Alexander The Great in the Qur'an:
Historical Background
Alexander the Great was an immensely popular figure in the classical and post-classical cultures of the Mediterranean and Near East. Almost immediately after his death 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 features such vivid episodes as Alexander ascending through the air to Paradise or journeying to the bottom of the sea in a glass bubble.
As the Alexander Romance persisted in popularity over the centuries, it was assumed by various neighboring cultures. Of particular significance was its incorporation into Jewish and later Christian legendary traditions. In the Jewish tradition Alexander is often 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 favor 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 coop Alexander, depicting him as a righteous gentile or even a believing monotheist. 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 almost a saint.
It was in this context of a well-established Judeo-Christian Alexander tradition that Islam also adopted the Alexander Romance. In the Qur'an Alexander (called "The Two-Horned Lord" in reference to his frequent depiction[1] with ram's horns) is portrayed as a pious servant of God. With the Muslim-Arab conquest of Iran, the Alexander Romance found its way to an honored place in Persian literature- an ironic outcome considering pre-Islamic Persia's hostility to the national enemy who not only destroyed the glorious Achaemenid Empire, but was also directly responsible for centuries of Persian domination by Hellenic and quasi-Hellenic foreign overlords.
Theological Controversy:
Though some Muslim scholars have traditionally identified Zul-qarnain with Alexander the Great (others preferring to identify him with the mysterious Tubba' of Yemen or Narmer), modern historical and scriptural scholarship has lately made this position untenable. Most obviously the factual details of the Alexander Romance as included in the Qu'ran (Alexander's fantastic deeds as well as his implied monotheism) have no basis in historical fact- a difficulty for a text considered by almost all Muslims to be infallible.
More fundamentally, the inclusion of pseudo-religious folklore in the Qu'ran challenges core doctrines of Islamic theology. Islam's attitude to Judaism and Christianity is basically negationist. Though kinship between these two religions and Islam is acknowledged, Islamic theology holds that over time Jews and Christians deviated from the original, divinely-inspired scriptures they received and introduced enough heretical "innovations" that a final, corrective prophetic mission (that of Muhammad) became necessary. The inclusion of a text with no scriptural authority, and which in the main derives from a pagan/polytheistic legendary tradition, seriously undermines this claim. As such, some modern Muslim scholars have recently argued that Zul-qarnain is not in fact Alexander, but instead some other ancient king, such as Cyrus the Great.
Qur'anic Text:
From the Qur'an (Chapter 18:83-98= 16 verses, 19 verses for Alexander’s story):
[83] They ask thee concerning Zul-qarnain Say, "I will rehearse to you something of his story." [84] Verily We established his power on earth, and We gave him the ways and the means to all ends. [85] One (such) way he followed, [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." [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). [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." [89] Then followed he (another) way. [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. [91] (He left them) as they were: We completely understood what was before him. [92] Then followed he (another) way, [93] Until, when he reached (a tract) between two mountains, he found, beneath them, a people who scarcely understood a word. [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? [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: [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." [97] Thus were they made powerless to scale it or to dig through it. [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."
It is of note that this Sura has the story of the believers in the cave (hence the name of the Sura), of Moses just preceding that of Alexander.
Why was Alexander considered to be a man of faith, hence a prophet: this can be explained by Jewish tradition:
From: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view. ... 0&letter=A
The celebrated conqueror of the East, 356-323 B.C. By introducing Hellenic culture into Syria and Egypt, he had probably more influence on the development of Judaism than any one individual not a Jew by race. Yet, curiously enough, there are no personal details which connect him with Jewish history, save that after the siege of Tyre, 332 B.C., he marched through Palestine unopposed, except in the case of Gaza, which was razed to the ground. He is mentioned by name only in the Apocryphal I Macc. (i. 1-8, vi. 2). It is supposed that the Book of Daniel alludes to Alexander when it refers to a mighty king that "shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion," whose kingdom shall be destroyed after his death (Dan. xi. 3). The vision of the "fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly," devouring and breaking all in pieces (ibid. vii. 7), may also be an allusion to Alexander. I. Br.
The only historical event connecting Alexander the Great with the Jews is his visit to Jerusalem, which is recorded by Josephus in a somewhat fantastic manner. According to "Ant." xi. 8, §§ 4-6, Alexander went to Jerusalem after having taken Gaza. Jaddua, the high priest, had a warning from God received in a dream, in which he saw himself vested in a purple robe, with his miter—that had the golden plate on which the name of God was engraved—on his head. Accordingly he went to meet Alexander at Sapha ("View" [of the Temple]). Followed by the priests, all clothed in fine linen, and by a multitude of citizens, Jaddua awaited the coming of the king. When Alexander saw the high priest, he reverenced God (Lev. R. xiii., end), and saluted Jaddua; while the Jews with one voice greeted Alexander. When Parmenio, the general, gave expression to the army's surprise at Alexander's extraordinary act—that one who ought to be adored by all as king should adore the high priest of the Jews—Alexander replied: "I did not adore him, but the God who hath honored him with this high-priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea, promising that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians." Alexander then gave the high priest his right hand, and went into the Temple and "offered sacrifice to God according to the high priest's direction," treating the whole priesthood magnificently. "And when the Book of Daniel was shown him [see Dan. vii. 6, viii. 5-8, 20-22, xi. 3-4], wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks [ ] should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that he was the person intended, and rejoiced thereat. The following day Alexander asked the people what favors he should grant them; and, at the high priest's request, he accorded them the right to livein full enjoyment of the laws of their forefathers. He, furthermore, exempted them from the payment of tribute in the seventh year of release. To the Jews of Babylonia and Media also he granted like privileges; and to the Jews who were willing to enlist in his army he promised the right to live in accordance with their ancestral laws. Afterward the Samaritans, having learned of the favors granted the Jews by Alexander, asked for similar privileges; but Alexander declined to accede to their request. The historical character of this account is, however, doubted by many scholars (see Pauly-Wissowa, "Realencyklopädie," i. col. 1422). Although, according to Josephus ("Contra Ap." ii. 4, quoting Hecatæus), Alexander permitted the Jews to hold the country of Samaria free from tribute as a reward for their fidelity to him, it was he who Hellenized its capital (Schürer, "Gesch." ii. 108). The Sibylline Books (iii. 383) speak of Alexander—who claimed to be the son of Zeus Amon—as "of the progeny of the Kronides, though spurious." K.
—In Jewish Legend:
All the accounts which the Talmud and Midrash give concerning Alexander MuḲdon (the Macedonian) are of a legendary character. Some of them pretend to be historical, as the following Baraita in Yoma, 69a (identical with Megillat Ta'anit, iii.):
"When the Samaritans had obtained permission from Alexander to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem, the high priest Simon the Just, arrayed in his pontifical garments and followed by a number of distinguished Jews, went out to meet the conqueror, and joined him at Antipatris, on the northern frontier. At sight of Simon, Alexander fell prostrate at his feet, and explained to his astonished companions that the image of the Jewish high priest was always with him in battle, fighting for him and leading him to victory. Simon took the opportunity to justify the attitude of his countrymen, declaring that, far from being rebels, they offered prayers in the Temple for the welfare of the king and his dominions. So impressed was Alexander that he delivered up all the Samaritans in his train into the hands of the Jews, who tied them to the tails of horses and dragged them to the mountain of Gerizim; then the Jews plowed the mountain [demolished the Samaritan temple]."
Samaritan Intrigue.
It is evident that this account wrongly assigns to the times of Alexander an event which occurred two centuries later, in the reign of John Hyrcanus I. It must therefore have been written at a late period, when the memory of historical incidents had become confused. The legend presents a striking resemblance to the narrative of Josephus ("Ant." xi. 8, § 1 et seq.). The point of the fable is the honor conferred by Alexander upon the high priest and the cause thereof; and, furthermore, the contrast between his good-will to the Jews and his hostility to the Samaritans. Both the narrative in the Talmud and that of Josephus are derived from an "Apology" of the Jews which aimed at discrediting the members of the Samaritan sect. It is even possible that this apology, as Büchler thinks ("Rev. Ét. Juives," lxxxvi. 1), had its origin in Alexandria, where the attitude of Alexander was of decisive importance in the eyes of the Greek public:
"In Gen. R. (lxi., end) the Samaritans are accused of playing a rôle equally despicable with that imputed to them in the above legend. When Alexander advanced toward Jerusalem, they informed him that the Jews would forbid his entrance to the Holy of Holies. A Jew, Gebi'ah ben Kosem [identical with Gebia ben Pesisa, a legendary character], asked the king, on the hill of the Temple, to remove his shoes and to put on the slippers ornamented with precious stones that he had brought for him, lest he should slip on the pavement of the Temple. Alexander complied with the request, and thus avoided a violation of the rabbinic law. When they arrived at the Holy of Holies, Gebi'ah said to the king, 'We are not permitted to proceed farther' (neither we nor you). 'When I have left the Temple,' replied the king, 'I will straighten your hump' (Gebi'ah signifies humpback). 'If you do,' answered Gebi'ah, 'you are a great physician, and deserving of high remuneration.'"
This anecdote is one of those naive inventions of which many are found in Midrash Ekah Rabbati, and which aim at exhibiting the ingenuity of the Jews in repartee. Alexander is made to play merely the part of a stage-king.
The same Gebi'ah appears in a narrative of quite a different type. Alexander is here represented as the great conqueror to whom the nations appeal for arbitration of their differencesSanh. 91a, Gen. R. l.c.).
"The Arabs accuse the Jews of illegally withholding the heritage of their ancestor Ishmael; the Canaanites complain of having been wrongly deprived of their territory; and the Egyptians claim indemnity for the vessels that the Israelites had taken from them on leaving their country. Gebi'ah meets all these charges with great success: against the Egyptians he proves that it is they that are indebted to the Jews, whom they had exploited without paying them for their work, and Alexander was fully satisfied with the refutation"
(see image) Coin with Aramaic Inscription.
These pretended discussions, similar to those reported to have taken place between the Samaritans and the Jews before Ptolemy Philometor (Josephus, "Ant." xii. 1, § 10; xiii. 4, § 4), are the echo of the accusations against the Jews by pagan readers of the Bible at Alexandria. These imputations were taken up later by the Gnostics, who were the pupils of the Alexandrians, and especially by the Marcionites. Tertullian replied to Marcion, who had brought the same reproach against the Bible for the "larceny" committed by the Jews, by repeating the words of Gebi'ah; he even mentions the discussions between the Jews and the Egyptians ("nam et aiunt ita actum per legatos utrinque; Ægyptiorum quidem repetentium vasa; Judeorum vero reposcentium operas suas, et tandem vasis istis renuntiaverunt sibi Ægyptii"; "Adversus Marcionem," ii. 20).
What different commentators say about Zul-qarnain:
All the following commentators agreed that the two horned is Alexander the great:
El Baidawi, Al Zamakhshari, Jallaloddin, Yahya (Sale, page 294 first comment)
Example:Baidawi on Sura 18: 82/83 :reference to the Greek (rumi) Alexander.
Why the two horned:
1. King of East and West
2. 2. He roamed all over the two horns of the earth, namely East and West
3. 3. Two generations (qarnan) of men passed away during his life time
4. 4. He had two horn, that is two braids of hair
5. Because his crown had two horns (see images especially of coins of his time).
6. Or since one who is brave is called a “ram”, as he battered his enemies like a ram
Add to this that Alexander was considered son of Jupiter- Amon [depicted as ram, with two horns] as seen in Sale translation, comment 1 page 294.
What different Koran translations say about Zul-qarnain:
1. Abdel Haleem: Alexander the Great.
2. Majid Fakhry: Alexander the Great
3. N.J. Dawood: Alexander the great
4. Sale: Alexander the Great
5. J.M. Rodwell: Alexander the Great
6. Ahmed Ali: Many commentators identify Dhul-Qarnain with Alexander of Macedonia, page 259 comment 2.
Zul-qarnain is Alexander the Great:
The question is who fits the following criteria of Dhul-Qarnain as depicted in the Koran except Alexander the great:
1. Travelled widely, east and west
2. 2. conqured widely east and west
3. Has two horn, historically shown on coins of the time
4. Was benevolent
5. Was a believer, see the Jewish tradition below
6. Was before Mohammad
7. Especially endowed with powers from God
Alexander the Great a homosexual:
How do we know Alexander was gay?
2,300 years ago men in Greece had wives, mistresses, and lovers of either gender. Alexander's father, Philip of Macedon, had male lovers and also many wives, a problem when half-brothers would fight to the death over the throne. Alexander refused to marry and beget an heir when he left Macedon to conquer the world.
Alexander loved his boyhood friend, Hephaestion. Both brilliant boys, they were tutored by Aristotle, with whom Hephaestion kept up a lifelong correspondence. Alexander and Hephaestion felt like the two heroes Achilles and Patroclus, from The Iliad, which was Alexander's favorite book.
Hephaestion started off as a regular cavalry soldier - Alexander did not play favorites - and rose through the ranks on merit and carried out the most important military and administrative assignments. Later, Alexander also fell in love with a courtier from the conquered Persian court, scandalous not because the courtier was male, but because he was Persian -- most Greeks thought that other people were barbarians. Alexander married a princess from a faraway mountain kingdom of Asia, but it's unclear if he loved her because their only child was born much later. He also married the defeated Persian king's daughter, a purely political marriage, and Hephaestion married her sister, since he and Alexander wanted their children to be cousins.
After they conquered Asia, Hephaestion died suddenly of typhus. Alexander's grief was monumental. He asked the oracles if Hephaestion was a god (back then people could become gods by achievement) and was told that Hephaestion was indeed a hero, a lesser type of god. Now Alexander, who had no doubt about his own divinity, knew that he would meet his beloved again in the Blessed Realm, where gods and heroes live. He got his first wife pregnant and died himself without waiting for the child to be born, all within eight months of Hephaestion's death, just as Achilles had followed Patroclus in the Iliad. He was 32 years old.
This is from Robin Lane Fox: Alexander the Great:
Hephaestion was the man Alexander loved, and for the rest of their lives their relationship remained as intimate as it is now irrecoverable: Alexander was only defeated once, the Cynic philosophers said long after his death, and that was by Hephaestion's thighs. (p. 56)
At the age of thirty Alexander was still Hephaestion's lover although most young Greeks would have grown out of the fashion by then and an older man would have given up or turned to a younger attraction. Their affair was a strong one; Hephaestion grew to lead Alexander's cavalry most ably and to become Vizier before dying a divine hero, worthy of posthumous worship. (p. 57)
[Alexander's royal bodyguard] were the nobles whom Alexander loved and trusted, whether tough like Leonnatus, famed for his gymnastics, or shrewd like Ptolemy, a friend from childhood; Hephaestion still predominated, faithfully inclining to the Persian customs of his king and lover. (p. 430)
And from Mary Renault, in The Nature of Alexander :
With Hephaestion he remained in love, at a depth where the physical becomes almost irrelevant; and years later Bagoas [a Persian courtier] was still his recognized eromenos [Greek for "lover"]. (p. 185)
And from The Random House Encyclopedia, New Revised Edition, 1983:
A more immediate project was the marriage of Alexander and Hephaestion, his closest friend and lover, to two of the daughters of Darius [the recently conquered Persian emperor], while another 80 Macedonian officers married daughters of Persian nobles. (p. 1005)
Paul Cartledge is Professor of Greek History in the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.
The following is from an article he wrote just before publication of his book, Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past (2004).
Aristotle is said to have advised Alexander to treat all non Greeks as slavish 'barbarians', advice which Alexander--to his credit--conspicuously did not follow. Indeed, he married, polygamously, three 'barbarians'--the daughter of a Sogdian warlord and two Persian royal women--and encouraged his closest companions to take foreign wives too. No doubt, as with Philip's marriages, these were predominantly motivated by realpolitik. It is notable that, unlike his father, Alexander married no Macedonian nor Greek woman. Moreover his marriages were designed to further a policy of orientalisation, the playing down of an exclusive Hellenism and the promotion of Graeco-oriental political and cultural mix.
The question of Alexander's sexuality--his predominant sexual orientation--has enlivened, or bedevilled, much Alexander scholarship.
That he loved at least two men there can be little doubt. The first was the Macedonian noble Hephaestion, a friend from boyhood, whom he looked on--and may actually have referred to--as his alter ego. The Persian queen mother, it was said, once mistook the taller Hephaestion for Alexander, who graciously excused her blushes by murmuring that 'he too is Alexander'. Whether Alexander's relationship with the slightly older Hephaestion was ever of the sort that once dared not speak its name is not certain, but it is likely enough that it was. At any rate, Macedonian and Greek mores would have favoured an actively sexual component rather than inhibiting or censoring it. Like hunting, homosexuality was thought to foster masculine, especially martial, bravery.
The other non-female beloved of Alexander's was named Bagoas. He was not just a 'barbarian' (Persian) but also a eunuch. There was a long Middle Eastern tradition of employing eunuchs as court officials, especially where a harem system was in place, as at the Achaemenid royal court (witness the Biblical book of Esther). Bagoas was not the first Persian court eunuch, either, to act as a power-broker between rival individuals and factions. A homonymous predecessor had done his murderous worst through the arts of poison, paving the way for Darius III's immediate predecessor to assume the Persian throne. The methods of Alexander's Bagoas were no less effective, if less violent, and Alexander's personal commitment to him seems to have attained levels of sexual intimacy that his Greek and Macedonian courtiers found embarrassing.
IMAGES:
at war
2 horns
2 horns
Coin 2 horns
Coin 2 horns
Map
Map2
Ammon, Ram god identified with Zeus, hence Alexander the great with two horns.