Historicity of the Qur’anic Dhu al-Qarnayn and the Myths of Alexander
Several verses of SËrah al-Kahf (the Qur’an 18:85-98) contains a didactic lesson of history which unlike the moralistic lesson of Plato on the rise, growth and fall of mythical Atlantis, is an abridged record on events in the unnamed Eurasian empire threatened by terror of the raiding hordes of ferocious nomads from the Northeast in the Iron Age. It is neither history of Alexander the Macedon’s conquest of Greece, Phoenicia, Egypt, Persia and India reported by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, Appian, Plutarch and Justin nor the Alexandrine Romance composed by the anonymous Syrian Christian writer (or writers) in the early Middle Ages of the Mediterranean. Didactica of this Qur’anic SËrah is not based on the Persian Iskander-name, either. Like the life of the historical Prophet Isa (Jesus,a.s.), the historicity of Qur’anic monotheistic ruler DhË al-Qarnayn deeply divides the Muslim, Jewish, Christian and agnostic readers of the ancient history. Their opinions are intellectual mirrors of continuous struggle between monotheism, henotheism and secularism, contextualized into historical drama of divided nations and empires.