Scheherazade
Member
The Qur'an contains a number of pre-Islamic legends. One such legend, which has above all been a source of ridicule, deals with a figure known as 'The Two-Horned One' (Dhu'l-Qarnayn) and is found in Q. 28:83-98. The consensus among Western academics is that Dhu'l-Qarnayn is Alexander the Great, but this brings up many questions. The Qur'an describes Alexander as a pious man who was favoured and granted power by God (28:83, 87-88) when we know that, far from being a devout monotheist, Alexander was a pagan. Moreover, Alexander is described as having found the place where the Sun sets, finding it setting on Earth in a "muddy spring" (Q. 28:86). Surely this all absurd, many would suggest.
At first sight, perhaps, and certainly to the modern onlooker. What should be noted is that this is a rather recent argument against Islam as far as I am aware. I do not know of any instances in which it was employed either in ancient Jewish or Christian polemics against Islam. The reason for this is simply that ancient Jews and Christians, who are presumably the ones who would have asked Muhammad about Alexander in Q. 28:83, would have seen nothing absurd in the Qur'anic narrative. The Alexander legends from which the story in the Qur'an is quite clearly derived are in fact Judaeo-Christian in origin. In these legends, just as in the Qur'an, there is no attempt at rigorous historiography; rather, the figure of Alexander is employed typologically as the image of the archetypal pious ruler. This was the very way in which ancient Jews and Christians saw Alexander. Therefore, in consideration of all of this, I am led to conclude that what is much more important than the issue of the identity of Dhu'l-Qarnayn or the historical details relating to Alexander is this motif which the Qur'an, in appropriating the Alexander legend, employs for its own purposes.
Likewise, the image of the Sun setting in a spring (Q. 28:86) is but another motif lifted from earlier Alexander legends, and it seems silly to believe that either of the author of the Syriac Alexander Romance or the author of the Qur'an believed that the Sun sets in a spring in the West yet rises somehow in the East, in another place entirely, especially in light of other Qur'anic descriptions of the Sun and the relevant elaborations of these in the authentic hadith literature (excluding of course the hadith in Abu Dawud, which is the only report in the entire corpus, as far as I know, which suggests a literal reading of Q. 28:86). Q. 28:86, 90 describes Alexander as discovering not just the place where the Sun sets but also the place where it rises, so this strikes one as a clear allusion to the vast extent of Alexander's travels and conquests.
As scholars van Donzel and Schmidt note, rather than merely 'plagiarizing,' the Qur'an makes a very sophisticated use of its source material in recasting the Alexander legend: "Arabic sabab, translated as 'way' in verses 85 and 89 literally means 'rope' but, Paret remarks, it is to be taken here metaphorically in the sense of 'expedient, resource.' It is a remarkable expression, which probably refers to the source through which the prophet Muhammad may have become acquainted with the story of Alexander. The Syriac version of the Alexander Romance and the Alexander Legend relate that Alexander travelled through deserts and rocky regions in a land where the sun does not shine until ‘the middle of the day.’ It was not from the position of the sun that Alexander knew that it was midday, but he had measured the way geometrically with the help of strings, from which he figured out the time of day" (Gog and Magog in Early Syriac and Islamic Sources [Brill, 2009], p. 59).
The Qur'an employs the poetic repetition of the term sabab and in fact repeats it three times, correspondent to the three divisions of the day, and on the second repetition, Alexander sees the Sun rising at midday (Q. 28:90), just as he does in the Alexander story recorded in the Babylonian Talmud. In this way (namely, in that it has a clear beginning, middle, and end), the Alexander narrative is one of the few actual stories in the Qur'an, and the usage of the word sabab serves, in effect, to tie the narrative together. Far, therefore, from revealing the author of the Qur'an to be a simpleton, when handled exegetically, the story of Dhu'l-Qarnayn seems at least to me to stand as a wonderful example of the text's literary brilliance.
Muslims and non-Muslims of RF. What do you think about this?
At first sight, perhaps, and certainly to the modern onlooker. What should be noted is that this is a rather recent argument against Islam as far as I am aware. I do not know of any instances in which it was employed either in ancient Jewish or Christian polemics against Islam. The reason for this is simply that ancient Jews and Christians, who are presumably the ones who would have asked Muhammad about Alexander in Q. 28:83, would have seen nothing absurd in the Qur'anic narrative. The Alexander legends from which the story in the Qur'an is quite clearly derived are in fact Judaeo-Christian in origin. In these legends, just as in the Qur'an, there is no attempt at rigorous historiography; rather, the figure of Alexander is employed typologically as the image of the archetypal pious ruler. This was the very way in which ancient Jews and Christians saw Alexander. Therefore, in consideration of all of this, I am led to conclude that what is much more important than the issue of the identity of Dhu'l-Qarnayn or the historical details relating to Alexander is this motif which the Qur'an, in appropriating the Alexander legend, employs for its own purposes.
Likewise, the image of the Sun setting in a spring (Q. 28:86) is but another motif lifted from earlier Alexander legends, and it seems silly to believe that either of the author of the Syriac Alexander Romance or the author of the Qur'an believed that the Sun sets in a spring in the West yet rises somehow in the East, in another place entirely, especially in light of other Qur'anic descriptions of the Sun and the relevant elaborations of these in the authentic hadith literature (excluding of course the hadith in Abu Dawud, which is the only report in the entire corpus, as far as I know, which suggests a literal reading of Q. 28:86). Q. 28:86, 90 describes Alexander as discovering not just the place where the Sun sets but also the place where it rises, so this strikes one as a clear allusion to the vast extent of Alexander's travels and conquests.
As scholars van Donzel and Schmidt note, rather than merely 'plagiarizing,' the Qur'an makes a very sophisticated use of its source material in recasting the Alexander legend: "Arabic sabab, translated as 'way' in verses 85 and 89 literally means 'rope' but, Paret remarks, it is to be taken here metaphorically in the sense of 'expedient, resource.' It is a remarkable expression, which probably refers to the source through which the prophet Muhammad may have become acquainted with the story of Alexander. The Syriac version of the Alexander Romance and the Alexander Legend relate that Alexander travelled through deserts and rocky regions in a land where the sun does not shine until ‘the middle of the day.’ It was not from the position of the sun that Alexander knew that it was midday, but he had measured the way geometrically with the help of strings, from which he figured out the time of day" (Gog and Magog in Early Syriac and Islamic Sources [Brill, 2009], p. 59).
The Qur'an employs the poetic repetition of the term sabab and in fact repeats it three times, correspondent to the three divisions of the day, and on the second repetition, Alexander sees the Sun rising at midday (Q. 28:90), just as he does in the Alexander story recorded in the Babylonian Talmud. In this way (namely, in that it has a clear beginning, middle, and end), the Alexander narrative is one of the few actual stories in the Qur'an, and the usage of the word sabab serves, in effect, to tie the narrative together. Far, therefore, from revealing the author of the Qur'an to be a simpleton, when handled exegetically, the story of Dhu'l-Qarnayn seems at least to me to stand as a wonderful example of the text's literary brilliance.
Muslims and non-Muslims of RF. What do you think about this?
