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The story of Dhu al-Qarnayn is mentioned in Surah al-Kahf of the Quran. It has long been recognised in modern scholarship that the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn has strong similarities with the Syriac Legend of Alexander the Great. According to this legend, Alexander travelled to the ends of the world then built a wall in the Caucasus mountains to keep Gog and Magog out of civilized lands.
Dhu al-Qarnayn, appears in the Quran, Surah al-Kahf (18), Ayahs 83–101 as one who travels to east and west and sets up a barrier between a certain people and Gog and Magog. 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.
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The Alexander Romance is an account of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. The Romance describes Alexander the Great from his birth, to his succession of the throne of Macedon, his conquests including that of the Persian Empire, and finally his death. Although constructed around an historical core, the romance is mostly fantastical, including many miraculous tales and encounters with mythical creatures such as sirens or centaurs.
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The vast conquests of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great quickly inspired the formation and diffusion of legendary material about his deity, journeys, and tales. These appeared shortly after his death, and some may have already begun forming during his lifetime. In the third century AD, an anonymous author writing in the name of Alexander's court historian Callisthenes authored the Greek Alexander Romance. This text would spawn a genre of literature about the legends and exploits of Alexander across centuries, going through over one hundred versions in premodern times and appearing in almost every language in both European and Islamic worlds.
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The Syriac Alexander Legend, is a Syriac prose recension in the tradition of the Greek Alexander Romance, although Theodor Nöldeke has influentially argued that the Legend was translated from a now-lost Middle Persian (Pahlavi) original as opposed to the Greek. It was composed in the Syriac language, perhaps in the region of northern Mesopotamia. It had a strong influence on later apocalyptic literature, such as can be seen in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. It is also the first work to fuse the motifs of Alexander's gate, an apocalyptic incursion, and the barbarian tribes known as Gog and Magog. Historically, the Syriac Alexander Legend has been dated to 629/630 shortly after the conclusion of the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, though some more recent works have proposed 6th-century dates for the composition and tradition.
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The Horns of Alexander represent an artistic tradition that depicted Alexander the Great with two horns on his head, a form of expression that was associated originally as the Horns of Ammon. Alexander's horns came with connotations of political and/or religious legitimacy, including indications of his status as a god, and these representations of Alexander under his successors carried implications of their divine lineage or succession from his reign. Mediums of expression of the horns of Alexander included coinage, sculpture, medallions, textiles, and literary texts, such as in the tradition of the Alexander Romance literature. Rarely was anyone other than Alexander depicted with the two horns as this was considered unique to his imagery.
The Cause of All Causes, also called the Book of the Acknowledgement of Truth, is an anonymous Syriac encyclopedia written sometime between the 10th and 12th centuries.
References
Citations
- 1 2 Reinink, Gerrit J. (2003). "Alexander the Great in Seventh-Century Syriac 'Apocalyptic' Texts". Byzantinorossica. 2: 150–178.
- ↑ Nöldeke, Theodor (1890). Beiträge zur geschichte des Alexanderromans. University of Michigan. Wien, F. Tempsky. pp. 30–31.
- ↑ Bousset, Wilhelm (1900). "Beiträge zur Geschichte der Eschatologie". Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte (in German). 20 (2).
- 1 2 Tesei 2023, p. 22.
- ↑ E. A. Wallis Budge. The History of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes. pp. 163–200.
- 1 2 Reynolds, Gabriel Said (2018). The Qur'an and the Bible: text and commentary. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 463–465. ISBN 978-0-300-18132-6.
- ↑ Crone, Patricia (2016). Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness: Collected Studies in Three Volumes, Volume 3. Brill. pp. 67–68.
Sources
- Tesei, Tommaso (2023). The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate. Oxford University Press.