What Is Dhul-Qarnayn?

Dhul-Qarnayn or Dhu al-Qarnayn, ذُو ٱلْقَرْنَيْن, Ḏū l-Qarnaynlit. “He of the Two Horns”) appears in the QuranSurah Al-Kahf (18), Ayahs 83–101 as one who travels to the east and west and sets up a barrier between a certain people and Gog and Magog (called Ya’juj and Ma’juj). Elsewhere the Quran tells how the end of the world will be signaled by the release of Gog and Magog from behind the barrier. Other apocalyptic writings predict that their destruction by God in a single night will usher in the Day of Resurrection (Yawm al-Qiyāmah).

Early Muslim commentators and historians variously identified Dhu al-Qarnayn, most notably as Alexander the Great and as the South-Arabian Himyarite king al-Ṣaʿb bin Dhī Marāthid. Some modern scholars have argued that the origin of the Quranic story may be found in the Syriac Alexander Legend, but others disagree. Although some favor identification of Dhu al-Qarnayn with Cyrus the Great, the majority of modern scholars and commentators still prefer Alexander the Great.

Quran 18:83-101

The story of Dhul-Qarnayn is related in chapter 18 of the Quran, al kahf (“The Cave“). This chapter was supposedly 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.” (Verses 18:83-98).

Great Wall of China

Great Wall of China

The verses of the chapter reproduced below show Dhul-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:

Verse Abdullah Yusuf Ali Pickthall
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.”
18:84 Verily 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.
18:85 One (such) way he followed, And he followed a road
18:86 Until, 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! (thou hast authority), 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.”
18:87 He 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 (before). 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.”
18:89 Then followed he (another) way. Then he followed a road
18:90 Until, 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 (He left them) as they were: We completely understood what was before him. So (it was). And We knew all concerning him.
18:92 Then followed he (another) way. Then he followed a road
18:93 Until, when he reached (a tract) 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.
18:94 They said: “O Zul-qarnain! the Gog and Magog (people) 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?”
18:95 He said: “(The power) in which my Lord has established me is better (than tribute): help me therefore with strength (and labour): I will erect a strong barrier between you and them: He said: “That wherein my Lord hath established me is better (than your tribute). Do but help me with strength (of men), 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 (with your bellows)” then, when he had made it (red) 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 (the gap) between the cliffs, he said: “Blow!” – till, when he had made it a fire, he said: “Bring me molten copper to pour thereon.”
18:97 Thus were they made powerless to scale it or to dig through it. And (Gog and Magog) were not able to surmount, nor could they pierce (it).
18:98 He 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.”
18:99 On 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.
18:100 And 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 (Unbelievers) 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.

Gog and Magog

Main article: Gog and Magog

Cyril Glassé writes the following with regard to the name “He of the two horns”:

[…] it also has a symbolical interpretation: “He of the two Ages”, which reflects the eschatological shadow that Alexander casts from his time, which preceded Islam by many centuries, until the end of the world. The Arabian word qarn means both “horn” and “period” or “century”.

Modern Islamic apocalyptic writers put forward various explanations for the absence of the wall from the modern world, some saying that the Mongols were Gog and Magog and that the barrier has now disappeared, others that Gog and Magog are still present but invisible to human eyes :

…[T]he geography of the world is known, but despite this advance this “Barrier” [Quran 18:94] is not heard of … The answer is that not everything in existence can be seen.(Abd al-Azim al-Khilfa, 1996)

Later literature

The wall of the citadel in Derbent, Russia.

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.

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 Persian Sunni mystic and theologian Al-Ghazali (Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī, 1058–1111) 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 (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, 1207-1273), perhaps the most famous of medieval Persian poets, described Dhu al-Qarnayn‘s eastern journey. The hero ascends Mount Qaf, 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 Israfil (the archangel Raphael), 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 (Raja Suran, Raja Chola) in the Malay Annals.

People identified as Dhu al-Qarnayn

Alexander the Great

Silver tetradrachm of Alexander the Great shown wearing the horns of the ram-god Zeus-Ammon.

Silver tetradrachm of Alexander the Great shown wearing the horns of the ram-god Zeus-Ammon.

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. 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 basic elements are found in Flavius Josephus). The legend went through much further elaboration in subsequent centuries before eventually finding its way into the Quran through a Syrian version.

The reasons behind the name “Two-Horned” are somewhat obscure: the scholar al-Tabari (839-923 CE) held it was because he went from one extremity (“horn”) 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 Dhul-Qarnayn builds on his northern journey may have reflected a distant knowledge of the Great Wall of China (the 12th century scholar al-Idrisi drew a map for Roger of Sicily showing the “Land of Gog and Magog” in Mongolia), or of various Sassanid Persian walls built in the Caspian area against the northern barbarians, or a conflation of the two.

Dhul-Qarneyn also journeys to the western and eastern extremities (“qarns”, tips) of the Earth. In the west he finds the sun setting in a “muddy spring”, equivalent to the “poisonous sea” which Alexander found in the Syriac legend. In the Syriac original Alexander tested the sea by sending condemned prisoners into it, but the Quran changes this into a general administration of justice. In the east both the Syrian legend and the Quran have Alexander/Dhul-Qarneyn find a people who live so close to the rising sun that they have no protection from its heat.

“Qarn” also means “period” or “century”, and the name Dhul-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.

King Ṣaʿb Dhu-Marāthid

The various campaigns of Dhu al-Qarnayn mentioned in Q:18:83-101 have also been attributed to the South Arabian Himyarite King Ṣaʿb Dhu-Marāthid (also known as al-Rāʾid). 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.

Cyrus the Great

The relief of a winged genie, or according to some scholars, Cyrus the Great, in Pasargadae. The two horns of the Hemhem crown have been related to the name Dhu al-Qarnayn.

The relief of a winged genie, or according to some scholars, Cyrus the Great, in Pasargadae. The two horns of the Hemhem crown have been related to the name “Dhu al-Qarnayn”.

The relief of a winged genie, or according to some scholars, Cyrus the Great, in Pasargadae. The two horns of the Hemhem crown have been related to the name “Dhu al-Qarnayn“.

In modern times, some Muslim scholars have argued in favour of Dhu al-Qarnayn being actually Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire and conqueror of Egypt and Babylon. Proponents of this view cite Daniel’s vision in the Old Testament where he saw a two-horned ram that represents “the kings of Media and Persia” (Daniel 8:20).

Archeological evidence cited includes the Cyrus Cylinder, which portrays Cyrus as a worshipper of the Babylonian god Marduk, who ordered him to rule the world and establish justice in Babylon. The cylinder states that idols that Nabonidus had brought to Babylon from various other Babylonian cities were reinstalled by Cyrus in their former sanctuaries and ruined temples reconstructed. Supported with other texts and inscriptions, Cyrus appears to have initiated a general policy of permitting religious freedom throughout his domains.

A famous relief on a palace doorway pillar in Pasagardae depicts a winged figure wearing a Hemhem crown (a type of ancient Egyptian crown mounted on a pair of long spiral ram’s horns). Some scholars take this to be a depiction of Cyrus due to an inscription that was once located above it, though most see it as a tutelary genie, or protective figure and note that the same inscription was also written on other palaces in the complex.

This theory was proposed in 1855 by the German philologist G. M. Redslob, but it did not gain followers in the west. Among Muslim commentators, it was first promoted by Sayyed Ahmad Khan (d. 1889), then by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and generated wider acceptance over the years. Wheeler accepts the possibility but points out the absence of such a theory by classical Muslim commentators.

Others

Other persons who either were identified with the Quranic figure or given the title Dhu al-Qarnayn:

  • Afrīqish al-Ḥimyarī, king of Himyar. Al-Biruni in his book, The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries, listed a number of figures whom people thought to be Dhu al-Qarnayn. He favoured the opinion that Dhu al-Qarnayn was the Yamani prince Afrīqish, who conquered the Mediterranean and established a city called Afrīqiah. He was called Dhu al-Qarnayn because he ruled the lands of the rising and setting sun. To support his argument, al-Biruni cited Arabic onomastics, noting that compound names beginning with Dhū, such as Dhū Nuwās and Dhū Yazan, were common among the kings of Himyar.
  • Fereydun. According to al-Tabari’s Tarikh, some say Dhu al-Qarnayn the Elder (al-akbar), who lived in the era of Abraham, was the mythical Persian king Fereydun, who al-Tabari rendered as Afrīdhūn ibn Athfiyān.
  • Imru’l-Qays (died 328 CE), a prince of the Lakhmids of southern Mesopotamia, an ally first of Persia and then of Rome, celebrated in romance for his exploits.
  • Messiah ben Joseph, a fabulous military saviour expected by Yemenite Jews.
  • Darius the Great.
  • Kisrounis, Parthian king.

Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leave a Reply