Dhu al-Qarnayn


Dhu al-Qarnayn,, also spelled Zu al-Qarnayn, appears in the Quran, Surah Al-Kahf, Ayahs 83-101 as one who travels to east and west and erects a wall between mankind and Gog and Magog. Elsewhere the Quran tells how the end of the world would be signaled by the release of Gog and Magog from behind the wall, and other apocalyptic writings report their destruction by God in a single night would usher in the Day of Resurrection .
Early Muslim commentators and historians assimilated Dhu al-Qarnayn to several figures, among them Alexander the Macedonian, the Parthian king Kisrounis, the South-Arabian Himyarite king Sa'b Dhu Marathid, and the North-Arabian Lakhmid king al-Mundhir ibn Imru al-Qays. Some have argued that the origins of the Quranic story lies in the Syriac Alexander Legend'', but others disagree citing dating inconsistencies and missing key elements. Some modern Muslim scholars are in favor of identifying him with Cyrus the Great.

Quran 18:83-101

The story of Dhu al-Qarnayn is related in Surah 18 of the Quran, al-Kahf. According to Muslim accounts, this chapter was revealed to Muhammad when his tribe, Quraysh, sent two men to discover whether the Jews, with their superior knowledge of the scriptures, could advise them on whether Muhammad was a true prophet of God. The rabbis told them to ask Muhammad about three things, one of them "about a man who travelled and reached the east and the west of the earth, what was his story". "If he tells you about these things, then he is a prophet, so follow him, but if he does not tell you, then he is a man who is making things up, so deal with him as you see fit.".
The verses of the chapter reproduced below show Dhu al-Qarnayn traveling first to the Western edge of the world where he sees the sun set in a muddy spring, then to the furthest East where he sees it rise from the ocean, and finally northward to a place in the mountains where he finds a people oppressed by Gog and Magog:
VerseAbdullah Yusuf AliPickthall
18:83.They ask thee concerning Zul-qarnain Say, "I will rehearse to you something of his story."They will ask thee of Dhu'l-Qarneyn. Say: "I shall recite unto you a remembrance of him."
18:84Verily We established his power on earth, and We gave him the ways and the means to all ends.Lo! We made him strong in the land and gave him unto every thing a road.
18:85One way he followed,And he followed a road
18:86Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: near it he found a people: We said: "O Zul-qarnain!, either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness."Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout. We said: "O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness."
18:87He said: "Whoever doth wrong, him shall we punish; then shall he be sent back to his Lord; and He will punish him with a punishment unheard-of.He said: "As for him who doeth wrong, we shall punish him, and then he will be brought back unto his Lord, Who will punish him with awful punishment!"
18:88"But whoever believes, and works righteousness, he shall have a goodly reward, and easy will be his task as we order it by our command.""But as for him who believeth and doeth right, good will be his reward, and We shall speak unto him a mild command."
18:89Then followed he way.Then he followed a road
18:90Until, when he came to the rising of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had provided no covering protection against the sun.Till, when he reached the rising-place of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had appointed no shelter therefrom.
18:91 as they were: We completely understood what was before him.So. And We knew all concerning him.
18:92Then followed he way.Then he followed a road
18:93Until, when he reached between two mountains, he found, beneath them, a people who scarcely understood a word.Till, when he came between the two mountains, he found upon their hither side a folk that scarce could understand a saying.-
18:94They said: "O Zul-qarnain! the Gog and Magog do great mischief on earth: shall we then render thee tribute in order that thou mightest erect a barrier between us and them?"They said: "O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Lo! Gog and Magog are spoiling the land. So may we pay thee tribute on condition that thou set a barrier between us and them?"
18:95He said: " in which my Lord has established me is better : help me therefore with strength : I will erect a strong barrier between you and them:He said: "That wherein my Lord hath established me is better. Do but help me with strength, I will set between you and them a bank."
18:96"Bring me blocks of iron." At length, when he had filled up the space between the two steep mountain sides, he said, "Blow " then, when he had made it as fire, he said: "Bring me, that I may pour over it, molten lead.""Give me pieces of iron" - till, when he had leveled up between the cliffs, he said: "Blow!" - till, when he had made it a fire, he said: "Bring me molten copper to pour thereon."
18:97Thus were they made powerless to scale it or to dig through it.And were not able to surmount, nor could they pierce.
18:98He said: "This is a mercy from my Lord: but when the promise of my Lord comes to pass, He will make it into dust; and the promise of my Lord is true."He said: "This is a mercy from my Lord; but when the promise of my Lord cometh to pass, He will lay it low, for the promise of my Lord is true."
18:99On that day We shall leave them to surge like waves on one another: the trumpet will be blown, and We shall collect them all together.And on that day we shall let some of them surge against others, and the Trumpet will be blown. Then We shall gather them together in one gathering.
18:100And We shall present Hell that day for Unbelievers to see, all spread out,-On that day we shall present hell to the disbelievers, plain to view,
18:101 whose eyes had been under a veil from remembrance of Me, and who had been unable even to hear.Those whose eyes were hoodwinked from My reminder, and who could not bear to hear.

A minority of Muslim commentators argue Gog and Magog here refers to some barbaric North Asian tribes from pre-Biblical times which have been free from Dhu al-Qarnayn's wall for a long time. "Qarn" also means "period" or "century", and the name Dhu al-Qarnayn therefore has a symbolic meaning as "He of the Two Ages", the first being the mythological time when the wall is built and the second the age of the end of the world when Allah's shariah, the divine law, is removed and Gog and Magog are to be set loose. Modern Islamic apocalyptic writers, holding to a literal reading, put forward various explanations for the absence of the wall from the modern world, some saying that Gog and Magog were the Mongols and that the wall is now gone, others that both the wall and Gog and Magog are present but invisible.

Later literature

Dhu al-Qarnayn the traveller was a favourite subject for later writers. In one of many Arabic and Persian versions of the meeting of Alexander with the Indian sages, the poet and philosopher Al-Ghazali wrote of how Dhu al-Qarnayn came across a people who had no possessions but dug graves at the doors of their houses; their king explained that they did this because the only certainty in life is death. Ghazali's version later made its way into the Thousand and One Nights.
The Sufi poet Rumi, perhaps the most famous of medieval Persian poets, described Dhu al-Qarnayn's eastern journey. The hero ascends Mount Qof, the "mother" of all other mountains, which is made of emerald and forms a ring encircling the entire Earth with veins under every land. At Dhu al-Qarnayn's request the mountain explains the origin of earthquakes: when God wills, the mountain causes one of its veins to throb, and thus an earthquake results. Elsewhere on the great mountain Dhu al-Qarnayn meets Esrafil, standing ready to blow the trumpet on the Day of Judgement.
The Malay-language Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain traces the ancestry of several Southeast Asian royal families, such as the Sumatra Minangkabau royalty, from Iskandar Zulkarnain, through Raja Rajendra Chola in the Malay Annals.

People identified as Dhu al-Qarnayn

Alexander the Great

According to Bietenholz, the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn has its origins in legends of Alexander the Great current in the Middle East in the early years of the Christian era. According to these, 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 civilised lands. The legend went through much further elaboration in subsequent centuries before eventually finding its way into the Quran through a Syrian version. However, the supposed influence of the Syriac legends on the Quran have been questioned based on dating inconsistencies and missing key motifs.
While the Syriac Legend references the horns of Alexander, it consistently refers to the hero by his Greek name, not using a variant epithet. The use of the Islamic epithet "Dhu al-Qarnayn", the "two-horned", first occurred in the Quran. The reasons behind the name "Two-Horned" are somewhat obscure: the scholar al-Tabari held it was because he went from one extremity of the world to the other, but it may ultimately derive from the image of Alexander wearing the horns of the ram-god Zeus-Ammon, as popularised on coins throughout the Hellenistic Near East. The wall Dhu al-Qarnayn builds on his northern journey may have reflected a distant knowledge of the Great Wall of China, or of various Sassanid Persian walls built in the Caspian area against the northern barbarians, or a conflation of the two.
Dhu al-Qarnayn also journeys to the western and eastern extremities of the Earth. Ernst claims that Dhu al-Qarnayn finding the sun setting in a "muddy spring" in the West is equivalent to the "poisonous sea" found by Alexander in the Syriac legend. In the Syriac story Alexander tested the sea by sending condemned prisoners into it, but the Quran allegedly changes this into a general administration of justice. In the East both the Syrian legend and the Quran, according to Ernst, have Alexander/Dhu al-Qarnayn find a people who live so close to the rising sun that they have no protection from its heat.
Several notable Muslim commentators, including Ibn Kathir,:100-101 Ibn Taymiyyah:101 and Naser Makarem Shirazi, have strongly disagreed with the Alexander identification. Muslim commentators objecting to the Alexander theory have commonly used theological arguments for their conclusions: Alexander lived only a short time, whereas Dhu al-Qarnayn lived for 700 years as a sign of God's blessing; Dhu al-Qarnayn worshipped only one God, while Alexander was a polytheist, proudly referring to himself at times as the "Son of Ra" or the "Son of Zeus". Among Western academics, Brannon Wheeler has argued that the alleged similarities between Alexander romances and the Dhu al-Qarnayn story are actually based on later commentaries of the Qur'an rather than the Qur'an itself.:16, 18-19

Cyrus the Great

In modern times, many Muslim scholars have argued in favour of Dhu al-Qarnayn being actually Cyrus the Great, the founder of the first Persian Empire. Among Muslims, first promoted by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, this theory has generated wider acceptance over the years. Wheeler accepts the possibility but points out the absence of such a theory by classical Muslim commentators.:16
According to Muslim records, the Dhu al-Qarnayn story was revealed on the inquisition of Jews who held a high opinion of Cyrus and is also honoured in the Bible; the "He of the Two Horns" is allegedly referring to the two-horned ram mentioned in Book of Daniel, Chapter 8. Furthermore, Cyrus' conquests:16 also align with the account of Dhu al-Qarnayn as Cyrus was also a great King who expanded his empire in three directions, excluding the South.

Others

The various campaigns of Dhul-Qarnayn mentioned in Q:18:83-101 have also been attributed to the South Arabian Himyarite King Ṣaʿb Dhu-Marāthid. According to Wahb ibn Munabbih, as quoted by Ibn Hisham, King Ṣaʿb was a conqueror who was given the epithet Dhu al-Qarnayn after meeting al-Khidr in Jerusalem. He then travels to the ends of the earth, conquering or converting people until being led by al-Khidr through the land of darkness. According to Wheeler, it is possible that some elements of these accounts that were originally associated with Sa'b have been incorporated into stories which identify Dhu al-Qarnayn with Alexander.
Other persons identified with Dhul-Qarnayn: