Great men inspire even greater stories and legends.
Alexander, whose very epithet is “the Great”, inspired many.
Such was Alexander’s influence throughout history, that from Europe, through the Middle
East, Mongolia, and even in China there have been recorded stories about him and his deeds.
As the main theatre of his conquests was West Asia, it is only natural that Alexander played
a significant role in the lives of the people living there, influencing the region and its
oral and written traditions even centuries after his own death.
This video will cover the depictions of Alexander in Muslim, Iranian, and Jewish mythos.
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Communication between the Islamic Middle East and the Christian West has been somewhat crippled
since the time of the first Crusades, however this was not always so.
The interaction between the different cultures and their willingness to share knowledge brought
about some of the greatest advancements of human society.
Through these lines of communication and cultural exchange, the figure of Alexander the Great
was translated from historical reality to a legendary hero.
So the Jews and the Arabs of late antiquity and the early middle ages also admired Alexander,
incorporating him into their own legends.
As Islam became the dominant religion in the Middle East in the 7th and 8th centuries,
the legend of Alexander the Great made its way into the Quran as well.
In the Islamic holy book, Alexander is thought to be represented by Dhul Qarnayn, a righteous
hero who travelled the world and brought peace to troubled lands.
Dhul Qarnayn is considered to be a powerful, gifted, and ambitious ruler who achieved greatness
not only in his country but across the entire world.
It is said that when Dhul Qarnayn reached the place where the Sun sets, he came upon
a desperate people who told him of the perils that they suffered because of Gog and Magog.
The people offered him tribute in exchange for him erecting a barrier that would keep
Gog and Magog away.
Dhul Qarnayn built a huge wall of iron, lead, and copper, which Gog and Magog could not
penetrate until Allah lowers it and the end of the world comes.
The identity of Gog and Magog has been a matter of intense debate for centuries.
So obscure are the references to them that researchers cannot agree whether they even
represent two distinct rulers or a ruler and his nation.
Depending on the period, various nations and people during history were identified as Gog
and Magog, the first of which were the ancient Scythians.
During the early days of Islam, it was most often those people that threatened the heartlands
of the Caliphates that were considered to be the bringers of evil – the Turkics, Vikings,
and, finally, the Mongols.
For centuries, historians, theologians, and others have been trying to decipher who Dhul
Qarnayn was and many notable rulers are have been identified with him, including Alexander
the Great of Macedon, Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great of the Achaemenid Empire, and several
pre-Islamic Arabian rulers.
Alexander, being a brilliant ruler and conqueror who went to the edges of the known world and
established a kingdom spanning from East to West, was favored by many notable Islamic
scholars including Ibn Sina, al Razi, and Abu Hayyan.
A possible reference to Alexander may be in the very name of the hero, as Dhul Qarnayn
translates to “the two-horned one”.
The two-horns of Dhul Qarnayn could be an allusion to the pilgrimage of Alexander the
Great to the oracle of Zeus-Ammon in the Siwah oasis.
The ram-horns of Zeus-Ammon were adopted in the iconography of Alexander of Macedon as
a symbol of his alleged direct descendance from Zeus-Ammon, as Son of Ammon, like the
Pharaohs.
The lifespan of Dhul Qarnayn is not mentioned either, indicating that he may have perished
quickly after his campaigns, similar to Alexander.
The mythical barrier built by Dhul Qarnayn has also been a popular topic of literature,
especially during medieval times.
As the barrier is theorized to be located near the Caspian Sea, along the route of Alexander’s
expeditions, it became known in history as the Caspian Gates or the Gates of Alexander.
Its exact location remains disputed by scholars.
Though there are several possibilities, we will mention only the most important or likely
ones.
One option is the Great Wall of Gurgan – a 195km long defensive structure found on the
South-Eastern coast of the Caspian Sea.
It is one of the largest and most ambitious defensive structures ever built, however,
it was neither as functional nor as well-preserved as the Great Wall of China.
Its purpose was most likely to defend Persia against the nomads of Central Asia.
Another option is the Darial Gorge in the Caucasus Mountains.
The name is derived from the Persian term Dar-i Alan – The Gate of the Alans.
It is known that the mountain pass was fortified many times in history, usually by the Georgians
and Sassanids, who used it to defend against the Sarmatians, Turks, and Alans.
Some historians consider Alexander as the first person to fortify the gorge, however,
there is no proof of that.
The third and most popular choice would be Derbent, where a strong line of fortifications
stretched for tens of kilometers in between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains.
The fort was most likely built by the Sassanids and held great importance during the rule
of Khosrow Anushirvan.
The Sassanids are most likely to be responsible for the building of each of these structures,
however, Alexander was given the lion’s share of the credit for many years.
One explanation could, once again, be the popularity of Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Alexander
Romance in the Middle East and Persia during the Middle Ages, and especially during the
rise of Islam.
Due to the fact that the Caliphate fought many wars against the Sassanids, and that
they were seen as enemies, it is possible that their impact was neglected in favor of
an option with greater mass appeal.
The earliest written texts that associate Alexander with Dhul Qarnayn are Quranic commentaries
written by Wahb ibn Murahbih, who describes him as a hero sent by Allah to conquer, who
would, upon completing the Wall, learn to control the aggressive impulses innate in
human nature.
Al-Mubashir of Cairo later on explicitly identifies Alexander with Dhul Qarnayn and mentions how
Darius, after being betrayed by his nobles, died in Alexander’s arms and lectured him
on how to be a good king.
Others wrote that Alexander was a philosopher-king who travelled to India to seek knowledge and
wisdom.
In those versions, Alexander was accompanied by philosophers instead of his army.
He would engage the Brahmins in debates on the topic of metaphysics and demonstrate his
humility and devotion to God.
In other legends, Alexander is said to have been visited by the archangel Gabriel, who
instructed him to ask the sages for the location of the fountain of life.
Alexander subsequently left for a fabled dark realm where he met the “green man” of
the Quran – al-Hisr.
The immortal man told him of the exact location of the fountain, only for Alexander to return
home by his own volition after failing to find it.
Seemingly, most medieval writers follow the same template when it comes to Alexander.
In the first part of the stories he is always represented as a great warrior who conquers
the entire world, while in the second part Alexander always realizes the morality of
the emptiness of all human ambitions and endeavors, subsequently becoming a humble and pious man.
What gives the myth of Alexander as Dhul Qarnayn more credibility in modern times is the discovery
and translation of one 18th century manuscript from Timbuktu, which offers many details about
Dhul Qarnayn’s campaigns, the building of the Caspian Gates, and Gog and Magog.
Besides the Quran and the hadiths, the manuscript is heavily based on the Alexander Romance,
one of the most popular texts of the middle ages.
Therefore it is safe to assume that its author, Abu Abdel Malek, favors Alexander as Dhul
Qarnayn as well.
Ferdowsi, whose Shahnameh is the greatest Iranian epic, diverges from the usual pattern,
and describes Alexander the Great as a famous dragon-slayer.
During one of his adventures in Abyssinia, Alexander came upon a city that was left at
the mercy of a nearby dragon.
In exchange for not having their city burned down, the citizens had to sacrifice some of
their cattle to the dragon each night.
Alexander tried to kill the dragon with his army, however, after failing to do so he devised
a cunning plan – his men would gut the cattle and fill their insides with poison and oil.
The dragon, unaware of the Trojan horse, or, in this case, cattle, devoured the sacrifice
and was killed by his own flaming insides.
The successive transformations suffered by the figure of Alexander in Syriac, Middle
Persian, and Arabic Islamic literature have formed the basis for the creation of Alexander’s
figure of a rightful Persian “King of kings”, as he appears in the epic poems of Ferdowsi
and Nizami.
This image of Alexander as Iskandar Dhul Qarnayn only evolved after the Arab conquest of Persia,
most likely influenced by the Romance.
This Arabic-Persian Alexander is integrated by the Islamic poets and scholars of the Persian
language into their Iranian history, as one of their greatest heroes.
By doing so, they deliberately choose to forget the less than pleasant Old Persian and Middle
Persian image of Alexander.
In Zoroastrian traditions, Alexander is perceived as a destroyer of the “Good Religion”
and of the true Kings and nobles of Iran.
This image of the bad or accursed Alexander the Great is constructed according to the
Zoroastrian religious principles - the true Iranian Kings ruled through the grace of the
supreme creator God, the righteous and good Deity Ahura-Mazdā and Alexander was a demon
sent by the Evil One.
What is interesting is that the earliest surviving Persian written works about Alexander were
from the late Sassanid era, so it is quite likely that this path of the legend is based
on oral tradition.
It also explains why in those works, Alexander is called “the Roman”.
Considering that Alexander is presented as a great villain for the Zoroastrians and so
little was written about him during the time, it seems as if in Pre-Islamic Iran, a damnatio
memoriae Alexandri Magni occurred – the erasure of the memory of Alexander.
In spite of this, we should not conclude that there was only a bad image of Alexander in
Pre-Islamic Iran, as in a letter by Artabanus II to Emperor Tiberius there was a phrase
in which the Parthian in fact reclaimed from the Romans the territories and lands once
ruled by the Great Achaemenid Kings of old and by Alexander the Great.
This indicates that, at least the Parthians saw themselves as successors to not only the
Achaemenids, but to Alexander as well.
One very peculiar relationship is the one between Alexander and the Jews.
Considering how both the Jews and Ancient Greeks were renowned for their record-keeping
and writing, it is a surprise that they scarcely wrote anything about one another during Alexander’s
life.
Perhaps this could be attributed to the fact that the conquest of Judea was relatively
bloodless.
The first detailed mention of Alexander is by the Jewish-Roman writer Josephus in the
1st century AD.
In Josephus’ writings, there are three aspects of Alexander.
The first aspect is of Alexander as the neutral universal king/conqueror.
The second aspect is one of Alexander as the evil ruler, whose descendants oppressed the
Jews.
This probably refers to the relationship between the Seleucids and the Jews, especially during
the reign of Antiochus IV.
The third aspect is the most complex one, the one of Alexander as the foreign king who
is blessed by Yahweh.
It is said that when the Macedonians were approaching, they were dangerous foreigners,
but from the moment he met the High Priest, Alexander turned into a mediator, translating
Jewish beliefs and customs to his fellow Macedonians.
He also shares with the Jews three more important features.
He is God’s chosen ruler, he believes in the same God, and he is both willing and able
to interpret the Jewish prophetic writings, in this case, the Book of Daniel.
Thus Alexander turns from the usurper and conqueror into a rightful king, justly ruling
over the peoples and lands that were given to him by God’s will – not unlike Cyrus
the Great.
This Jewish view of a God-sent rightful king is quite likely the influence behind the story
of Dhul Qarnayn.
According to Muslim accounts, the chapter involving Dhul Qarnayn was revealed to Muhammad
when his tribe 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".
Alexander the Great was a prolific conqueror who, in only 13 years, managed to destroy
one of the greatest empires of antiquity and expand Hellenic power and influence throughout
the known world, even as far as India.
Alexander’s legacy cannot be understated, as it reaches far beyond his military achievements
– some of the cities that he founded survive to this day, and after him, diverse and distant
parts of the world became economically and culturally intertwined.
Consequently, it is of no surprise that so many legends about him still persist, some
probably even concocted by Alexander himself during his life.
A man who connected the East and the West during his lifetime continues doing so even
more than 2000 years after his death through the stories that people share.
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