built a wall in the Caucasus
mountains to keep them out of civilized lands (the basic
elements are found in Flavius Josephus).[6] According to
Bietenholz, the legend went through much further
elaboration in subsequent centuries before eventually
finding its way into the Quran through a Syrian version.[6]
The scholar Stephen Gero, sharing similar views, inserts
that the earliest possible date for the Gog & Magog gate-
narrative in this form dates to between 629-636, thus
tentatively concluding the syriac Alexander Romance
"stricte dictu cannot be considered as a source of the
Qur’anic narrative", due to the fact that there is absolute
consent among Western[7] and Muslim[8][9] scholars that
Surah 18 belongs to the second Meccan Period
(615-619).[10] Similar reservations are offered by Brannon
Wheeler.[11]

The legendary Alexander

17th-century manuscript of an Alexandrine novel (Russia): Alexander

exploring the depths of the sea

Alexander in legend and romance Edit

Alexander the Great was an immensely popular figure in the

classical and post-classical cultures of the Mediterranean
and Middle East. Almost immediately after his death in 323
BC a body of legend began to accumulate about his exploits
and life which, over the centuries, became increasingly
fantastic as well as allegorical. Collectively this tradition is
called the Alexander romance and some recensions feature
such vivid episodes as Alexander ascending through the air
to Paradise, journeying to the bottom of the sea in a glass
bubble, and journeying through the Land of Darkness in
search of the Water of Life (Fountain of Youth).

The earliest Greek manuscripts of the Alexander romance,

as they have survived, indicate that it was composed at
Alexandria in the 3rd century. The original text was lost but
was the source of some eighty different versions written in
twenty-four different languages.[12] As the Alexander
romance persisted in popularity over the centuries, it was
assumed by various neighbouring people. Of particular
significance was its incorporation into Jewish and later
Christian legendary traditions. In the Jewish tradition
Alexander was initially a figure of satire, representing the
vain or covetous ruler who is ignorant of larger spiritual
truths. Yet their belief in a just, all-powerful God forced
Jewish interpreters of the Alexander tradition to come to
terms with Alexander's undeniable temporal success. Why
would a just, all-powerful God show such favour to an
unrighteous ruler? This theological need, plus acculturation
to Hellenism, led to a more positive Jewish interpretation of
the Alexander legacy. In its most neutral form this was
typified by having Alexander show deference to either the
Jewish people or the symbols of their faith. In having the
great conqueror thus acknowledge the essential truth of the
Jews' religious, intellectual, or ethical traditions, the prestige
of Alexander was harnessed to the cause of Jewish
ethnocentrism. Eventually Jewish writers would almost
completely co-opt Alexander, depicting him as a righteous
gentile or even a believing monotheist.[13]

The Christianized peoples of the Near East, inheritors of

both the Hellenic as well as Judaic strands of the Alexander
romance, further theologized Alexander until in some stories
he was depicted as a saint. The Christian legends turned
the ancient Greek conqueror Alexander III into Alexander
"the Believing King", implying that he was a believer in
monotheism. Eventually elements of the Alexander romance
were combined with Biblical legends such as Gog and
Magog.

During the period of history during which the Alexander

romance was written, little was known about the true
historical Alexander the Great as most of the history of his
conquests had been preserved in the form of folklore and
legends. It was not until the Renaissance (1300–1600 AD)
that the true history of Alexander III was rediscovered:

Since the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC

 there has been no age in history, whether in the West
or in the East, in which his name and exploits have
not been familiar. And yet not only have all
contemporary records been lost but even the work
based on those records though written some four and
a half centuries after his death, the Anabasis of
Arrian, was totally unknown to the writers of the
Middle Ages and became available to Western
scholarship only with the Revival of Learning [the
Renaissance]. The perpetuation of Alexander's fame
through so many ages and amongst so many peoples
is due in the main to the innumerable recensions and
transmogri�cations of a work known as the
Alexander Romance or Pseudo-Callisthenes.[14]

Dating and origins of the Alexander legends Edit

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The legendary Alexander material originated as early as the
time of the Ptolemaic dynasty (305 BC to 30 BC) and its
unknown authors are sometimes referred to as the Pseudo-
Callisthenes (not to be confused with Callisthenes of
Olynthus, who was Alexander's official historian). The
earliest surviving manuscript of the Alexander romance,
called the α (alpha) recension, can be dated to the 3rd
century AD and was written in Greek in Alexandria:

There have been many theories regarding the date

and sources of this curious work [the Alexander
romance]. According to the most recent authority, ...
it was compiled by a Greco-Egyptian writing in
Alexandria about A.D. 300. The sources on which
the anonymous author drew were twofold. On the
one hand he made use of a `romanticized history of
Alexander of a highly rhetorical type depending on
the Cleitarchus tradition, and with this he
amalgamated a collection of imaginary letters
derived from an Epistolary Romance of Alexander
written in the �rst century B.C. He also included two
long letters from Alexander to his mother Olympias
and his tutor Aristotle describing his marvellous
adventures in India and at the end of the World.
 These are the literary expression of a living popular
tradition and as such are the most remarkable and
interesting part of the work.[16]

The Greek variants of the Alexander romance continued to

evolve until, in the 4th century, the Greek legend was
translated into Latin by Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius
(where it is called the Res gestae Alexandri Magni) and from
Latin it spread to all major vernacular languages of Europe
in the Middle Ages. Around the same as its translation into
Latin, the Greek text was also translated into the Syriac
language and from Syriac it spread to eastern cultures and
languages as far afield as China and Southeast Asia.[17] The
Syriac legend was the source of an Arabic variant called the
Qisas Dhul-Qarnayn (Tales of Dhul-Qarnayn)[18] and a Persian
variant called the Iskandarnamah (Book of Alexander), as
well as Armenian and Ethiopic translations.[19]

The version recorded in Syriac is of particular importance

because it was current in the Middle East during the time of
the Quran's writing and is regarded as being closely related
to the literary and linguistic origins of the story of Dhul-
Qarnayn in the Quran. The Syriac legend, as it has survived,
consists of five distinct manuscripts, including a Syriac
Christian religious legend concerning Alexander and a
sermon about Alexander ascribed to the Syriac poet-
theologian Jacob of Serugh (451–521 AD, also called Mar
Jacob), which according to Reinink was composed around
629-636.[20] The Syriac Christian legend concentrates on
Alexander's journey to the end of the World, where he
constructs the Gates of Alexander to enclose the evil
nations of Gog and Magog, while the sermon describes his
journey to the Land of Darkness to discover the Water of Life
(Fountain of Youth). These legends concerning Alexander
are remarkably similar to the story of Dhul-Qarnayn found in
the Quran.[21]

One of the five Syriac manuscripts, dated to the 18th

century, has a version of the Syriac legend that has been
generally dated to between 629 AD and 636 AD. There is
evidence in the legend of "ex eventu knowledge of the
Khazar invasion of Armenia in A.D. 629,"[22][23] which
suggests that the legend must have been burdened with
additions by a redactor sometime around 629 AD. The
legend appears to have been composed as propaganda in
support of Emperor Heraclius (575–641 AD) shortly after he
defeated the Persians in the Byzantine-Sassanid War of
602–628. It is notable that this manuscript fails to mention
the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem in 636 AD by
Muhammad's (570–632 AD) successor, Caliph Umar
(590–644 AD). This fact means that the legend might have
been recorded before the "cataclysmic event"` that was the
Muslim conquest of Syria and the resulting surrender of
Jerusalem in November 636 AD. That the Byzantine–Arab
Wars would have been referenced in the legend, had it been
written after 636 AD, is supported by the fact that in 692 AD
a Syriac Christian adaption of the Alexander romance called
the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was indeed written as
a response to the Muslim invasions and was falsely
attributed to St Methodius (?–311 AD); this Apocalypse of
Pseudo-Methodius equated the evil nations of Gog and
Magog with the Muslim invaders and shaped the
eschatological imagination of Christendom for centuries.[21]

The manuscripts also contain evidence of lost texts. For

example, there is some evidence of a lost pre-Islamic Arabic
version of the translation that is thought to have been an
intermediary between the Syriac Christian and the Ethiopic
Christian translations.[24] There is also evidence that the
Syriac translation was not directly based on the Greek
recensions but was based on a lost Pahlavi (pre-Islamic
Persian) intermediary.[16]

One scholar (Kevin van Bladel)[25] who finds striking

similarities between the Quranic verses 18:83-102 and the
Syriac legend in support of Emperor Heraclius, dates the
work to 629-630 AD or before Muhammad's death, not
629-636 AD.[26] The Syriac legend matches many details in
the five parts of the verses (Alexander being the two horned
one, journey to edge of the world, punishment of evil doers,
Gog and Magog, etc.) and also "makes some sense of the
cryptic Qur'anic story" being 21 pages (in one edition)[26] not
20 verses. (The sun sets in a fetid poisonous ocean -- not
spring -- surrounding the earth, Gog and Magog are Huns,
etc.) Van Bladel finds it more plausible that the Syriac
legend is the source of the Quranic verses than vice versa,
as the Syriac legend was written before the Arab conquests
when the Hijazi Muslim community was still remote from
and little known to the Mesopotamian site of the legend's
creation, whereas Arabs worked as troops and scouts for
during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 and could
have been exposed to the legend.[27]

Philological evidence

Summary Edit

Philologists, studying ancient Christian legends about

Alexander the Great, have come to conclude that the
Quran's stories about Dhul-Qarnayn closely parallel certain
legends about Alexander the Great found in ancient
Hellenistic and Christian writings. There is some
numismatic evidence, in the form of ancient coins, to
identify the Arabic epithet "Dhul-Qarnayn" with Alexander the
Great.[28] Finally, ancient Christian Syriac and Ethiopic
manuscripts of the Alexander romance from the Middle East
have been found which closely resemble the story in the
Quran. This leads to the theologically controversial
conclusion that Quran refers to Alexander in the mention of
Dhul-Qarnayn.
The two-horned one Edit

Silver tetradrachmon (ancient Greek coin) issued in the name

of Alexander the Great, depicting Alexander with the horns of
Ammon-Ra (242/241 BC, posthumous issue). Displayed at
the British Museum.

The literal translation of the Arabic phrase "Dhul-Qarnayn," as

written in the Quran, is "the Two-Horned man." Alexander the
Great was portrayed in his own time with horns following
the iconography of the Egyptian god Ammon-Ra, his
supposed divine father.[29]. Rams were a symbol of virility
due to their rutting behaviour; the horns of Ammon may
have also represented the East and West of the Earth, and
one of the titles of Ammon was "the two-horned." Alexander
was depicted with the horns of Ammon as a result of his
conquest of ancient Egypt in 332 BC, where the priesthood
received him as the son of the god Ammon, who was
identified by the ancient Greeks with Zeus, the King of the
Gods. The combined deity Zeus-Ammon was a distinct
figure in ancient Greek mythology. According to five
historians of antiquity (Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus, Justin, and
Plutarch), Alexander visited the Oracle of Ammon at Siwa in
the Libyan desert and rumours spread that the Oracle had
revealed Alexander's father to be the deity Ammon, rather
than Philip.[28][30][31] Alexander styled himself as the son of
Zeus-Ammon and even demanded to be worshiped as a
god:

He seems to have become convinced of the reality of

his own divinity and to have required its acceptance
by others ... The cities perforce complied, but often
ironically: the Spartan decree read, 'Since Alexander
wishes to be a god, let him be a god.' [32]

Ancient Greek coins, such as the coins minted by

Alexander's successor Lysimachus (360–281 BC), depict
the ruler with the distinctive horns of Ammon on his head.
Archaeologists have found a large number of different types
of ancients coins depicting Alexander the Great with two
horns.[28][33] The 4th century BC silver tetradrachmon ("four
drachma") coin, depicting a deified Alexander with two
horns, replaced the 5th century BC Athenian silver
tetradrachmon (which depicted the goddess Athena) as the
most widely used coin in the Greek world. After Alexander's
conquests, the drachma was used in many of the Hellenistic
kingdoms in the Middle East, including the Ptolemaic
kingdom in Alexandria. The Arabic unit of currency known
as the dirham, known from pre-Islamic times up to the
present day, inherited its name from the drachma. In the late
2nd century BC, silver coins depicting Alexander with ram
horns were used as a principal coinage in Arabia and were
issued by an Arab ruler by the name of Abi'el who ruled in
the south-eastern region of the Arabian Peninsula.[34]

In 1971, Ukrainian archeologist B.M. Mozolevskii discovered

an ancient Scythian kurgan (burial mound) containing many
treasures. The burial site was constructed in the 4th century
BC near the city of Pokrov and is given the name Tovsta
Mohyla (another name is Babyna Mogila). Amongst the
artifacts excavated at this site were four silver gilded
phalera (ancient Roman military medals). Two of the four
medals are identical and depict the head of a bearded man
with two horns, while the other two medals are also
identical and depict the head of a clean-shaven man with
two horns. According to a recent theory, the bearded figure
with horns is actually Zeus-Ammon and the clean-shaved
figure is none other than Alexander the Great.[35]

Alexander has also been identified, since ancient times, with

the horned figure in the Old Testament in the prophecy of
Daniel 8 who overthrows the kings of Media and Persia. In
the prophecy, Daniel has a vision of a ram with two long
horns and verse 20 explains that "The ram which thou
sawest having two horns is the kings of Media and Persia.":

Josephus [37–100 AD], in his Antiquities of the

Jews xi, 8, 5 tells of a visit that Alexander is
 purported to have made to Jerusalem, where he met
the high priest Jaddua and the assembled Jews, and
was shown the book of Daniel in which it was
prophesied that some one of the Greeks would
overthrow the empire of Persia. Alexander believed
himself to be the one indicated, and was pleased. The
pertinent passage in Daniel would seem to be VIII.
3–8 which tells of the overthrow of the two-horned
ram by the one-horned goat, the one horn of the goat
being broken in the encounter ...The interpretation of
this is given further ... "The ram which thou sawest
that had the two horns, they are the kings of Media
and Persia. And the rough he-goat is the king of
Greece." This identi�cation is accepted by the church
fathers ...[36]

The Christian Syriac version of the Alexander romance, in

the sermon by Jacob of Serugh, describes Alexander as
having been given horns of iron by God. The legend
describes Alexander (as a Christian king) bowing himself in
prayer, saying:

O God ... I know in my mind that thou hast exalted

me above all kings, and thou hast made me horns
upon my head, wherewith I might thrust down the
 kingdoms of the world...I will magnify thy name, O
Lord, forever ... And if the Messiah, who is the Son
of God [Jesus], comes in my days, I and my troops
will worship Him...[36]

While the Syriac Legend references the horns of Alexander, it

consistently refers to the hero by his Greek name, not using
a variant epithet.[37] The use of the Islamic epithet "Dhu al-
Qarnayn", the "two-horned", first occurred in the Quran.[38]

In Christian Alexander legends written in Ethiopic (an

ancient South Semitic language) between the 14th and the
16th century, Alexander the Great is always explicitly
referred to using the epithet the "Two Horned." A passage
from the Ethiopic Christian legend describes the Angel of
the Lord calling Alexander by this name:

Then God, may He be blessed and exalted! put it

into the heart of the Angel to call Alexander 'Two-
horned,' ... And Alexander said unto him, ' Thou
didst call me by the name Two-horned, but my name
is Alexander ... and I thought that thou hadst cursed
me by calling me by this name.' The angel spake unto
him, saying, 'O man, I did not curse thee by the
name by which thou and the works that thou doest
are known. Thou hast come unto me, and I praise
 thee because, from the east to the west, the whole
earth hath been given unto thee ...'[36]

References to Alexander's supposed horns are found in

literature ranging many different languages, regions and
centuries:

The horns of Alexander ... have had a varied

symbolism. They represent him as a god, as a son of
a god, as a prophet and propagandist of the Most
High, as something approaching the role of a
messiah, and also as the champion of Allah. They
represent him as a world conqueror, who subjugated
the two horns or ends of the world, the lands of the
rising and of the setting sun ...[36]

For these reasons, among others, the Quran's Arabic epithet

"Dhul-Qarnayn," literally meaning "the two-horned one," is
interpreted as a reference to Alexander the Great.

Alexander's Wall Edit

A Persian painting from the 16th century illustrating the building of the wall
with the help of the jinn

Early accounts of Alexander's Wall Edit

The building of gates in the Caucasus Mountains by

Alexander to repel the barbarian peoples identified with Gog
and Magog has ancient provenance and the wall is known
as the Gates of Alexander or the Caspian Gates. The name
Caspian Gates originally applied to the narrow region at the
southeast corner of the Caspian Sea, through which
Alexander actually marched in the pursuit of Bessus in 329
BC, although he did not stop to fortify it. It was transferred
to the passes through the Caucasus, on the other side of
the Caspian, by the more fanciful historians of Alexander.
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37–100 AD)
mentions that:
 ...a nation of the Alans, whom we have previously
mentioned elsewhere as being Scythians ... travelled
through a passage which King Alexander [the Great]
shut up with iron gates.[39]

Josephus also records that the people of Magog, the

Magogites, were synonymous with the Scythians.[40]
According to Andrew Runni Anderson,[41] this merely
indicates that the main elements of the story were already
in place six centuries before the Quran's revelation, not that
the story itself was known in the cohesive form apparent in
the Quranic account. Similarly, St. Jerome (347–420 AD), in
his Letter 77, mentions that,

The hordes of the Huns had poured forth all the way
from Maeotis (they had their haunts between the icy
Tanais and the rude Massagetae, where the gates of
Alexander keep back the wild peoples behind the
Caucasus).[42]

In his Commentary on Ezekiel (38:2), Jerome identifies the

nations located beyond the Caucasus mountains and near
Lake Maeotis as Gog and Magog. Thus the Gates of
Alexander legend was combined with the legend of Gog and
Magog from the Book of Revelation. It has been suggested
that the incorporation of the Gog and Magog legend into the
Alexander romance was prompted by the invasion of the
Huns across the Caucasus mountains in 395 AD into
Armenia and Syria.[43]

Alexander's Wall in Christian legends Edit

Christian legends speak of the Caspian Gates (Gates of

Alexander), also known as Alexander's wall, built by
Alexander the Great in the Caucasus mountains. Several
variations of the legend can be found. In the story,
Alexander the Great built a gate of iron between two
mountains, at the end of the Earth, to prevent the armies of
Gog and Magog from ravaging the plains. The Christian
legend was written in Syria shortly before the Quran's
writing and closely parallels the story of Dhul-Qarnayn.[44]
The legend describes an apocryphal letter from Alexander
to his mother, wherein he writes:

I petitioned the exalted Deity, and he heard my

prayer. And the exalted Deity commanded the two
mountains and they moved and approached each
other to a distance of twelve ells, and there I made ...
copper gates 12 ells broad, and 60 ells high, and
smeared them over within and without with copper
... so that neither �re nor iron, nor any other means
should be able to loosen the copper; ... Within these
gates, I made another construction of stones ... And
 having done this I �nished the construction by
putting mixed tin and lead over the stones, and
smearing .... over the whole, so that no one might be
able to do anything against the gates. I called them
the Caspian Gates. Twenty and two Kings did I shut
up therein.[45]

These pseudepigraphic letters from Alexander to his mother

Olympias and his tutor Aristotle, describing his marvellous
adventures at the end of the World, date back to the original
Greek recension α written in the 4th century in Alexandria.
The letters are "the literary expression of a living popular
tradition" that had been evolving for at least three centuries
before the Quran was written.[14]

Medieval accounts of Alexander's Wall Edit

The wall of the citadel in Derbent, Russia. Built by the Sasanian kings, it was
often identified with the "Gates of Alexander". The Caliph Umar, as well as
later Caliphs, sent expeditions to Derbent to seek out this wall.
Several historical figures, both Muslim and Christian,
searched for Alexander's Gate and several different
identifications were made with actual walls. During the
Middle Ages, the Gates of Alexander story was included in
travel literature such as the Travels of Marco Polo
(1254–1324 AD) and the Travels of Sir John Mandeville. The
Alexander romance identified the Gates of Alexander,
variously, with the Pass of Dariel, the Pass of Derbent, the
Great Wall of Gorgan and even the Great Wall of China. In
the legend's original form, Alexander's Gates are located at
the Pass of Dariel. In later versions of the Christian legends,
dated to around the time of Emperor Heraclius (575–641
AD), the Gates are instead located in Derbent, a city situated
on a narrow strip of land between the Caspian Sea and the
Caucasus mountains, where an ancient Sassanid
fortification was mistakenly identified with the wall built by
Alexander. In the Travels of Marco Polo, the wall in Derbent
is identified with the Gates of Alexander. The Gates of
Alexander are most commonly identified with the Caspian
Gates of Derbent whose thirty north-looking towers used to
stretch for forty kilometres between the Caspian Sea and
the Caucasus Mountains, effectively blocking the passage
across the Caucasus.[46] Later historians would regard
these legends as false:

The gate itself had wandered from the Caspian Gates

to the pass of Dariel, from the pass of Dariel to the
 pass of Derbend [Derbent], as well as to the far
north; nay, it had travelled even as far as remote
eastern or north-eastern Asia, gathering in strength
and increasing in size as it went, and actually
carrying the mountains of Caspia with it. Then, as
the full light of modern day come on, the Alexander
Romance ceased to be regarded as history, and with
it Alexander's Gate passed into the realm of
fairyland.[47]

In the Muslim world, several expeditions were undertaken to

try to find and study Alexanders's wall, specifically the
Caspian Gates of Derbent. An early expedition to Derbent
was ordered by the Caliph Umar (586–644 AD) himself,
during the Arab conquest of Armenia where they heard
about Alexander's Wall in Derbent from the conquered
Christian Armenians. Umar's expedition was recorded by the
renowned exegetes of the Quran, Al-Tabarani (873–970 AD)
and Ibn Kathir (1301–1373 AD), and by the Muslim
geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179–1229 AD):

... Umar sent ... in 22 A.H. [643 AD] ... an

expedition to Derbent [Russia] ... `Abdur Rahman
bin Rabi`ah [was appointed] as the chief of his
vanguard. When 'Abdur Rehman entered Armenia,
the ruler Shehrbaz surrendered without �ghting.
 Then when `Abdur Rehman wanted to advance
towards Derbent, Shehrbaz [ruler of Armenia]
informed him that he had already gathered full
information about the wall built by Dhul-Qarnain,
through a man, who could supply all the necessary
details ...[48]

Two hundred years later, the Abbasid Caliph Al-Wathiq

(?–847 AD) dispatched an expedition to study the wall of
Dhul-Qarnain in Derbent, Russia. The expedition was led by
Sallam-ul-Tarjuman, whose observations were recorded by
Yaqut al-Hamawi and by Ibn Kathir:

...this expedition reached ... the Caspian territory.

From there they arrived at Derbent and saw the wall
[of Dhul-Qarnayn].[49]

The Muslim geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi further confirmed

the same view in a number of places in his book on
geography; for instance under the heading "Khazar"
(Caspian) he writes:

This territory adjoins the Wall of Dhul-Qarnain just

behind Bab-ul-Abwab, which is also called
Derbent.[49]
The Caliph Harun al-Rashid (763 – 809 AD) even spent
some time living in Derbent. Not all Muslim travellers and
scholars, however, associated Dhul-Qarnayn's wall with the
Caspian Gates of Derbent. For example, the Muslim explorer
Ibn Battuta (1304–1369 AD) travelled to China on order of
the Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq and he
comments in his travel log that "Between it [the city of
Zaitun in Fujian] and the rampart of Yajuj and Majuj [Gog
and Magog] is sixty days' travel."[50] The translator of the
travel log notes that Ibn Battuta confused the Great Wall of
China with that supposedly built by Dhul-Qarnayn.[51]

Gog and Magog Edit

In the Quran, it is none other than the Gog and Magog

people whom Dhul-Qarnayn has enclosed behind a wall,
preventing them from invading the Earth. In Islamic
eschatology, before the Day of Judgement Gog and Magog
will destroy this gate, allowing them to ravage the Earth, as
it is described in the Quran:

Until, when Gog and Magog are let loose [from their
barrier], and they swiftly swarm from every mound. And
the true promise [Day of Resurrection] shall draw near [of
fulfilment]. Then [when mankind is resurrected from their
graves], you shall see the eyes of the disbelievers fixedly
stare in horror. [They will say,] ‘Woe to us! We were indeed
heedless of this; nay, but we were wrongdoers.’ (Quran
 21:96–97. Note that the phrases in square brackets are
not in the Arabic original.)
Gog and Magog in Christian legends Edit

Example of a T-O map appearing in a German encyclopedia published by

Joseph Meyer (1796-1856 AD). The T-O map was the first printed map in
Europe. The map shows a disc shaped Earth surrounded by Oceanus, with
the location Gog and Magog to the north, and Paropamisadae mountains
(Hindu Kush) to the east in Asia. In the Christian legends, Alexander built the
wall against Gog and Magog in the north, near the Caspian sea, and then
went to the ends of the earth at the Paropamisadae, where it was supposed
that the sun rises.

In the Syriac Christian legends, Alexander the Great

encloses the Gog and Magog horde behind a mighty gate
between two mountains, preventing Gog and Magog from
invading the Earth. In addition, it is written in the Christian
legend that in the end times God will cause the Gate of Gog
and Magog to be destroyed, allowing the Gog and Magog
horde to ravage the Earth;

The Lord spake by the hand of the angel, [saying]

...The gate of the north shall be opened on the day of
the end of the world, and on that day shall evil go
 forth on the wicked ... The earth shall quake and this
door [gate] which thou [Alexander] hast made be
opened ... and anger with �erce wrath shall rise up
on mankind and the earth ... shall be laid waste ...
And the nations that is within this gate shall be
roused up, and also the host of Agog and the peoples
of Magog [Gog and Magog] shall be gathered
together. These peoples, the �ercest of all
creatures.[45]

The Christian Syriac legend describes a flat Earth orbited by

the sun and surrounded by the Paropamisadae (Hindu
Kush) mountains. The Paropamisadae mountains are in
turn surrounded by a narrow tract of land which is followed
by a treacherous Ocean sea called Okeyanos. It is within
this tract of land between the Paropamisadae mountains
and Okeyanos that Alexander encloses Gog and Magog, so
that they could not cross the mountains and invade the
Earth. The legend describes "the old wise men" explaining
this geography and cosmology of the Earth to Alexander,
and then Alexander setting out to enclose Gog and Magog
behind a mighty gate between a narrow passage at the end
of the flat Earth:

The old men say, "Look, my lord the king, and see a
wonder, this mountain which God has set as a great
 boundary." King Alexander the son of Philip said,
"How far is the extent of this mountain?" The old
men say, "Beyond India it extends in its appearance."
The king said, "How far does this side come?" The
old men say, "Unto all the end of the earth." And
wonder seized the great king at the council of the old
men ... And he had it in his mind to make there a
great gate. His mind was full of spiritual thoughts,
while taking advice from the old men, the dwellers in
the land. He looked at the mountain which encircled
the whole world ... The king said, "Where have the
hosts [of Gog and Magog] come forth to plunder the
land and all the world from of old?" They show him
a place in the middle of the mountains, a narrow
pass which had been constructed by God ...[45]

Flat Earth beliefs in the Early Christian Church varied and

the Fathers of the Church shared different approaches.
Those of them who were more close to Aristotle and Plato's
visions, like Origen, shared peacefully the belief in a
spherical Earth. A second tradition, including St Basil and St
Augustine, accepted the idea of the round Earth and the
radial gravity, but in a critical way. In particular they pointed
out a number of doubts about the antipodes and the
physical reasons of the radial gravity. However, a flat Earth
approach was more or less shared by all the Fathers
coming from the Syriac area, who were more inclined to
follow the letter of the Old Testament. Diodore of Tarsus
(?–390 AD), Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th century), and
Chrysostom (347–407 AD) belonged to this flat Earth
tradition.[46][52][53]

Medieval accounts of Gog and Magog Edit

In the Christian Alexander romance literature, Gog and

Magog were sometimes associated with the Khazars, a
Turkic people who lived near the Caspian Sea. In his 9th
century work Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam, the
Benedictine monk Christian of Stavelot refers to the
Khazars as Hunnic descendants of Gog and Magog, and
says they are "circumcised and observing all [the laws of]
Judaism";[54] the Khazars were a Central Asian people with a
long association with Judaism. A Georgian tradition, echoed
in a chronicle, also identifies the Khazars with Gog and
Magog, stating they are "wild men with hideous faces and
the manners of wild beasts, eaters of blood."[55]

Early Muslim scholars writing about Dhul-Qarnayn also

associated Gog and Magog with the Khazars. Ibn Kathir
(1301–1373 CE), the famous commentator of the Quran,
identified Gog and Magog with the Khazars who lived
between the Black and Caspian Sea in his work Al-Bidayah
wa al-Nihayah (The Beginning and the End).[56][57] The
Muslim explorer Ahmad ibn Fadlan, in his travelogue
regarding his diplomatic mission in 921 AD to Volga Bulgars
(a vassal of the Khazarian Empire), noted the beliefs about
Gog and Magog being the ancestors of the Khazars.[58]

Thus Muslim scholars associated the Khazars with Dhul-

Qarnayn just as the Christian legends associated the
Khazars with Alexander the Great.

The rising place of the Sun Edit

This section relies too much on references to primary sources.

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A peculiar aspect of the story of Dhul-Qarnayn, in the Quran,

is that it describes Dhul-Qarnayn travelling to "the rising
place of the Sun" and the "setting place of the Sun," where
he saw the Sun sets into a murky (or boiling) spring of water
(or mud). Dhul-Qarnayn also finds a people living by the
"rising place of the Sun," and finds that these people
somehow have "no shelter."

In his commentary of the Quran, Ibn Kathir (1301–1373 CE)

explains that verse 18:89 is referring to the furthest point
that could be travelled west:

(Until, when he reached the setting place of the sun,)

means, he followed a route until he reached the
furthest point that could be reached in the direction
of the sun's setting, which is the west of the earth. As
 for the idea of his reaching the place in the sky
where the sun sets, this is something impossible, and
the tales told by storytellers that he traveled so far to
the west that the sun set behind him are not true at
all. Most of these stories come from the myths of the
People of the Book [Jews and Christians] and the
fabrications and lies of their heretics.[59]

In this commentary Ibn Kathir differentiates between the

end of the Earth and the supposed "place in the sky" where
the sun sets (the "resting place" of the sun. Ibn Kathir
contends that Dhul-Qarnayn did reach the farthest place
that could be travelled west but not the "resting place" of
the sun and he goes on to mention that the People of the
Book (Jews and Christians) tell myths about Dhul-Qarnayn
travelling so far beyond the end of the Earth that the sun
was "behind him." This shows that Ibn Kathir was aware of
the Christian legends and it suggests that Ibn Kathir
considered Christian myths about Alexander to be referring
to the same figure as the Dhul-Qarnayn mentioned in the
Qu'an.

A similar theme is elaborated upon in several places in the

Islamic hadith literature, in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih
Muslim:

It is narrated ... that the Messenger of Allah one day

 said: Do you know where the sun goes? They replied:
Allah and His Apostle know best. He (the Holy
Prophet) observed: Verily it (the sun) glides till it
reaches its resting place under the Throne [of Allah].
Then it falls prostrate and remains there until it is
asked: Rise up and go to the place whence you came,
and it goes back and continues emerging out from its
rising place...[60]

The setting place of the sun is also commented on by Al-

Tabari (838-923 AD) and Al-Qurtubi (1214–1273 AD) and,
like Ibn Kathir, they showed some reservations towards the
literal idea of the sun setting in a muddy spring but held to
the basic theme of Dhul-Qarnayn reaching the ends of the
Earth. [61]

That the Earth must be spherical was known since at least

the time of Pythagoras (570–495 BC), but this knowledge
did not reach ancient folklore such as the Alexander
romance where Alexander travels to the ends of a flat Earth.
It is notable that, unlike the Babylonians, Greeks, and
Indians, the pre-Islamic Arabs had no scientific astronomy.
Their knowledge of astronomy was limited to measuring
time based on empirical observations of the "rising and
setting" of the sun, moon, and particular stars. This area of
astronomical study was known as anwa and continued to
be developed after Islamization by the Arabs.[62] Astronomy
in medieval Islam began in the 8th century and the first
major Muslim work of astronomy was Zij al-Sindh written in
830 by al-Khwarizmi. The work is significant as it introduced
the Ptolemaic system into Islamic sciences (the Ptolemaic
system was ultimately replaced by the Copernican system
during the Scientific Revolution in Europe).

The rising place of the Sun in the Alexander legends Edit

Rendition of Homer's view of the world (prior to 900 BC). The

Homeric conception of the world involved a flat, circular
Earth, surrounded by mountains and by Oceanus, the world-
ocean of classical antiquity, considered to be an enormous
river encircling the world. The Sun emerges from underneath
the Earth, travelling along the fixed dome of the sky, and is
shown rising from Oceanus.

The place of his [the Sun's] rising is over the sea,

and the people who dwell there, when he is about to
rise, �ee away and hide themselves in the sea, that
they be not burnt by his rays; and he passes through
the midst of heaven to the place where he enters the
window of heaven; and wherever he passes there are
 terrible mountains, and those who dwell there have
caves hollowed out in the rocks, and as soon as they
see the Sun passing [over them], men and birds �ee
away from before him and hide in the caves ... And
when the Sun enters the window of heaven, he [it]
straight away bows down and makes obeisance
before God his Creator; and he travels and descends
the whole night through the heavens, until at length
he �nds himself where he [the Sun] rises ... So the
whole camp mounted, and Alexander and his troops
went up between the fetid sea and the bright sea to
the place where the Sun enters the window of
heaven; for the Sun is the servant of the Lord, and
neither by night nor by day does he cease from his
travelling.[45]

The Christian legend is much more detailed than the Quran's

version and elaborates at length about the cosmology of the
Earth that is implied by the story:

He [Alexander] said to them [the nobles]: "This

thought has arisen in my mind, and I am wondering
what is the extent of the earth, and how high the
heavens are ... and upon what the heavens are �xed
... Now this I desire to go and see, upon what the
 heavens rest, and what surrounds all creation." The
nobles answered and said to the king, ... "As to the
thing, my lord, which thy majesty desires to go and
see, namely, upon what the heaveans rest, and what
surrounds the earth, the terrible seas which surround
the world will not give thee a passage; because there
are eleven bright seas, on which the ships of men
sail, and beyond these there is about ten miles of dry
land, and beyond these ten miles there is the foetid
sea, Okeyanos (the Ocean), which surrounds all
creation. Men are not able to come near to this
foetid sea ... Its waters are like poison and if men
swim therein, they die at once."[45]

This ancient motif of a legendary figure travelling to the end

of Earth is also found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which can
be dated to c. 2000 BC, making it one of the earliest known
works of literary writing.[63] In the epic poem, in tablet nine,
Gilgamesh sets out on a quest for the Water of Life to seek
immortality. Gilgamesh travels far to the east, to the
mountain passes at the ends of the earth where he grapples
and slays monstrous mountain lions, bears and others.
Eventually he comes to the twin peaks of Mount Mashu at
the end of the earth, from where the sun rises from the
other world, the gate of which is guarded by two terrible
scorpion-beings. They allow him to proceed through the
gate after Gilgamesh convinces them to let him pass,
stating his divinity and desperation, and he travels through
the dark tunnel where the sun travels every night. Just
before the sun is about to catch up with him, and with the
North Wind and ice lashing him, he reaches the end. The
world at the end of the tunnel is a bright wonderland full of
trees with leaves of jewels. The 17th chapter of the
apocryphal Book of Enoch describes a journey to the far
west where the fire of the west receives every setting of the
sun and a river of fire empties into the great western sea.[64]
Chapters 72–80 describe the risings and settings of the sun
through 12 portals of heaven in the east and west.[65] The
myth of a flat Earth surrounded by an Ocean into which the
sun sets is also found in the Iliad, the famous epic poem
written by Homer and dated to c. 900 BC. The story of
creation in the Hebrew Bible, in Genesis 1:10, (dated c.
900–550 BC) is also considered by scholars to be
describing a flat Earth surrounded by a sea.[66]

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (484–425 BC) also

gave an account of the eastern "end of the Earth," in his
descriptions of India. He reported that in India the sun's
heat is extremely intense in the morning, instead of noon
being the hottest time of day. It has been argued that he
based this on his belief that since India is located at the
extreme east of a flat Earth, it would only be logical if the
morning were unbearably hot due to the sun's proximity.[67]
Alexander's travels Edit

Map of Alexander's travels. Alexander never marched far west of his native
Macedon and his advances eastward ended at the fringes of India.

The Quran and the Alexander romance both have it that

Dhul-Qarnayn (or Alexander) travelled a great deal. In the
Quran's story of Dhul-Qarnayn, "God gave him unto every
thing a road" (or more literally, "We gave him the means of
everything" 18:84) He travels as far as the ends of the Earth,
to the place on the Earth where the Sun sets (the west) and
the place on the Earth where the Sun rises (the east). The
Quran portrays him travelling to the "setting of the sun."
Muslim interpretations of these verses are varied, but
classical Muslim scholars seemed to have been of the
opinion that Dhul-Qarnayn's journey was real, not allegorical,
and that Dhul-Qarnayn's wall is also a real, physical wall
somewhere on Earth.

In the Christian legends, Alexander travels to the places of

the setting and rising of the Sun and this is meant to say
that he travelled to the ends of the flat Earth and thus he
had traversed the entire world. This legendary account
served to convey the theme of Alexander's exploits as a
great conqueror. Alexander was indeed a great conqueror,
having ruled the largest empire in ancient history by the
time he was 25 years old. However, the true historical extent
of Alexander's travels are known to be greatly exaggerated
in legends. For example, legend has it that upon reaching
India,

... said Alexander 'Truly, then, all the inhabited

world is mine. West, north, east, south, there is
nothing more for me to conquer.' Then he sat down
and wept because there were not other worlds for
him to conquer.[68]

In reality, while Alexander did travel a great deal, he did not

travel further west than ancient Libya and did not travel
further east than the fringes of India. According to
historians, Alexander invaded India following his desire to
reach the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea."
However, when he reached the Hyphasis River in the Punjab
in 326 BC, his army nearly mutinied and refused to march
further east, exhausted by years of campaigning.
Alexander's desire to reach "the ends of the Earth" was
instilled by his tutor Aristotle:

Alexander derived his concept of `Asia' from the

teaching of Aristotle, for whom `the inhabited earth'
 was surrounded by `the Great sea' Ocean, and was
divided into three areas – `Europe, Libya and Asia.'
Thus the earth was not round but �at, and `Asia'
was limited on the west by the Tanais (Don), the
inland sea and the Nile, and on the east by `India'
and `the Great Sea' ... he was mistaken in supposing
that from the ridge of the Paropamisadae (Hindu
Kush) one would see `the outer sea' and that `India'
was a small peninsula running east into that sea. [69]

This view of the world taught by Aristotle and followed by

Alexander is apparent in Aristotle's Meteorologica, a treatise
on earth sciences where he discusses the "length" and
"width" of "the inhabited earth." However, Aristotle knew that
the Earth is spherical and even provided observational proof
of this fact. Aristotle's cosmological view was that the Earth
is round but he prescribed to the notion of an "inhabited
Earth," surrounded by the Ocean, and an "uninhabited Earth"
(though exactly how much of this was understood by his
student Alexander the Great is not known).

Islamic depictions of Alexander the Great

Arabic traditions Edit

Manuscript of the 9th-century Arabic work Secretum Secretorum ("Secret of
Secrets"), an encyclopedic treatise on a wide range of topics including
physiognomy, astrology, alchemy, magic, and medicine. This work includes a
series of supposed letters from Aristotle, addressed to Alexander. The
Arabic manuscript was translated into Latin in the 12th century and was
influential in Europe during the High Middle Ages

Alexander the Great features prominently in early Arabic

literature. There are many surviving versions of the
Alexander romance in Arabic that were written after the
conquest of Islam. It is also thought that pre-Islamic Arabic
versions of the Alexander romance may have existed.[70]

The earliest surviving Arabic narrative of the Alexander

romance was composed by Umara ibn Zayd (767–815 AD).
In the tale, Alexander travels a great deal, builds the Wall
against Gog and Magog, searches for the Water of Life
(Fountain of Youth), and encounters angels who give him a
"wonder-stone" that both weighs more than any other stone
but is also as light as dust. This wonder-stone is meant to
admonish Alexander for his ambitions and indicate that his
lust for conquest and eternal life will not end until his death.
The story of the wonder-stone is not found in the Syriac
Christian legend, but is found in Jewish Talmudic traditions
about Alexander as well as in Persian traditions.[21][71]

A South Arabian Alexander legend was written by the

Yemenite traditionist Wahb ibn Munabbih (?–732 AD) and
this legend was later incorporated in a book by Ibn Hisham
(?–833 AD) regarding the history of the Himyarite Kingdom
in ancient Yemen. In the Yemenite variation, Dhul-Qarnayn is
identified with an ancient king of Yemen named Tubba',
rather than Alexander the Great, but the Arabic story still
describes the story of Alexander's Wall against Gog and
Magog and his quest for the Water of Life. The story also
mentions that Dhul-Qarnayn (Tubba') visited a castle with
glass walls and visited the Brahmins of India. The South
Arabian legend was composed within the context of the
division between the South Arabs and North Arabs that
began with the Battle of Marj Rahit in 684 AD and
consolidated over two centuries.[21]

The Alexander romance also had an important influence on

Arabic wisdom literature. In Secretum Secretorum ("Secret
of Secrets", in Arabic Kitab sirr al-asrar), an encyclopedic
Arabic treatise on a wide range of topics such as statecraft,
ethics, physiognomy, alchemy, astrology, magic and
medicine, Alexander appears as a speaker and subject of
wise sayings and as a correspondent with figures such as
Aristotle. The origins of the treatise are uncertain. No Greek
original exists, though there are claims in the Arabic treatise
that it was translated from the Greek into Syriac and from
Syriac into Arabic by a well-known 9th century translator,
Yahya ibn al-Bitriq (?–815 AD). It appears, however, that the
treatise was actually composed originally in Arabic.

In another example of Arabic wisdom literature relating to

Alexander, Ibn al-Nadim (?–997 AD) refers to a work on
divination titled The Drawing of Lots by Dhul-Qarnain and to a
second work on divination by arrows titled The gift of
Alexander, but only the titles of these works have survived.

Notably, the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mu'tasim (794–842 AD) had

ordered the translation of the Thesaurus Alexandri, a work
on elixirs and amulets, from Greek and Latin into Arabic.
The Greek work Thesaurus Alexandri was attributed to
Hermes (the great messenger of the gods in Greek
mythology) and similarly contained supposed letters from
Aristotle addressed to Alexander.[21][72]

A more direct Arabic translation of the Alexander romance,

called Sirat Al-Iskandar, was discovered in Constantinople,
at the Hagia Sophia, and is dated to the 13th century. This
version includes the letter from Alexander to his mother
about his travels in India and at the end of the World. It also
includes features which occur exclusively in the Syriac
version. The Arabic legend also retains certain pagan
elements of the story, which are sometimes modified to suit
the Islamic message:
 It is quite remarkable that some characteristics
belonging to a pre-Islamic 'pagan' entourage, have
survived in the text ... For example, Alexander
orders an o�ering of sacri�cial animals at the temple
of Hercules. In the Arabic letter the name of the
deity has been replaced by Allah ... Another passage
in the account of the palace of Shoshan or Sus, gives
a description of the large silver jars, which were
alleged to have capacity of three hundred and sixty
measures of wine. Alexander puts this assertion to
the test, having one of the jars �lled with wine and
poured out for his soldiers during a banquet. This
exact speci�cation has been maintained, heedless of
the Islamic ban on the use of wine ... These
retouched borrowings are highly signi�cant in this
text, because the Arabic Alexander �gure is
portrayed as a propagator of Islamic
monotheism.[70]

Another piece of Arabic Alexander literature is the Laments

(or Sayings) of the Philosophers. These are a collection of
remarks supposedly made by some philosophers gathered
at the tomb of Alexander after his death. This legend was
originally written in the 6th century in Syriac and was later
translated into Arabic and expanded upon. The Laments of
the Philosophers eventually gained enormous popularity in
Europe:[16]

[The 'Sayings of the Philosophers' are] remarks of

the philosophers gathered at the tomb of Alexander,
who utter a series of apophthegms on the theme of
the brevity of life and the transience of human
achievement ... a work entitled 'Sayings of the
Philosophers' was �rst composed in Syriac in the
sixth century; a longer Arabic version was composed
by Hunayan Ibn Ishaq (809-973) the distinguished
scholar-translator, and a still longer one by al-
Mubashshir ibn Fatiq (who also wrote a book about
Alexander) around 1053. Hunayan's version was
translated into Spanish ... in the late thirteenth
century.[73]

The Arabic Alexander romance also had an influence on a

wider range of Arabic literature. It has been noted that some
features of the Arabic Alexander legends found their way
into The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, a medieval
story-cycle of Arabic origin. Sinbad, the hero of the epic, is a
fictional sailor from Basrah, living during the Abbasid
Caliphate. During his voyages throughout the seas east of
Africa and south of Asia, he has fantastic adventures going
to magical places, meeting monsters, and encountering
supernatural phenomena. As a separate example of this
influence on Arabic literature, the legend of Alexander's
search for the Water of Life is found in One Thousand and
One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian
stories and folktales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic
Golden Age.[21]

Andalusian traditions Edit

Manuscript of a 14th-century poem (Poema de Yuçuf) written in Aljamiado

(Spanish and Mozarabic language transliterated in Arabic alphabet).

After the Umayyad Muslim conquest of Al-Andalus (Spain)

in 711 AD, Muslim literature flourished under the Caliphate
of Córdoba (929 to 1031 AD). An Arabic derivative of the
Alexander romance was produced, called Qisas Dhul-
Qarnayn (Tales of Dhul-Qarnayn).[18] The material was later
incorporated into Qisas Al-Anbiya (Tales of the Prophets):

By the turn of the �rst millennium C.E., the romance

of Alexander in Arabic had a core centered on the
Greek legendary material ... Interwoven later into
this narrative in the Tales of the Prophets literature
 were episodes of an apparent Arab-Islamic
elaboration: the construction of a great barrier to
keep the people of Gog and Magog from harassing
the people of the civilized world until Judgement
Day, the voyage to the end of the Earth to witness
the sun set in a pool of boiling mud, and Dhu al-
Qarnayn's expedition into the Land of Darkness in
search of the Fountain of Life accompanied by his
companion Khidir ("the Green-One").[19]

By 1236 AD, the Reconquista was essentially completed and

Europeans had retaken the Iberian peninsula from the
Muslims, but the Emirate of Granada, a small Muslim vassal
of the Christian Kingdom of Castile, remained in Spain until
1492 AD. During the Reconquista, Muslims were forced to
either convert to Catholicism or leave the peninsula. The
descendants of Muslims who converted to Christianity were
called the Moriscos (meaning "Moor-like") and were
suspecting of secretly practicing Islam. The Moriscos used
a language called Aljamiado, which was a dialect of the
Spanish language (Mozarabic) but was written using the
Arabic alphabet. Aljamiado played a very important role in
preserving Islam and the Arabic language in the life of the
Moriscos; prayers and the sayings of Muhammad were
translated into Aljamiado transcriptions of the Spanish
language, while keeping all Quranic verses in the original
Arabic. During this period, a version of the Alexander legend
was written in the Aljamaido language, building on the
Arabic Qisas Dhul-Qarnayn legends as well as Romance
language versions of the Alexander romance.[74][75]

New Persian traditions Edit

15th century Persian miniature painting from Herat depicting Iskander, the
Persian name for Alexander the Great

With the Muslim conquest of Persia in 644 AD, the

Alexander romance found its way into Persian literature—an
ironic outcome considering pre-Islamic Persia's hostility
towards the national enemy who conquered the
Achaemenid Empire and was directly responsible for
centuries of Persian domination by Hellenistic foreign
rulers. However, he is not depicted as a warrior and
conqueror, but as a seeker of truth who eventually finds the
Ab-i Hayat (Water of Life).[76] Islamic Persian accounts of
the Alexander legend, known as the Iskandarnamah,
combined the Pseudo-Callisthenes material about
Alexander, some of which is found in the Quran, with
indigenous Sassanid Middle Persian ideas about Alexander.
For example, Pseudo-Callisthenes is the source of many
incidents in the Shahnama written by Ferdowsi (935–1020
AD) in New Persian. Persian sources on the Alexander
legend devised a mythical genealogy for him whereby his
mother was a concubine of Darius II, making him the half-
brother of the last Achaemenid shah, Darius. By the 12th
century such important writers as Nizami Ganjavi (from
Ganja, Azerbaijan) were making him the subject of their epic
poems. The Muslim traditions also elaborated the legend
that Alexander the Great had been the companion of
Aristotle and the direct student of Plato.

There is also evidence that the Syriac translation of the

Alexander romance, dating to the 6th century, was not
directly based on the Greek recensions but was based on a
lost Pahlavi (pre-Islamic Persian) manuscript.[70]

Central Asian traditions Edit

Certain Muslim people of Central Asia, specifically Bulgar,

Tatar and Bashkir peoples of the Volga-Ural region (within
what is today Tatarstan in the Russian Federation), carried
on a rich tradition of the Alexander legend well into the 19th
century. The region was conquered by the Abbasid
Caliphate in the early 10th century. In these legends,
Alexander is referred to as Iskandar Dhul-Qarnayn
(Alexander the Two Horned), and is "depicted as founder of
local cities and an ancestor of local figures." The local
folklore about Iskandar Dhul-Qarnayn played in an important
role in communal identity:

The conversion of the Volga Bulghars to Islam is

commonly dated to the �rst decades of the 10th
century, and by the middle of the 12th century, it is
apparent that Islamic historical �gures and Islamic
forms of communal validation had become important
factors for Bulghar communal and political cohesion.
The Andalusian traveler Abū Hamid al-Gharnāti
who visited Bulghar in the 1150s, noted that
Iskandar Dhūl-Qarnayn passed through Bulghar,
that is, the Volga-Kama region, on his way to build
the iron walls that contained Yā'jūj and Mā'jūj [Gog
and Magog] within the land of darkness ... while
Najib al-Hamadāni reports that the rulers of Bulghar
claimed descent from Iskandar Dhūl-Qarnayn.[77]

The Iskandar Dhul-Qanryan legends played an important role

in the conversion narrative of the Volga Bulgar Muslims:

There are numerous digressions dealing with the

founding of the Bulghar conversion narrative, and
 legends concerning Iskandar Dhūl-Qarnayn
[Alexander Dhul-Qarnayn] and Socrates. According
to the account, Socrates was born a Christian in
Samarqand and went to Greece to serve Iskandar
Dhūl-Qarnayn (Iskandar Rūmi). Together, they went
to the Land of Darkness (diyār-i zulmat) to seek the
Fountain of Youth (āb-i hayāt). In the northern
lands they built a city and called it Bulghar.[77]

In 1577 AD the Tsardom of Russia annexed control of the

region and Bulgar Muslim writings concerning Dhul-Qarnayn
do not appear again until the 18th and 19th centuries, which
saw a resurgence of local Iskandar Dhul-Qarnayn legends as
a source of Muslim and ethnic identity:

It was only at the turn of the 18th and 19th

centuries that we begin to see historical legends
concerning Iskandar Dhūl-Qarnayn reemerge among
Volga-Kama Muslims, at least in written form, and it
was not until the 19th century that such legends
were recorded from local Muslim oral tradition. In
one of his earliest historical works, entitled Ghilālat
al-Zamān and written in 1877 the Tatar theologian,
Shihāb al-Dīn Marjānī wrote that according to
Arabic and other Muslim writings, as well as
 according to popular legends, the city of Bulghar was
founded by Alexander the Great.[77]

Orientalist and western views

In the 19th century, Orientalists studying the Quran began
researching the identity of Dhul-Qarnayn. Theodor Nöldeke,
believed that Dhul-Qarnayn was none other than Alexander
the Great as mentioned in versions of the Alexander
romance and related literature in Syriac (a dialect of Middle
Aramaic).[78] The Syriac manuscripts were translated into
English in 1889 by E. A. Wallis Budge.[45]

In the early 20th century Andrew Runni Anderson wrote a

series of articles on the question in the Transactions of the
American Philological Association.[36] The findings of the
philologists imply that the source of the Quran's story of
Dhul-Qarnayn is the Alexander romance, a thoroughly
embellished compilation of Alexander's exploits from
Hellenistic and early Christian sources, which underwent
numerous expansions and revisions for two-thousand years,
throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages.[79]

As can be seen in the following quotation from Edwards,

secular philologists studying ancient Syriac Christian
legends about Alexander the Great also came to the
conclusion that Dhul-Qarnayn is an ancient epithet for
Alexander the Great. Edwards says,
 Alexander's association with two horns and with the
building of the gate against Gog and Magog occurs
much earlier than the Quran and persists in the
beliefs of all three of these religions [Judaism,
Christianity and Islam]. The denial of Alexander's
identity as Dhul-Qarnain is the denial of a common
heritage shared by the cultures which shape the
modern world—both in the east and the west. The
popularity of the legend of Alexander the Great
proves that these cultures share a history which
suggests that perhaps they are not so di�erent after
all.[79]

See also
Biblical narratives and the Quran
Cyrus the Great in the Quran
Legends and the Quran
Origin and development of the Quran
Sana'a manuscripts
List of legends in the Quran

Notes
1. Esposito
2. Stoneman 2003, p. 3.
 3. EI2, p. 127.
4. Renard, John (2001). "Alexander" . Encyclopedia of the
Quran. 1 (1st ed.). Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 61–62.
ISBN 9004114653.
5. Maududi, Syed Abul Ala. Tafhim al-Qur'an . "The
identification ... has been a controversial matter from
the earliest times. In general the commentators have
been of the opinion that he was Alexander the Great but
the characteristics of Zul-Qarnain described in the
Qur'an are not applicable to him. However, now the
commentators are inclined to believe that Zul-Qarnain
was Cyrus ... We are also of the opinion that probably
Zul-Qarnain was Cyrus..."
6. Bietenholz 1994, p. 122-123.
7. Theodor Nöldeke: Geschichte des Qorāns. Göttingen
1860; 2. Aufl., Teil 1–3, bearb. von Friedrich Schwally
(Teil 1–2), Goffhelf Bergsträsser u. Otto Pretzl (Teil 3).
Leipzig 1909–1938.
8. Allamah Abu 'Abd Allah al-Zanjani - The History of the
Quran - Al-Tawheed Vol. 4, No. 3; Vol. 5, No. 1, 2, & 3.
9. Kevin P. Edgecomb - Chronological Order of Quranic
Surahs - Bombaxo, 2002.
10. Gero, Stephen. "The Legend of Alexander the Great in
the Christian Orient" (PDF). p. 4–5. "In particular he is
described there as shutting in the tribes of Yajuj wa-
Majuj, the biblical Gog and Magog, by means of an iron
 gate or dam until the end of time, when they shall burst
out of their captivity. Now, this episode is not found in
the oldest form of the Greek Alexander romance; it was
only interpolated, as we shall presently see, into later
Byzantine medieval recensions of the text from
elsewhere; that is, the Alexander romance stride dictu
cannot be considered as a source of the Koranic
narrative.[...]the work (Alexander Legend neshana) also
does not qualify as a direct source for the 'two-horned'
Alexander of the Koran [...] recent investigations indicate
an ex eventu knowledge of the Khazar invasion of
Armenia in A.D. 629."
11. Wheeler, B. "Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis".
p. 19.
12. McGinn 1998.
13. Broydé 1906.
14. Boyle 1974.
15. Beyer, Klaus; John F. Healey (trans.) (1986). The Aramaic
Language: its distribution and subdivisions. Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. p. 44. ISBN 3-525-53573-2.
16. Brock 1970.
17. HANAWAY, WILLIAM L. ESKANDAR-NĀMA .
Encyclopædia Iranica.
18. Zuwiyya 2001
19. Zuwiyya 2009.
20. Reinink; et al. The Reign of Heraclius: Crisis &
 Confrontation. p. 35. "A syriac metrical homily ascribed
to Jacob of Serug, the so called Alexanderlied, was
composed between 629 - 636" Explicit use of et al. in:
|last= (help)
21. Stoneman 2003.
22. Czeglédy 1954.
23. Czeglédy 1957.
24. Doufikar-Aerts 2003.
25. van Bladel, "Alexander Legend in the Qur'an ", 2008:
p.175-203
26. van Bladel, "Alexander Legend in the Qur'an ", 2008:
p.178-79
27. van Bladel, "Alexander Legend in the Qur'an ", 2008:
p.189-90
28. "Coin: from the Persian Wars to Alexander the Great,
490–336 bc" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved
16 November 2009.
29. Griffith 2008.
30. Green 2007. p.382
31. Plutarch, Alexander, 27
32. Encyclopædia Britannica, Alexander III, 1971
33. Alexander the Great coins gallaery
34. The Impact of Alexander the Great’s Coinage in East
Arabia , Hellenic Ministry of Culture, description of the
exhibit "Presveis," displayed at the Numismatic Museum
 of Athens
35. Shanks, Jeffrey H. (2005) [http Alexander the Great and
Zeus Ammon: A New Interpretation of the Phalerae from
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36. Anderson 1927.
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38. Faustina Doufikar-Aerts (2016). "Coptic Miniature
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University of Toronto Press. p. 169.
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39. The Wars of the Jews, VII, vii, Flavius Josephus
40. The Antiquities of the Jews, I, vi, Flavius Josephus
41. Anderson 1932.
42. Letter 77 "To Oceanus", 8, Saint Jerome
43. Gog and Magog : Ezekiel 38-39 as pre-text for Revelation
19,17 and 20,7–10, Sverre Bøe, Mohr Siebec, 2001 (see
excerpt ) (ISBN 978-3-16-147520-7)
44. Southgate 1978.
45. Budge 1889.
46. Bretschneider 1876.
47. Anderson, Andrew Runni, ed. (January 1932).
Alexander's Gate, Gog and Magog, and the enclosed
nations. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Medieval Academy
of America. ISBN 978-0-910956-07-9.
48. Tafsir al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Vol. III,
pp. 235–239
49. Mu'jam-ul-Buldan, Yaqut al-Hamawi
50. H. A. R. Gibb and C. F. Beckingham, trans. The Travels of
Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325–1354 (Vol. IV). London: Hakluyt
Society, 1994 (ISBN 0-904180-37-9), p. 896
51. Gibb, p. 896, footnote #30
52. Leone Montagnini, "La questione della forma della Terra.
Dalle origini alla tarda Antichità," in Studi sull'Oriente
Cristiano, 13/II: 31–68
53. Flammarion 1877
54. Kevin Alan Brook. The Jews of Khazaria. 2nd ed.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2006.
55. Schultze (1905), p. 23.
56. Ibn Kathir, Al-Bidayah wa'l-Nihayah (The Beginning and
the End)
57. Ibn Kathir, "Stories of the Prophets", page 54. Riyadh, SA
Maktaba Dar-us-Salam, 2003
58. Collection of Geographical Works by Ibn al-Faqih, Ibn
Fadlan, Abu Dulaf Al-Khazraji, ed. Fuat Sezgin, Frankfurt
am Main, 1987
59. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Surah Al-Kahf 18:89, His traveling and
reaching the Place where the Sun sets (the West) (link )
60. Sahih Muslim 1:297
61. Hockney, Mike (2014). World, Underworld, Overworld,
Dreamworld. Lulu Press, Inc. ISBN 9781326016579.
62. Dallal, Ahmad (1999), "Science, Medicine and
Technology", in Esposito, John, The Oxford History of
Islam, Oxford University Press, New York, pg. 162
63. Sattari J., "A study on the epic of Gilgamesh and the
legend of Alexander." Markaz Publications 2001 (In
Persian)
64. "The Book of Enoch: Enoch's Journeys through the
Earth and Sheol: Chapter XVII" .
65. "The Book of Enoch: The Book of the Courses of the
Heavenly Luminaries: Chapter LXXII" .
66. Seely 1997.
67. How, Walter W. and Wells, J. A Commentary on
Herodotus. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1912. vol 1. p.
290.
68. Thirty Most Famous Stories Retold , James Baldwin
(1841–1925)
69. Hammond 1998.
70. Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina (2003). The Last Days of
Alexander in an Arabic Popular Romance of Al-Iskandar.
in The Ancient Novel and Beyond by Panayotakis,
 Zimmerman and Keulen.
71. Southgate, Minoo. S. Portrait of Alexander in Persian
Alexander-Romances of the Islamic Era . Journal of the
American Oriental Society, Vol. 97, No. 3, (July –
September 1977), pp. 278-–284
72. Yucesoy, Hayrettin. Messianic Beliefs & Imperial Politics
in Medieval Islam: The Abbasid Caliphate in the Early
Ninth Century. 2009. University of South Carolina. pp.
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73. Hofmann, Heinz. Latin fiction: the Latin novel in context.
Routledge, 1999. p.245
74. Zuwiyya, David Z. "Translation and the Arat of
Recreation: The legend of Alexander the Great from the
Pseudo-Callisthenes to the Aljamiado-Morisco
Rrekontamiento del rrey Alisandre" in Sensus de sensu:
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75. Zuwiyya, David Z. "The Hero of the Hispano-Arabic
Alexander Romance Qissat Dhulqarnayn: Between al-
Askander and Dhulqarnayn," Kalamazoo, Michigan, 34th
International Congress on Medieval Studies, Spring
1999.
76. Algar, Hamid (1973). Mīrzā Malkum Khān: A Study in
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77. Frank, Allen J. (2000). "Historical Legends of the Volga-
Ural Muslims concerning Alexander the Great, the City of
Yelabuga, and Bāchmān Khān". Revue des mondes
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78. Nöldeke.
79. Edwards 2002.

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External links
Is the source of Qur'an 18:60-65 the Alexander
Romances? at Islamic-awareness.org.
The Feast of Iskandar and Nushabah from Niẓāmī's
"Iskandarnamah"
The Sikandar nāma, e bara, or, Book of Alexander the
 Great. Translated into prose, with critical and explanatory
remarks, by Captain H. Wilberforce Clarke. London, 1881
[1]

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