THE ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN 18:83–102

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THE ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE

QUR’AN 18:83–102

Kevin van Bladel

In 1889 E.A. Wallis Budge edited a few Syriac texts about Alexander the Great

including the Syriac version of the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes.

Among these was the first edition of a Syriac work called Neshanâ dîleh

d-Aleksandrôs, roughly “The Glorious Deeds of Alexander,” extant in the same

five manuscripts as the Syriac Alexander Romance. 1 Though often discussed in

the context of the Alexander Romance tradition, and clearly inspired by traditions

about Alexander’s conquests like the Romance, this Neshanâ is nevertheless an

entirely different work with its own history and a different story to tell (to be

dealt with later in detail). Budge named it “A Christian Legend Concerning

Alexander” to distinguish it from the Alexander Romance itself. Recent scholar-

ship has shortened this name to “the Alexander Legend” to distinguish it from the

Alexander Romance. I follow this convention here.

The next year (1890), Theodor Nöldeke published his study of the Alexander

Romance, much of which was based on the Syriac version newly available in

Budge’s edition. In this he also devoted a few pages to the Alexander Legend,

arguing that it was in fact the source for an episode in the Qur’an, specifically the

Qur’anic story of Dhu l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83–102). 2 He stated that the Alexander

Legend must have been transmitted orally to Muhammad along with the other

ancient biblical and traditional stories circulating in the environment of Mecca. 3

To prove this relationship Nöldeke indicated a few specific, important elements

of the story of Alexander’s journeys appearing in both the Syriac Alexander

Legend and the Qur’an.

In the century since then, his discovery seems to have become almost forgotten

in Qur’anic studies. For example, the recent Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an article

“Alexander” does not even mention the Syriac Alexander Legend or Nöldeke’s

thesis on the matter, though there could be no more appropriate place for it. 4

Moreover, some recent scholarship has brought considerable confusion into the

study of Alexander stories in relation to the Qur’an. 5 The subject therefore

deserves to be revisited. As I hope to show, it still has much more to offer than

even Nöldeke expected.

175KEVIN VAN BLADEL

The present investigation will first show that Nöldeke was basically correct in

his view: the Qur’an 18:83–102 is a retelling of the story found in this particular

Syriac text. But that is just the beginning of the matter. Recent publications

by scholars of Syriac and Greek apocalyptic texts of the early seventh century,

especially several articles by G.J. Reinink, offer a precise understanding of the

context in which this Syriac Alexander Legend was composed and its political and

religious purposes in that context. These studies make it possible to shed new

light on the use of the Alexander Legend’s story in the Qur’an and on the concerns

of Muhammad’s community. Furthermore, once the affiliation of the Arabic and

Syriac texts is established and the character of that affiliation is identified, it is

possible to demonstrate (perhaps unexpectedly) the reliability of the traditional

lexicography as well as the soundness of the Arabic text of this Qur’anic passage.

All of these matters will be discussed later.

I am deliberately avoiding entering into a discussion of other texts related to the

Syriac Alexander Legend identified by previous scholars. Traces of the ancient

story of Gilgamesh are found in the Syriac Alexander Legend and in Q 18:83–102.

That these traces appear in both is unsurprising since both tell essentially the same

story. But some scholars have argued that the passage immediately preceding the

Dhu l-Qarnayn episode in the Qur’an, a story about Moses (Q 18:60–82), also

contains different traces of the Gilgamesh story. This is a matter of decades-long

controversy and it deserves further special studies of its own. 6 Since two adjacent

episodes in Qur’an 18 seem to contain material derived from the Gilgamesh story,

modern scholars have tended to search for a single source common to both

of them. Medieval Qur’an commentaries associated the two episodes together,

too, though it seems for different reasons, with the result that the Qur’an

commentaries are dragged into the modern confusion. I will also avoid dis-

cussing other texts in Syriac and in Greek that draw material from the Syriac

Alexander Legend. One of these is the so-called Song of Alexander (also called

Alexander Poem in modern scholarship), falsely ascribed to Jacob of Serugh

(d. 521). It was composed several years after and in reaction to the prose

Alexander Legend, but the story it relates is considerably different from that in

the Alexander Legend and does not exactly match those in the Qur’anic tale of

Dhu l-Qarnayn. What is most confusing for modern scholars is that still more

traces of the Gilgamesh story, different from those in the Alexander Legend, are

found in this Song of Alexander, but these are similar to the traces of Gilgamesh

allegedly found in Q 18:60–82, the Moses story just mentioned. The coincidence

has never been adequately explained, particularly since recourse must be had to a

poorly documented late, probably oral tradition of the Gilgamesh story. Then

there are other later seventh-century Christian apocalypses, such as the De fine

mundi of Pseudo-Ephraem and the influential Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius.

These also drew upon the Alexander Legend, evidently a widely known text in the

seventh century. 7

The bewildering interrelationships of all these traditions have made it difficult

for scholars to arrive at a consensus about them. But the reason that I am avoiding

176ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

discussing all these related texts here is that they are irrelevant to the thesis that

the Dhu l-Qarnayn episode in the Qur’an is derived from or retells the story

found in the Syriac Alexander Legend. The account in Q 18:83–102 does not

precisely match a story found anywhere other than in this one text, but previous

attempts to deal with the problem have become confused by discussing all of the

aforementioned traditions together. For example, one recent account, published

twice, posits complicated interrelationships between the two episodes in Qur’an

18:60–102, the Qur’an commentaries, the Alexander Romance tradition, and the

Song of Alexander, unfortunately just causing further misunderstanding and

omitting almost any account of the crucially relevant Alexander Legend. 8 In

the present article, however, only two main problems are to be discussed: the

relationship between the Alexander Legend and Qur’an 18:83–102 and the

historical context of this relationship.

The Syriac and the Arabic texts compared

To prove convincingly an affiliation between this passage of the Qur’an and the

Syriac Alexander Legend, a close comparison is required, closer at least than the

brief treatment that Nöldeke gave to it. Since the relevant Arabic text, Qur’an

18:83–102, amounts to only twenty verses, they can all be given here in translation.

83. And they are asking you about the Two-Horned One (Dhu l-Qarnayn).

Say: I will relate for you a glorious record (dhikr) about him.

84. We granted him power in the earth

and gave him a heavenly course (sabab) 9 out of every thing.

85. So he followed a heavenly course

86. until, when he reached the place of the sun’s setting,

he found it setting in a fetid spring

and he found by it a people.

We said, “O Two-Horned One, either you will punish (them) or do them

a favor.”

87. He said, “Whoever does wrong, we will punish him,

and then he will be sent back to his Lord

and He will punish them in an unknown way.”

88. “And whoever believes and acts righteously,

he will have the best reward and we will declare ease for him by our

command.”

89. Then he followed a heavenly course

90. until, when he arrived at the sun’s rising place,

he found it rising over a people for whom We did not make a shelter

beneath it.

91. Thus We knew everything that he encountered.

92. Then he followed a heavenly course

93. until, when he arrived between two barriers,

177KEVIN VAN BLADEL

he found outside them a people

who could scarcely understand speech.

94. They said, “O Two-Horned One, Yajuj and Majuj are destroying

the land.

Shall we make a payment to you on the condition that you make a barrier

between us and them?”

95. He said, “The power my Lord has given me is better, so, help me,

with strength, that I may make a barricade between you and them.”

96. “Bring me blocks of iron.” Eventually, when he had leveled it off

with the two clifftops, he said, “Blow.” Eventually, when he had made

it a fire, he said, “Bring me brass that I can pour upon it.”

97. Thus they could not surmount it and they could not break through it.

98. He said, “This is a mercy from my Lord. When His promise comes,

my Lord will make it a heap of earth and my Lord’s promise is true.”

99. And We shall leave them on that day surging like waves 10 against

each other

and the horn will be blown and We shall gather them all together

100. and We shall truly show Gehenna that day to the unbelievers

101. whose eyes were covered from recollecting Me, nor could they hear.

102. Do those who disbelieve plan to take My servants under Me as

protectors?

We have prepared Gehenna as a guest-house for the unbelievers!

For the purposes of this study, this can be divided into five parts.

1

2

3

4

5

an introduction to Dhu l-Qarnayn, the Two-Horned One (83–4),

his journey to the sun’s setting and his punishment of unjust people there

(85–8),

his journey to the sun’s rising place where the people have no shelter from

the sun (89–91),

his journey to a place threatened by Yajuj and Majuj where he is asked to

build a protective wall between two mountains, culminating in his uttering a

brief prophecy (92–8), and finally

God’s first-person warning of the events to come (99–102).

The Syriac Legend of Alexander is quite a bit longer, twenty-one pages of Syriac

text in the edition. A summary of the story, including its relevant details, here

follows, showing how each of the five parts of the Qur’anic story finds a match

in the Syriac text. Readers with insufficient knowledge of Syriac may find

Budge’s English translation to be helpful but should be warned that it strays into

error on some important points.

The story of the Neshanâ begins when King Alexander summons his court to

ask them about the outer edges of the world, for he wishes to go to see what

surrounds it. His advisors warn him that there is a fetid sea, Oceanos (Ôqyanôs), 11

178ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

like pus, surrounding the earth, and that to touch those waters is death. Alexander

is undeterred and wishes to go on this quest. He prays to God, whom he addresses

as the one who put horns upon his head, for power over the entire earth, and he

promises God to obey the Messiah should he arrive during his lifetime or, if not,

to put his own throne in Jerusalem for the Messiah to sit upon when he does

come. This in essence matches Q 18:83–4, part one earlier, where God gives the

two-horned one power over the entire earth.

On the way, he stops in Egypt where he borrows seven thousand Egyptian

workers of brass and iron from the king of Egypt to accompany his huge army.

Then they set sail for four months and twelve days until they reach a distant land.

Alexander asks the people there if they have any prisoners condemned to death in

their prisons, and he asks that those evil-doers (‘abday-bîmê) be brought to him.

He takes the prisoners and sends them into the fetid sea in order to test the

potency of the poisonous waters. All the evil-doers die, so Alexander, realizing

how deadly it is, gives up his attempt to cross the water. Instead he goes to a place

of bright water, up to the Window of the Heavens that the sun enters when it sets,

where there is a conduit of some kind leading through the heavens toward the

place where the sun rises in the east. Though the text is completely vague here in

its description of spaces, apparently Alexander follows the sun through its course

to the east during the night but “descends” (nahet) at the mountain called Great

Mûsas. 12 His troops go with him. We are also told that when the sun rises in the

eastern land, the ground becomes so hot that to touch it is to be burnt alive, so that

people living there flee the rising sun to hide in caves and in the water of the sea.

Alexander’s journeys west and east match Q 18:85–91, parts two and three

earlier, exactly in many specific details and in fact make some sense of the

cryptic Qur’anic story (though the Syriac leaves the specifics of his itinerary here

fairly murky).

We next find Alexander traveling at the headwaters of the Euphrates and the

Tigris, where he and his armies stop at locales given very specific place-names.

This specificity has rightly been taken as due to the Syriac author’s personal

familiarity with the upper Tigris region, probably his homeland. 13 Yet Alexander

continues northwards into mountains, evidently the Caucasus, until he comes to

a place under Persian rule where there is a narrow pass. The locals complain about

the savage Huns who live on the opposite side of the pass. The names of their

kings are listed to him, the first two of which are Gog and Magog. Alexander is

treated to a vivid description of the barbarism of the Huns. Among the gruesome

details it is reported that their cries are more terrible than those of a lion. The

Huns have no qualms in killing babies and pregnant women. In short, they do not

know civilization but only brutality. The people complain to Alexander that these

savages raid with impunity and they hope his dominion will be established. After

he satisfies his anthropological and geographical curiosity about the far northern

peoples, Alexander asks the locals if they want a favor, and they answer that they

would follow his command. So he suggests building a wall of brass and iron to

hold out the Huns. Together they accomplish the task with the help of the

179KEVIN VAN BLADEL

Egyptian metalworkers. This account matches Q 18:92–8, part four earlier, in

precise detail.

The next part of the story is crucial to dating the text. Alexander puts an

inscription on the gate containing a prophecy for events to follow his lifetime.

These events are given precise dates. First he says that after 826 years, the

Huns will break through the gate and go by the pass above the Haloras River 14

to plunder the lands. Then after 940 years, there will come a time of sin and

unprecedented worldwide war. “The Lord will gather together the kings and their

hosts,” he will give a signal to break down the wall, and the armies of the Huns,

Persians, and Arabs will “fall upon each other.” 15 So many troops will pass

through the breach in the wall that the passage will actually be worn wider by the

spear-points going through. “The earth shall melt through the blood and dung of

men.” 16 Then the kingdom of the Romans will enter this terrible war and they will

conquer all, up to the edges of the heavens. In closing, Alexander cites the prophet

Jeremiah, 1:14, “And evil shall be opened from the north upon all the inhabitants

of the earth.” Clearly this corresponds closely with Q 18:99–102, the fifth and last

part of the story of Dhu l-Qarnayn.

There are still some details and a conclusion to the story in the Syriac text that

have no corresponding part in the Qur’an. When Alexander comes into conflict

with the King of Persia, called Tûbarlaq, then, with the help of the Lord, who

appears on the chariot of the Seraphim along with the angelic host, Alexander’s

armies are inspired to conquer the king of Persia. When he is captured, the Persian

king Tûbarlaq promises to give Alexander tribute for fifteen years in return for a

restoration of the borders. But Tûbarlaq’s diviners predict that at the end of the

world, the Romans will kill the king of Persia and will lay waste to Babylon and

Assyria. Tûbarlaq himself puts the prophecy in writing for Alexander, saying that

the Romans will conquer the entire world and rule it all before handing power

over to the returning Messiah. The Alexander Legend finally comes to an end

with the remark that at the end of Alexander’s life, he establishes his silver throne

in Jerusalem just as he had promised. This last episode is not reflected in the

Qur’anic story, but it has proven important in recent scholarship in assigning a

date to the Syriac text (to be discussed later).

Precise correspondences between the two texts

Many of the correspondences between the Syriac and the Arabic stories are so

obvious that they do not need special attention. Simply relating both stories

together establishes their extraordinary similarity. However, some correspon-

dences require emphasis and further comment.

Alexander is twice said in the Syriac to have been granted horns on his head

by God. Once it is in a prayer that he himself utters, referring to his horns, and

the second time we are told that they were horns of iron. 17 Though Alexander

had been portrayed with horns as early as his own time, here one finds the epithet

Dhu l-Qarnayn, the Horned One, as one element matching the present Syriac text. 18

180ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

When Alexander came to the people in the west, he tested the efficacy of the

deadly, fetid waters with the lives of convicts. This passage helps to explain the

option given, for no apparent reason, by God to Dhu l-Qarnayn in the Qur’an:

either to punish the people or to do them a kindness. Dhu l-Qarnayn says he will

punish only wrongdoers (man zalama), who are like the prisoners sentenced to

death in the Syriac text, described there as evil-doers (‘abday-bîmê).

The Syriac text has Alexander travel from that point, near to where the sun sets,

in the direction of the place where the sun rises, just as does Dhu l-Qarnayn in the

Qur’an. The sun does not exactly set in the fetid water, but more vaguely nearby.

And it is only this Syriac text that explains the meaning of Q 18:90, where the

otherwise unknown eastern people who have no cover from the sun are mentioned.

On his third journey, the people who can hardly understand speech are explained

by the Syriac text as “Huns,” here a generic term for Central Asian pastoralists,

who appeared to the residents of the Middle East as savages. Their allegedly

bestial barbarism is explained at length in the Syriac. The Qur’anic text saying

that they “could scarcely understand speech” together with reference by name to

Gog and Magog makes sense only in the context of this Syriac tale.

Dhu l-Qarnayn’s ability to build a wall of iron and brass is explained in the

Syriac story by his being accompanied by seven thousand Egyptian “workers

in brass and iron,” precisely the same metals. In both texts our hero builds the

wall at a place between two mountains in order to fend off savages. Though

the tradition of Alexander’s wall holding off the Huns is an ancient one going

back at least to Josephus (d. ca 100), who specifies that the gates were of iron,

nevertheless the details of the Arabic account are all matched only by this Syriac

Alexander Legend. 19 Most importantly, in both texts the hero issues a prophecy

upon completing the fortification foretelling the end of the world in a time of

great battles among nations.

Thus, quite strikingly, almost every element of this short Qur’anic tale finds a

more explicit and detailed counterpart in the Syriac Alexander Legend. In both

texts the related events are given in precisely the same order. Already earlier

several cases of specific words that are exact matches between the Syriac and the

Arabic were indicated. The water at the place where the sun sets is “fetid” in both

texts, a perfect coincidence of two uncommon synonyms (Syriac saryâ, Arabic

hami’a). Also, the wall that Alexander builds is made specifically of iron and brass

in both texts. We are told in the Syriac that God will “gather together the kings and

their hosts,” which finds a nearly perfect match in Q 18:99: “the horn will be

blown and we shall gather them together.” 20 The proper names of Yajuj and Majuj

are not uniquely matched by this Syriac text (where they appear as Agôg 21 and

Magôg), for their tradition is derived from the books of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse

of John, but they do still count as specific word correspondences between the

Syriac and Arabic texts in question here. In the Qur’an God is characterized as

saying, “We shall leave them on that day surging like waves against each other,”

wa-tarakna ba‘dahum yawma’idhin yamuju fi ba‘din, while the Syriac says similarly

“and kingdoms will fall upon each other,” w-naplan malkwata hda ‘al hda.

181KEVIN VAN BLADEL

The title of the Syriac work is “Neshanâ of Alexander.” The word neshanâ

means “glory” or “victory” but was often used to refer to a narrative account of

a person’s heroic acts. 22 In Q 18:83 God is portrayed as commanding Muhammad

to say that he will recite a dhikr about the Dhu l-Qarnayn. Dhikr in Arabic

has most of the same connotations as Syriac neshanâ: it refers to glory or good

repute but it also can refer to an account remembered about someone. Could the

word dhikr in Q 18:83 be a translation of the very title of the Syriac Alexander

Legend? It is a tempting consideration, but there are a few other instances in the

Qur’an where a dhikr of a person is related without any apparent reference to a

written work. 23

The translation of sabab (pl. asbab), occurring in Q 18:84, 85, 89, and 92 as

“heavenly course” requires some explanation. These are conventionally translated

merely as the “ways” that Dhu l-Qarnayn is made to follow, since among the

many meanings of sabab in Arabic are prominently “means” and “ways of

access.” However, Arabic lexicographers and much other evidence attest to the

early use of the word to mean in particular heavenly courses, specifically cords

leading to heaven along which a human might travel: asbab al-sama’, “ways to

heaven” or “sky-cords.” 24 In fact this is probably the only meaning of the word

occurring in the Qur’an, appearing in four other places. 25 Nor are these isolated

cases of such a usage in Arabic. For example, it is also attested in the poetry

of al-A‘sha (d. 625), an exact contemporary of Muhammad, where the phrase

wa-ruqqita asbaba l-sama’i bi-sullam, “and were you to be brought up the gateways

of heaven by a flight of steps,” is found with the synonymous, variant reading

abwab al-sama’ “gates of heaven.” 26 Thus, the translation given earlier, though

unconventional, is not only suitable but likely. In the case of Dhu l-Qarnayn’s tale,

it matches the window of heaven (kawwteh da-mmayyâ) 27 through which the sun

passes on its course, and which Alexander follows, in the Syriac Alexander

Legend. The remaining problem is then to account for the third “way” mentioned

in Q 18:92, the northward path that is not connected with any course of a heavenly

body in the Alexander Legend. Here one may excuse the Arabic as following the

pattern of the earlier journeys. The matter is bound up with the problem of how

these heavenly courses were imagined, something I treat in detail elsewhere. 28

If there were a closer correspondence of the Syriac and Arabic, it would be

possible to argue that one was just a much modified translation of the other. As it

is, however, the correspondences shown earlier are still so exact that it is obvious

in comparison that the two texts are at least connected very closely. They relate

the same story in precisely the same order of events using many of the same

particular details. Every part of the Qur’anic passage has its counterpart in the

Syriac, except that in the Qur’an the story is told through the first-person account

of God. Also, as explained earlier, the Qur’an does not include the last part of the

Alexander Legend, in which Alexander defeats the Persian emperor Tûbarlaq,

who writes his own prophecy down for Alexander and gives it to him, to the effect

that the Romans would one day decisively defeat the Persians, establishing a

worldwide Christian rule that would remain until the return of the Messiah.

182ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

The Qur’anic account puts more emphasis on the coming end of things and God’s

judgment and, not surprisingly, does not mention any expectation of universal

Christian empire for the Romans.

Dating and contextualizing the Syriac

Alexander Legend

At this point I think there can be no doubt whatsoever of the affiliation between

the Qur’anic passage and the Syriac Alexander Legend. The question now becomes

how to specify that affiliation. Here we will be assisted by finding a date and

historical context for the Syriac text. Fortunately G.J. Reinink has devoted many

articles to the problems posed by this Alexander Legend and related texts which

have succeeded in determining definitively where, why, and when the Alexander

Legend was written. I employ his detailed studies extensively in what follows, and

the reader is urged to pursue them for further information that can be used

to assign a date to this Syriac work. 29 This section may seem to be a bit of an

excursus, but it is crucially important to contextualize the Syriac text in order to

relate it to the Qur’an.

The Alexander Legend is an apocalyptic text in which the ancient Alexander is

portrayed as presenting a prophecy written long ago for events to come, which

were intended to be understood by the audience at the real time of authorship

as referring to events leading up to and including their own time. This is how

many texts of the apocalyptic genre work. Thus the date of composition for such

apocalypses can often be found by locating the latest point at which events

allegedly predicted match actual historical events. Where the events “predicted”

diverge from history, there one usually can find the date of the composition. The

message of the apocalypse for its own time is not just in the events it describes,

but rather in the way it describes these events and the future that it expects to

unfold given what has occurred.

In the Syriac Legend, Alexander’s prophecy, written on the wall he himself

erected, gives two dates marking the invasion of Central Asian nomads, called

Huns, whose penetration of the great wall and arrival at the headwaters of the

Tigris are portentous events to be taken as signs of the final battles preceding

Christ’s return and the end of time. Alexander specifies how many years must

elapse before these events take place. Already Nöldeke in 1890 calculated the

dates according to the Seleucid Era (beginning 1 October 312 BCE ) normally

followed in Syriac tradition, also called the Era of the Greeks and, importantly,

the Era of the Alexander. 30 The first of the two dates is thus converted from

826 years later to 514–15 CE , precisely the time of the invasion of the nomadic

Sabirs who entered Syria and Anatolia. 31 Evidently this invasion, which holds no

importance in the narrative, serves just as a key for the contemporary audience of

the text that they can use to verify the accuracy of the second, more elaborate

prophecy, associated with a later date. In any case, no scholar after Nöldeke has

disputed the calculation of this first dating, as far as I have seen. 32

183KEVIN VAN BLADEL

The second of the two dates, 940 years after Alexander, which marks the time

of the final war preceding the Messiah’s return according to the prophecy, is

converted likewise to 628–9 CE . The message of the prophecy actually concerns

events around this date, which coincides with the end of a long and extremely

difficult war between the Persians and the Romans (603–30) during which

Jerusalem was devastated, the relic of the True Cross stolen from that city, and the

Persians conquered Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, occupying Anatolia, too, and

they even besieged Constantinople itself in 626 CE in concert with the Avars, who

invaded from the north. The Byzantine remainder of the Roman Empire was only

barely saved from the Persian onslaught by the emperor Heraclius’ daring campaign

through Armenia, ending in the winter of 627–8 with a surprise invasion into

Mesopotamia and damaging raids on the rich estates around Ctesiphon. In these

invasions the Türks joined the Byzantines in raids south of the Caucasus at

Heraclius’ invitation and afterwards continued to make war on Persian territory in

Transcaucasia, plundering until 630. The Byzantine invasion of Mesopotamia led

the Persian nobles to remove their King of Kings, Khosro II, from power in

February of 628 and to negotiate for peace. 33 Persian forces occupying former

Byzantine territory withdrew to Persia in 629, and early in 630 Heraclius person-

ally returned the relic of the True Cross to Jerusalem in a formal celebration.

(Just a few months before Heraclius’ arrival in Jerusalem, tradition tells us, the

inhabitants of Mecca surrendered peacefully to Muhammad and submitted to his

government.) Given the date that Alexander’s prophecy signals, 628–9 CE , it must

be referring to the devastating wars of that time and their successful end for

the Romans.

Reinink has shown that the Alexander Legend demonstrates, through its prophecy

and its use of Alexander to prefigure the emperor Heraclius, detailed knowledge

of the events of that war and its resolution with the restoration of the earlier

borders, a peace treaty, and a final reference to Jerusalem. Using this information,

too much to repeat entirely here, he has persuasively argued that the Alexander

Legend was composed just after 628, perhaps in 630, the year in which Heraclius

restored the cross to Jerusalem. 34 In the course of the war, while the Byzantines

were very hard pressed by the Persians, Heraclius resorted to highly religious

propaganda in order to rally his allies and to improve Roman morale. This prop-

aganda has received recent scholarly attention. 35 Likewise Heraclius’ attempts

to eradicate the schisms in the Church after the war are well known. Reinink

considers Alexander Legend to be a piece of pro-Heraclian postwar propaganda

designed to promote the emperor’s political cause not long after the war’s end,

re-establishing Roman rule over provinces that had been under Persian power

for well over a decade and trying to overcome the schismatic Christological

differences dividing his Chalcedonian court from the monophysites of the

provinces recently recovered from the Persians. His thesis is that the Syriac

Legend of Alexander was composed “shortly after 628” (i.e. in 629 or 630) by an

inhabitant of Amida or Edessa, or some other place near to those, in support of

184ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

Heraclius. 36 He argues that the monophysite Syrians were the primary audience

(although it is possible that the story was intended also to win over monophysites

of other nations such as Arabs). 37 Heraclius’ visit to Edessa in late 629 might have

been an occasion for its composition. It is also possible that the text was written

a few months later when Heraclius restored the cross to Jerusalem. 38

The specific details in the Alexander Legend that reflect this historical context

are numerous. But unlike the Qur’anic story of Dhu l-Qarnayn, the Syriac

text ends with the Persian king’s own prophecy containing what Reinink has

characterized rightly as a message of Byzantine Imperial eschatology: the

prediction that one Byzantine emperor will soon establish a worldwide Christian

rule which will be followed by the return of the Messiah. 39 This was intended to

counter the belief, widely held at the time as many sources show, that the total

destruction of the Roman/Byzantine Empire and even the end of the world were

imminent. As Reinink sums it up, the author of the Alexander Legend

wants to demonstrate the special place of the Greek-Roman empire, the

fourth empire of the Daniel Apocalypse, in God’s history of salvation,

from the very beginning of the empire until the end of times, when the

empire will acquire world dominion. He created an Alexander-Heraclius

typology, in which the image of Alexander is highly determined by

Byzantine imperial ideology, so that his contemporaries would recognize

in Heraclius a new Alexander, who, just like the founder of the empire,

departed to the east at the head of his army and combated and defeated

the Persians.

(G.J. Reinink, “Heraclius, the New Alexander.

Apocalyptic Prophecies during the

Reign of Heraclius,” 26)

By now it should be amply clear that the Alexander Legend is the product of

a very specific, identifiable historical and cultural environment, the end of a

devastating war widely believed to carry eschatological implications, ending with

Heraclius’ campaign in 628 and in 629 with the final withdrawal of the Persian

armies. This needs to be held in mind when the relationship between this text and

the Qur’an is considered.

If this is the message of the Alexander Legend, what is the point in having

Alexander make his journeys west, then east, then north, then return south? The

answer is clearer when one imagines a map of his itinerary. In effect Alexander’s

travels make a sign of the cross over the whole world. This symbol seems to have

been overlooked by other commentators, but I believe it was intended by the

author of the Alexander Legend. The sign of the cross was the emblem of victory

for the Christian empire, and the prophecies in the Legend indicate the imminent

universal rule of the Christian empire. One may even speculate that this cross-

shaped itinerary was intended symbolically to refer to Heraclius’ return of the

185KEVIN VAN BLADEL

relic of the True Cross early in 630 to Jerusalem, the city where Alexander places

his throne at the end of the Alexander Legend. Alexander’s journeys describe the

symbol of Christian Roman power across the entire world, which it will come to

rule in its entirety according to the prophecy.

But what is the point of having Alexander build the Wall of Gog and Magog?

According to Greek and Latin traditions from the first century CE onward,

Alexander was indeed credited with building gates in the Caucasus to keep out

invaders. These gates, described by many ancient Greek and Latin authors, were

usually identified as located at the pass of Darial in the middle of the Caucasus

(Arabic Bab al-Lan). 40 However, in the seventh century, just around the time of

the Syriac Alexander Legend, confusion arose concerning the location of

Alexander’s fortified pass. It now came to be identified with a gated wall situated

on the Caspian coast that had been built more recently (Arabic Bab al-Abwab).

By the mid-sixth century, the waters of the Caspian had receded considerably on

their western shore, exposing a wide pass of land around the eastern end of the

Caucasus. 41 The Sasanian shahs constructed a very large wall (or series of walls)

with a great gate in order to block this coastal gap as a defense against northerners

who might otherwise easily raid Iran, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. The scholarly

literature documenting the existence and history of these walls through archaeology

and written sources is enormous. 42 The town Darband eventually came to be at

these walls at the Caspian, presumably at first just a garrison town, eventually a

very important site. Its Persian name, meaning “Door-Bolt,” indicates its original

purpose. Seventh century sources mention these fortifications a number of times.

For example, the Armenian historian called Sebeos, writing in the 680s, called it

“the Gate of the Huns.” 43 But the displacement of Alexander’s gate from Darial

to the wall at Darband does not appear unambiguously in the sources until the

Frankish Latin chronicler known as Fredegarius (wr. ca 660), in his report on the

year 627, described Alexander’s gates as having been built over the Caspian Sea

(super mare Cespium [sic]), saying that these are the gates that Heraclius opened

to admit the savage nations living beyond them. 44 From this time onward,

Alexander’s Caspian gates were widely thought to be those at Darband. What

caused this confusion to be held generally between Latin and Arabic tradition? It

seems that the Syriac Alexander Legend may have prompted it. While it may have

intended the pass at Darial (though the geographical expertise of the author is

subject to doubt), the invasions of the Türks through the wall at Darband in

626–30 must have forced the association of Alexander’s walls with that route.

In the early twentieth century Russian scholars discovered a number of Pahlavi

inscriptions on the old wall at Darband, dated variously at first but with a final,

general consensus to the sixth century. 45 Thus the author of the Syriac Legend

of Alexander was using common lore that would be readily understood by its

audience: Alexander was thought to have built a real wall with a gate that was

known to the inhabitants of the Caucasus region and indeed was famous far and

wide, a wall that bore inscriptions. It is easy to see how one of these inscriptions

might have been thought to have been carved there by Alexander.

186ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

The Alexander Legend’s account identifies the people beyond the wall, the

“Huns,” as Gog and Magog. These names originally come from Hebrew scripture.

They are associated by Ezekiel 38–9 with northern, invading nations, serving as

God’s punishment, and then later by the Revelation of John 20 with final turmoil

just before the ultimate redemption. Gog and Magog are, in short, an eschatological

motif: they are northern nations whose invasion heralds the end of time. 46 In the

sixth century Andreas of Caesarea had made this association clear in his

commentary on the Revelation of John, identifying Gog and Magog with the

Huns, and in doing so he was following the sources going back at least to

Josephus (d. ca 100). 47

Thus the Alexander Legend combines two traditions (1) Alexander’s building

of a wall in the Caucasus to hold out Huns and (2) the identification of Huns, a

generic term for all Central Asian peoples, with Gog and Magog, thereby

associating Alexander with the end of time and giving him an occasion to make

eschatological prophecies. Alexander’s wall also explains why the Huns (Gog and

Magog) cannot invade at just any time; they have to surmount the wall first. But

when that wall is breached, that will be a sign of the approaching end. Once these

traditions were combined, it was now easy to link Heraclius both with the world

conquering Alexander, who similarly defeated the Persian emperor, and with the

end of time.

As already stated, in his final campaigns against the Persians, Alexander’s

former enemies, Heraclius actually did enlist the help of Inner Asian peoples, the

Kök Türks, in his war against the Persians (626–7) – they are called variously in

the sources Türks and Khazars, being perhaps Khazars under Kök Türk rule,

though the specific tribal or ethnic identity of these invaders is a subject of very

long debate – and afterward these Türks fiercely raided Caucasian Albania, Georgia,

and Armenia until 630. 48 One wonders whether Heraclius or his supporters

promoted the idea that his Türk allies, summoned from the north, were the people

of Gog and Magog come to punish the Persians. The Türk invasions are known

from the Greek chronicle of Theophanes 49 and in some detail from a compilatory

seventh-century source used by the Armenian History of the Caucasian Albanians

(Patmut’iwn A„uanic’) by Movses Dasxuranc‘i. As it says, “During this period

(Heraclius) . . . summoned the army to help him breach the great Mount Caucasus

which shut off the lands of the north-east, and to open up the gates of #‘o„ay

[i.e. the gates at Darband] so as to let through many barbarian tribes and by

their means to conquer the king of Persia, the proud Xosrov.” 50 Fredegarius,

as mentioned, also states that Heraclius opened these gates. Thus the devastating

raids of the terrifying “Huns” – “predicted” in the Alexander Legend – also

match the Türk campaigns in the years 626–7 (alongside Heraclius) and 628–30

(independently), and inhabitants of Caucasian Albania and Iberia, Armenia,

and the neighboring lands such as Mesopotamia and Syria were surely well aware

of them.

Moreover, Greek and Armenian sources show that these real invasions of

Türk warriors in the early seventh century were actually interpreted then in

187KEVIN VAN BLADEL

apocalyptic terms and associated with the eschatological motif of Gog and Magog.

J. Howard-Johnston has dubbed the source of historical information on these

Caucasian campaigns used by the Armenian Movses Dasxuranc’i as the 682 History

(because its reports end with the year 682 and we do not know its original

name). 51 This source describes the nomadic invaders in horrific terms in connection

with the joint Byzantine-Türk siege of the Caucasian Albanian capital, Partaw

(Arabic: Bardha‘a). They are depicted as ugly savages, like merciless wolves, who

kill regardless of the victim’s age or sex. 52 The Syriac Alexander Legend describes

the Huns in quite similar terms, also stressing their readiness to kill women and

children and their bestial nature. 53

The way in which the Armenian source describes these wars between the

Byzantines, the Türks, and the Persians gives yet another example for how people

really did expect the end of time during or soon after these wars. The 682 History

focuses its attention on the events around the Caucasian Albanian capital of

Partaw, but first it begins with a special prologue to the description of these

invasions, which are characterized as part of not just local but the universal

calamities (i tiezerakan haruacoc‘s) prophesied by Jesus in the Gospels about the

times of tribulations (i Δamanaki 3‘ar3‘aranac‘n). 54 This understanding is based

in the 682 History explicitly on quotations of Jesus’ prophecies selected from

Matthew 24 and Luke 21:5–28. The full prophecy of Jesus in Matthew, not cited

in its entirety by the Armenian historian, indicated particularly that a siege of

Jerusalem would be one of the signs of the end (Luke 21:20). This would be

accompanied by signs in the heavens and confusion among nations before

the final redemption. All of this helps to contextualize the role of the Huns in

the Syriac Alexander Legend, who are to be identified with the Türks and their

invasions into the Caucasus region from 626 to 630.

To sum up, the Alexander Legend is seen to reflect many specific events and

cultural tendencies of the period around 628–9, the year it indicates as a time of

wars between many nations beginning with the breaking of Alexander’s wall by

the Huns. Out of these wars the Roman Empire would emerge victorious, some

time after which the Roman Empire would permanently overthrow the Persians

and establish a universal Christian empire. It is best understood, following

Reinink, as a piece of propaganda composed by someone sympathetic to the need

of Heraclius around 630, immediately after almost thirty years of demoralizing

war and unprecedented military loss, to help in reconsolidating quickly the loyal-

ties of the regained territories of the empire and their monophysite inhabitants.

The success or popularity of the Alexander Legend is indicated in that it was used

by at least three more apocalypses, the so-called Song of Alexander attributed

falsely to Jacob of Serugh (composed just a few years later but before the Arab

conquest, between 630 and 636), 55 the Syriac apocalypse De fine mundi attributed

falsely to Ephraem (composed sometime between 640–83), 56 and the Apocalypse

of Pseudo-Methodius (composed around 692, quite possibly in reaction to the

building of the Dome of the Rock). 57 The Alexander Legend was evidently well

known in the early seventh century.

188ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

The relationship between the Alexander Legend

and Qur’an 18:83–102

To return to the main question, the extremely close correspondences between the

Syriac Alexander Legend and Qur’an 18:83–102, reviewed earlier, must mean

that the two texts are related. On the one hand, there is a Syriac text the date of

which is almost certain, about 629–30 CE , and the historical context and political

meaning of which is known fairly precisely (as just explained); on the other, we

have a passage from the Qur’an, an Arabic compilation the precise dates and

historical circumstances of which are debated by historians, but which tradition

has understood to be collected into its current form during the caliphate of

‘Uthman (644–56) or at least after Muhammad’s death (632). It is possible to

approach the problem of affiliation between the two systematically. The two texts

must be related. That is the only explanation for their point-for-point correspon-

dence. In that case there are three reasonable possibilities: (1) the Syriac takes its

account from the Qur’an, or (2) the two texts share a common source, or (3) the

Qur’an uses the account found in the Syriac.

Could the Syriac text have its source in the Qur’an? If this were the case, then

the Syriac text would have to be seen as a highly expanded version of the

Qur’anic account, which would then need to be understood as an attempt to

explain the cryptic Qur’anic story with rationalizations drawn from stories

about Alexander. However, the Syriac text contains no references to the Arabic

language the type of which one might expect to find if its purpose was to explain

an Arabic text, and it is impossible to see why a Syriac apocalypse written around

630 would be drawing on an Arabic tradition some years before the Arab

conquests, when the community at Mecca was far from well known outside

Arabia. Moreover, the very specific political message of the Alexander Legend

would not make any sense in this scenario. This possibility must therefore

be discounted.

Could the two texts share a common source? This also becomes practically

impossible for some of the same reasons. The Syriac Alexander Legend was

written to support Heraclius by indicating the author’s belief in the significance

of events leading up to 629 AD , events supposed to be foreshadowing the estab-

lishment of a Christian world empire and the coming of the Messiah. Yet relating

Dhu l-Qarnayn’s first prophecy of the end times is also the very purpose of the

story in the Qur’an: the prediction of God’s actions at the time of judgment using

an ancient voice of great authority. As already explained, the war between

Byzantium and Ctesiphon went very badly for the Byzantines until the very end,

prompting an intense bout of political and religious propaganda to boost the

desperate war effort and to consolidate allegiances after the victory. Reinink has

shown that this Syriac text, given its contents, must be understood as pro-Heraclian

propaganda belonging to this milieu, dated to 629–30. If Alexander’s prophecy

was composed just for this purpose at this time, then the correspondence between

the Syriac and the Arabic, which contains the same prophecy reworded, cannot be

189KEVIN VAN BLADEL

due to an earlier, shared source. 58 Put differently, the only way to posit a common

source is to assume that everything held in common between the Qur’anic

account and the Syriac Alexander Legend could have been written for and would

have made sense in an earlier context. In light of the detailed contextualization

given earlier, and in light of G.J. Reinink’s work referred to earlier as well, this

becomes impossible.

Stephen Gero implied in one article that since the text comes from this date

(629 CE or later), it cannot be regarded as a source of the Qur’an. He does not

explain in detail but I take the implication to be that such a date of composition

is too late for it to have reached the human agents who related the Qur’an. 59 But

to me this seems to be the only real possibility because the others are invalid, as

just explained. The Qur’anic account must draw from the Syriac account, if not

directly then by oral report.

Since the Qur’an is using the material found in this Syriac text, a text composed

for a very specific context in contemporary politics and loaded with particular

religious meaning, this gives historians an important opportunity to understand

the religion of Muhammad and his early followers without relying entirely on later

tradition. Before considering the significance of this further, it is important to ask

how the text could have been known in Arabic and under what circumstances.

The transmission of the story from the Syriac

text into Arabic

How could a Syriac text composed in northern Mesopotamia in 629–30 CE or just

about that time have been transmitted to an Arab audience in Medina or Mecca

so that it could become relevant enough to the followers of Muhammad to warrant

a Qur’anic pronouncement upon it? Such a transmission would have been quite

possible in the circumstances around 628–30 CE and soon after. Contemporary

records in Greek, Syriac, Armenian and Arabic (poetry) repeatedly note the

involvement of Arabs as troops and scouts on both Roman and Persian sides

during and at the end of the great war of 603–30, and the Syriac Alexander

Legend itself mentions Arabs as one of the nations involved in the last wars. 60

Indeed, the Alexander Legend is likely to have been circulated widely if it was

part of the Byzantine rallying cry after the war in the face of great losses and as

a tool of Heraclius for rebuilding his subjects’ loyalty to the idea of a universal

Christian empire undivided by schism. If it was aimed particularly at monophysites,

as Reinink also proposed, then one would expect it to have been deliberately

spread among the monophysite Arabs of the Ghassanid phylarchate, some of

Heraclius’ close allies. 61 It is even possible that Muhammad’s own followers

heard the story of the Alexander Legend, for example during their raid on Mu’ta,

around the southeast end of the Dead Sea (probably September 629) just a few

months after the Persian withdrawal from Roman territory and a few months

before Heraclius’ triumphant return of the cross to Jerusalem. 62

190ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

Yet one is left wondering exactly how apocalyptic works were disseminated

during these decades. Since they are full of political significance for a particular

period of time, one expects that they would have been published and promoted

actively by their authors. In any case, one can hardly doubt that this text was

widely known. An indication of that was aforementioned: the Alexander Legend

provoked a monophysite response in Syriac within a few years, one more cynical

about the durability of Heraclius’ kingdom, and information connected with the

Alexander Legend was known as far away as Gaul a few decades later (on which,

see the discussion about Fredegarius, later). 63

Nor is it difficult to suggest motives for Muhammad or his followers to have

paid attention to this apocalypse. Even with the extraordinary skepticism over

the early records of Islam prevailing today, no one disputes that Muhammad’s

movement was based on the belief in prophets. The Qur’an contains many

references to the prophets of the past. The Syriac Alexander Legend presents

Alexander the Two-Horned as just such a prophet. Moreover, Alexander’s

prophecy clearly indicates that final wars heralding the end of the world were

taking place. Many in the community that followed Muhammad seem to have

shared this apocalyptic sentiment with others in the contemporary Middle East. 64

However, the Qur’anic account leaves out all mention of the Roman Empire’s

inevitable, universal, Christian victory before the return of the Messiah, an important

aspect of the last section of the Legend. Instead it focuses on and culminates in

Dhu l-Qarnyan’s prophetic warning that God’s judgment will come in a time of

wars between great armies. Evidently that was the message of the story that was

most meaningful to the adaptor of the Arabic account, and the elements that make

the story sensible as Byzantine propaganda are omitted completely in the Arabic.

One may even suppose the words of Q 18:83, “And they are asking you about

the Two-Horned One (Dhu l-Qarnayn). Say: I will relate for you a glorious record

(dhikr) about him,” to be a true reflection of the environment in which the Syriac

Alexander Legend was circulating. Here was an apocalypse widely known and

certainly currently relevant. Perhaps Muhammad’s followers or others in the

vicinity wanted an explanation of this apocalypse from him, and so they were

given an account of it, adapted to make it appropriate to their movement. It may

also be possible to see reflections of the prophecy of the Alexander Legend in

surat al-Rum (Q 30:1–6), where the war between the Persians and Romans is

referred to, but the Romans are said to be destined to conquer, at least according

to the preferred reading of early Qur’anic exegetes. 65

In short, there are many indicators that the Alexander Legend could easily have

reached the community at Medina or Mecca and that, when it did, it would have

been meaningful to them. There is no reason to doubt this possibility, and the rela-

tionship between the Syriac and Arabic texts determined earlier requires one to

suppose that the Alexander Legend was in fact transmitted somehow. However,

the precise time at which the story of Dhu l-Qarnayn entered the Qur’an – in

Muhammad’s last years, or later – is still undecided.

191KEVIN VAN BLADEL

Floods of nations and the prophecy of Jesus

There is one more point related to the Qur’anic retelling of this Syriac text that

deserves attention. While it is widely known that Jesus was and is regarded as a

prophet by Muslims, since he is so designated in the Qur’an (19:30), there is little

discussion of just what Jesus was supposed to be a prophet of. It is often over-

looked that Jesus was thought even by Christians to be prophesying nothing less

than the end of the world (as in Matthew 24 and Luke 21:5–28), and that this

would be preceded by a siege of Jerusalem (Luke 21:20). The sack of Jerusalem

by the Persians in 614 therefore shocked Christian contemporaries especially

because it seemed to indicate that the end the world and the return of the Messiah

were near according to the very words of Jesus. Other signs predicted by Jesus

preceding the end would be seen in the heavens, and there would be “distress of

nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves” (Luke 21:25). 66

Contemporary sources show that witnesses to the great war of 603–30 saw the

fulfillment of Jesus’ words in it.

Most important here is the account of the Türk invasion of Caucasian Albania

used by the Armenian author Movses Dasxurants‘i, the 682 History. Before

describing how the Türks broke through the Wall at Darband, this source adapts

the prophecies appearing in Matthew 24:6–7, 29 and Luke 21:25 in its prologue,

paraphrasing them, saying that there would be “confusion of nations like the

confusion of the waves of the sea” x ̋ovut‘iwnk‘ Δo„ov7rdoc‘ orpes aleac‘ covu

x ̋oveloy. 67 Then it goes on to describe the events of the wars, using allusions to

these paraphrased words of Jesus’ prophecy in order to prove that the prophecies

were fulfilled. For this purpose, the Türks are likened explicitly to overwhelming

waves, the waves of confusion among nations in Jesus’ predictions: “Then grad-

ually the waves moved on against us,” apa takaw marΔein alik‘n 7nddem mer. 68

After raiding Caucasian Albania the Türks turned west: “the floods (u„xn) rose

and rushed over the land of Georgia.” 69 Even Khosro II “rose up like a raging tor-

rent” when he set out to war against them 70 and we are reminded of the image

again with the phrase, “waves of invaders.” 71 Thus the author of the 682 History

takes every opportunity to show that Jesus’ prophecy was being fulfilled in the

invasions of the Türks and the wars of this period in general.

This image of nations as waves was also used specifically to describe the

Türks’ overwhelming of the walls at Darband. The 682 History does not connect

Alexander with these walls, but it does say that near #‘o„ (a town near the gate at

Darband) were

magnificent walls which the kings of Persia had built at great expense,

bleeding their country and recruiting architects and procuring many

different materials for the construction of the wonderful works with

which they blocked [the passes] between Mount Caucasus and the

eastern sea [the Caspian]. When the universal wrath confronting us

192ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

all came, however, the waves of the sea flooded over and struck it down

and destroyed it to its foundations at the very outset.

(Movses Dasxuranc‘i, trans. Dowsett, History of

the Caucasian Albanians, 83)

These waves are not real waves of the Caspian but rather attackers from the north.

The text immediately next describes the physical appearance of the Türk invaders,

portrayed as monstrous, whom Heraclius had invited to war as his allies. It is striking

that this author, a resident of Caucasian Albania, the territory immediately south of

these walls, reports that the Türks actually destroyed the wall (i himanc‘ tapaleal,

“demolished it to the foundations”), 72 just as Alexander’s Syriac prophecy in the

Legend said that they would be destroyed. The Byzantine chronicler Theophanes

also states that, at the beginning of their invasions, “the Khazars broke through the

Gates of the Caspian” (diarrhéxantes tàs Kaspías púlas). 73 Just so, in the Qur’an

(18:98), Dhu l-Qarnayn prophesies that God will make the barrier a heap of earth

at the time of his promise, the final judgment (fa-idha ja’a wa‘du rabbi ja‘alahu

dakka’a). But the difference in the Armenian source is that in it the breaking of the

wall by the Türks was identified as part of the fulfillment of Jesus’ words.

There are not many other surviving reports about these Türk invaders and their

passage through the wall. That is why it is especially striking that one of the few

other authors to mention it, the contemporary Frankish chronicler known as

Fredegarius (wr. ca 660) describes the gates as having been built out of bronze

(aereas) by Alexander propter inundacione gentium sevissemorum (sic), “on

account of the surging wave of most savage nations.” Here again the invaders are

described as a surging wave, an inundacio of nations, held back by the gates that,

Fredegarius goes on immediately to say, Heraclius himself ordered to be opened:

easdem portas Aeraglius aperire precipit (sic). 74 In light of the description of the

Armenian 682 History, which was explicitly connected with the prophecies of

Jesus, it seems likely that Fredegarius was drawing from a source that made a

similar allusion to the waves of nations, paraphrasing Jesus’ prophecy in Luke

21:25. Moreover, this Latin chronicle’s association of Heraclius with the opening

of the gates of Alexander that held back savages brings together most of the

parts of the Alexander Legend. It is in fact the earliest known association of

Alexander specifically with the wall at Darband (and not the wall at the Darial

pass or another, unspecified place, as in the Alexander Legend). 75 What is

missing in Fredegarius is reference to Gog and Magog. But in his confusion that

chronicle’s author bizarrely thinks that the Hagarene Saracens were admitted by

this gate, not the Türks. This implies that he identified the Arabs as the people of

Gog and Magog, though it is not explicitly stated.

Now, the description of the Hun invaders as waves is not found in the Syriac

Alexander Legend. However, as shown earlier, God is portrayed as saying in the

Qur’an 18:99, “And We shall leave them on that day surging like waves (yamuju)

against each other” when the wall holding back Gog and Magog is demolished.

193KEVIN VAN BLADEL

It is tempting therefore to think that the Syriac Alexander Legend was associated

consciously at some stage of the transmission into Arabic with an explanation or

oral commentary including reference to Jesus’ prophecies of the end of the world,

since the near-contemporary source of Movses Dasxuranc‘i, the 682 History,

shows that the reference to waves in Jesus’ prophecy was taken to refer to the

invasions of the Türks, identified elsewhere by contemporaries as the eschatological

peoples of Gog and Magog, and their involvement in a war of many nations.

Fredegarius’ chronicle also describes them as waves. If this hypothesis is correct,

the word yamuju, “surging like waves,” in the Qur’an, is essentially a verbal echo

of Luke 21:25 (sunokhè ethnôn en aporíai ékhous thalásses kaì sálou), the

“distress of nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves,” 76 Jesus’

prophecy of what would happen before the final redemption. It suggests that

Movses Dasxuranc‘i’s source (the 682 History) and Fredegarius’ source were not

the only ones to consider Jesus’ prophecies to be fulfilled in these wars.

Muhammad’s earliest followers may have understood the story of Dhu l-Qarnayn

not just as the prophecy of the imminent end made by Alexander, regarded as

a pious, ancient world-conqueror, but also as an allusion to the prophet Jesus’

similar warning of the end times, now very near, which they expected as seriously

as other inhabitants of the region, when nations did indeed crash together, as it

might have appeared on a field of battle, like waves of the sea.

The language of Q 18:83–102

Now that the continuity of tradition between the Syriac Alexander Legend of

Alexander and the Qur’anic passage in question (Q 18:83–102) is established, it

is possible to draw some new conclusions about the language of the Qur’an here.

Though controversy has been aroused by the recent attempt to find Syriac or

Aramaic words in the Qur’an where they had not been part of the traditional

reading, now one can see that where the Qur’an is definitely reinterpreting a

Syriac text, not a single Syriac word is found, but rather there are true Arabic

equivalents of Syriac words. 77 Q 18:83–102 is a distinctively Arabic text and in

no way is it Syriac. Thus it is clear that Qur’anic tradition and, in particular, the

traditional Islamic lexicography of the Arabic words in this passage prove to be

quite reliable. A high number of exact parallels of meaning between the Syriac

and the Arabic (though the Arabic passage is short) come to light while reading

the Qur’anic text in a way that accords very closely with the traditional Muslim

interpretation – interpretation of the words themselves, that is, the lexicography,

and not the explanatory commentary or tafsir. Whatever problems one finds in

the grammar and script of the Qur’an, it is quite clear that the words and basic

meanings of this passage of the Qur’an have been understood by Islamic tradition

correctly. In a sense this Syriac Alexander Legend vindicates the reliability of

some basic, traditional claims about this Qur’anic passage, providing means to

verify Arabic tradition.

194ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

Conclusions

The main conclusion reached here is that a Syriac text quite current and important

in the last years of Muhammad’s life was adapted for twenty verses of the Qur’an.

This is not entirely new, since Nöldeke made a similar argument in 1890. Nor is

it surprising, since the Qur’an relates many other well known ancient stories in its

own way to deliver its own message, as Muslims generally accept. However, it

is now shown beyond any reasonable doubt that this is the case for a text

contemporary with Muhammad. Moreover, what is most important for our under-

standing of the adaptation of the Alexander Legend in the Qur’an is not the fact

of the borrowing but rather the way in which the particular religious and political

message associated with the Alexander Legend was used, truncated, and altered

for new purposes.

This is not a sweeping theory about the formation of the Qur’an, for it only

concerns one small portion of a text agreed upon by almost all to have been

compiled from different oral and written materials collected together after the

death of the prophet. This theory makes no claims about the text of the Qur’an as

a whole, but it nevertheless requires that the Syriac Alexander Legend be taken

into account by any theory attempting to account for the whole Qur’an. It is only

in studying the Qur’an as a text in its own historical context, which historians

of the Qur’an have neglected to a surprising extent in their overdependence on

later Arabic sources for the history of the seventh century, that it will become

comprehensible to the historian and to those truly concerned with understanding

its inimitable history.

The findings of this article may be summarized as follows. The Syriac

Alexander Legend, written in 629–30 as religious and political propaganda in

favor of Heraclius after a devastating war, puts forth two prophecies: one about

the impending end of the world in a war of all nations, the other predicting that

Roman, Christian rule would come over the entire earth before the Messiah’s

return. This text was evidently well known soon after is publication since several

other texts written in the seventh century react to or include material derived from

it. The Arabic, Qur’anic account of Dhu l-Qarnayn also repeats this story, but

includes only the first of its two prophecies, along with the narrative of

Alexander’s journeys. If Muhammad himself did speak Q 18:83–102, then it may

well have been his response to questions concerning the publication of these

prophecies (“They ask you about the Two-Horned One. Say. . . .”). Whatever the

precise circumstances of the Arabic composition were, its primary message is that

God’s judgment is very much imminent. The reference to contemporary wars

reflects the notion, widely held around this time, that the violence and strife of

this period were indeed an indicator of the rapidly approaching end of the world.

It is not surprising that a community of Arabs whose religion was based on a

belief in prophecy would find the contents of this story meaningful, since it put

a prophecy supporting the apocalyptic sentiments that they shared, designed for

their troubled times, into the mouth of an ancient and respected world-conqueror.

195KEVIN VAN BLADEL

What is striking is that the strongly pro-Roman element, appearing especially in

the second prophecy of the Alexander Legend, is completely omitted, though

many details of the other parts of the story are included. Surely this omission also

reflects some attitude in the community of Muhammad. Finally, though it depends

(probably through oral report) on a Syriac work for its content, Q 18:83–102

shows no hint of Syriac vocabulary. It is an entirely Arabic text likely to have been

first uttered in the early seventh century. The extraordinary correspondences

between the Syriac and the Arabic vindicate the early Muslim understanding of

the meaning of the words in this text, but not their exegesis of it. 78

Approaching the Qur’an by contextualizing it in the milieu of the early seventh

century clearly has much to offer, but it is surprising to find how disconnected the

field of Qur’anic research is from other historical studies on the same period and

region, with some notable recent exceptions. It seems now that the future of

Qur’anic studies lies not within the discipline construed as Islamic studies alone

but rather that many major historical problems of the Qur’an will be solved by

historians of Late Antiquity, whose approaches to the first century of Islam are

proving more successful than the various apologetic and polemical approaches

that predominate in the modern study of early Islam. That is perhaps to be

expected, since scholars in the field of Islamic studies are largely concerned with

later tradition and has generally (though not in every case) failed to find adequate

tools for approaching the Qur’an in its original context, the early seventh century.

Yet almost every primary source used in the present study was published more

than fifty years ago, many of them more than a century ago. Scholars of Islamic

studies have brought historical–epistemological problems – which are problems

particularly when they confine themselves to late sources – so prominently to

the foreground that it is nearly impossible to read the texts themselves, while the

general abandonment of the basic preliminary tools of historical scholarship – the

philological methods used to establish text that can then serve as objects of

historical research – are sorely neglected. But Qur’anic studies now require

scholars trained in Greek and Syriac, not to mention other forms of Aramaic, and

even Armenian, Ethiopic and other languages, as much as in Arabic. 79 With the

great surge in research and publication on Late Antiquity, the very context into

which Islam came, answers to the pressing theoretical questions as well as to

some of the historical ones also may at last appear. 80

Notes

1 E.A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac Version of the

Pseudo-Callisthenes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889.

2 Th. Nöldeke, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans,” Denkschriften der

Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, philosophisch-historische Klasse,

38, 1890, 5, 27–33.

3 Nöldeke, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans,” 32, “Wie andre

Geschichten so hat Muhammed natürlich auch diese auf mündlichen Wege erhalten.”

196ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

4 J. Renard, “Alexander,” in EQ, vol. 1, 61–2. The article “Gog and Magog” in the same

encyclopaedia (Keith Lewinstein, vol. 2, 331–3) at least mentions the Syriac Alexander

Legend and cites Nöldeke’s work, but it does not refer to Nöldeke’s thesis that this text

was a source of the Qur’an, rather citing the Alexander Legend with extraordinary

understatement inconclusively as one of a few “suggestive parallels.”

5 See note 8.

6 Like Gilgamesh, the Alexander of this Legend travels to the edges of the world where

he found a sea of deadly waters, the touch of which meant death. Also like Gilgamesh,

this Alexander journeys through the passage through which the sun passes every night,

entering it at sunset and emerging at the eastern end at sunrise. Both Gilgamesh and

Alexander follow the sun’s nightly course just after it sets, apparently having to pass

through before the sun comes around again and catches them. In both stories, the sun’s

passage is associated with a mountain, Mamu in the Akkadian and Mûsas in the Syriac,

evidently related names. Thus there seems to have been an oral tradition of the

Gilgamesh story that became associated at an unknown time with Alexander.

Moreover, the Syriac Song of Alexander, written in reaction to the Alexander Legend,

and a Talmudic account of Alexander contain more material derived from the

Gilgamesh tradition (such as the search for the water of life). This points to the exis-

tence of a late antique Aramaic oral tradition of Gilgamesh in which the name

Alexander replaced the more ancient hero’s name. References to literature on connec-

tions between Alexander, Gilgamesh, and the Qur’an are collected in Brannon

Wheeler, Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis, London and New York:

RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, 10–37 (plus endnotes), though the conclusions reached there

are sometimes doubtful (see note 8).

7 G.J. Reinink, “Heraclius, the new Alexander: Apocalyptic prophecies during the reign

of Heraclius,” in G.J. Reinink and B.H. Stolte (eds), The Reign of Heraclius (610–641):

Crisis and Confrontation, Groningen Studies in Cultural Change 2, Leuven: Peeters,

2002, 81–94; idem, “Alexander the Great in the Seventh-Century Syriac ‘Apocalyptic’

Texts,” Byzantinorossika 2, 2003, 150–78 (this journal is available online at

http://byzantinorossica.org.ru/byzantinorossika.html where it can be viewed with DjVu

software, which is, at the time of this writing, available elsewhere online as a free

download); now out of date but full of useful information is F. Pfister, “Alexander der

Große in Offenbarungen der Griechen, Juden, Mohammedaner und Christen,” in F.

Pfister, Kleine Schriften zum Alexanderroman, Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie 61,

1976, 301–37.

8 B. Wheeler, “Moses or Alexander? Q 18:60–5 in early Islamic exegesis,” Journal of

Near Eastern Studies 57.3, 1998, 191–215 and idem, Moses, 10–36. Wheeler does not

address directly Nöldeke’s hypothesis of the relationship of the Alexander Legend to

Q 18:83–102, which is the subject of the present paper, though he does refer in his

notes to Nöldeke’s work (“Moses or Alexander?” 201, n. 52; Moses, 138, n. 55 to

chapter 1). This strikes me as an unfortunate oversight. While this is not the place

to redraw Wheeler’s charts showing the supposed interrelationships of these texts, a

few critical remarks are in order to guide the reader. In discussing the Qur’an, its

commentaries, three different texts about Alexander (the Legend, the Song, and

different recensions of the Romance), and then also the Talmudic story of Alexander,

Wheeler has overlooked a good deal of relevant published research (e.g. see later in

this note) but has almost completely avoided getting into the details of the texts that

could be used to establish their real interrelationships. To take just one of the prob-

lematic conclusions as an example, his charts of affiliations (Wheeler, “Moses or

Alexander?” 202–3; Moses, 17, 19) argue that the Babylonian Talmud is a source of

the Christian Song of Alexander, which is extremely unlikely. He argues, without foun-

dation, that when Qur’an commentators refer to extra-Qur’anic traditions, it becomes

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10

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12

impossible for the Qur’an to refer to the same extra-Qur’anic traditions; the Qur’an

itself is cleared of relying on the same ancient traditions (Moses, 28–9). This and other

problematic schemata aside, Wheeler has not included the Legend of Alexander in his

chart of affiliations, but only the Song of Alexander, which has been shown not actually

to be by Jacob of Serugh, as Wheeler seems to think: “Moses or Alexander?” 201;

Moses, 17; following Nöldeke, actually, but missing much of the subsequent scholarship:

for example, A. Baumstark, Geschichte der Syrischen Literatur, Bonn: A. Markus und

E. Weber, 1922, 191; K. Czeglédy, “Monographs on Syriac and Muhammadan sources

in the literary remains of M. Kmoskó,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum

Hungaricae 4, 1955, (19–90) 35–6; G.J. Reinink, “Ps.-Methodius: A concept of history

in response to Islam,” in A. Cameron and L.I. Conrad (eds) The Byzantine and Early

Islamic Near East I: Problems in the Literary Source Material, Studies in Late

Antiquity and Early Islam 1, Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1992, (149–87) 167 n. 73;

S. Gero, “The legend of Alexander the Great in the Christian orient,” Bulletin of the

John Rylands Library 75, 1993, 3–9, 7; and above all the introduction accompanying

the standard edition of the Song of Alexander itself: Das syrische Alexanderlied. Die

Drei Rezensionen, CSCO 454 (edition)-455 (translation), Scriptores Syri 195–6, Trans.

G.J. Reinink (ed.), Louvain: Peeters, 1983. Compare Wheeler’s reference to “the brief

so-called Legend of Alexander, which is often said to be a prose version of Jacob of

Serugh’s (Song) . . .” (Wheeler, Moses, 17, no references given) with Reinink’s statement:

“No scholar has seriously considered the possibility that the legend is dependent on

the (Song)” (Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 153). Not even Budge, who first edited the

Legend, thought that it was a prose version of the Song; rather he supposed that they

shared a common source (Budge, History of Alexander, lxxvii). As Reinink has shown,

the Song of Alexander is to some degree a reaction to the Alexander Legend composed

not many years after the latter, probably between 630 and 640 CE (Reinink, “Alexander

the Great,” 152–5 and 165–8).

On the translation of sabab as “heavenly course,” see my discussion later in the article.

The verb yamuju here means to move as waves move. The reference to the armies

moving like waves becomes important in what follows.

Budge, The History of Alexander, text 256, line 12, trans. 145.

Here Budge has misunderstood the passage leading to a nonsensical translation (The

History of Alexander, text 260–1, trans. 148): “And when the sun enters the window

of heaven, he straightway bows down and makes obeisance before God his Creator;

and he travels and descends the whole night through the heavens, until at length he

finds himself where he rises. And Alexander looked toward the west, and he found a

mountain that descends, and its name was ‘the great Mûsâs;’ and [the troops]

descended it and came out upon Mount Ülaudiâ.”

The passage should rather be understood as follows: “And when the sun entered the

window of heaven, he (Alexander) immediately bowed down and made obeisance

before God his Creator, and he traveled and descended the whole night in the heavens,

until at length he came and found himself where it (the sun) rises. He saw the land of

the setting sun and found a mountain where he descended, named Great Mûsas, and

they (the troops) descended and arrived with him. And they went forth to Mount

Qlawdiyâ (Claudia).” The role of Mount Ararat, called Great (Mec) Masis in

Armenian, in this story goes back to the very ancient times. At some unknown point it

was identified as the mount Mamu (ma-a-mu) of Tablet IX of the Gilgamesh epic, where

Gilgamesh finds a way into the passage through which the sun enters at nightfall. The

later Arabic rendering of the story found in an Adalusian manuscript (on which more

later) renders the name of the mountain as al-Judi, an Arabic name for another, smaller

mountain at the northern end of Mesopotamia called Ararad. On the confusion about

these mountains see M. Streck, “Djudi,” EI 2 , vol. 2, 573b-4a. On the various mountains

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14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

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24

25

known in Armenian as Masis, see J.R. Russell, “Armeno Iranica,” in Papers in Honour

of Professor Marcy Boyce, Acta Iranica 25, Homages et opera minora vol. XI, Leiden:

Brill, 1985 (447–58) 456. For the occurrence of al-Judi in a later Arabic translation of

the Alexander Legend (discussed in the present article), see E. García Gómez, Un texto

árabe occidental de la Leyenda de Alejandro, Madrid: Instituto de Valencia de Don

Juan, 1929, Arabic edition 50, l. 24.

K. Czeglédy, “The Syriac Legend Concerning Alexander the Great,” Acta Orientalia

Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 7, 1957, (231–49) 245, who seeks to localize the

author by reference to the rivers Haloras and Kallath. Reinink, “Entstehung,” 280, and

idem, “Alexander the Great,” 161, suggested that the author’s home was Edessa

or Amida.

The Haloras (Arabic Haluras, Armenian Olor) is a high tributary of the Eastern Tigris,

upstream north of Amida. Just beyond its head is a pass leading down from the

Arsanias river, so that by this way one could cross between the Armenian valleys and

northern Mesopotamia.

Budge, The History of Alexander, text 269–270, trans. 154–5.

Idem, The History of Alexander, text 270, trans. 155.

Idem, The History of Alexander, trans. 146 and 156; text 257 l. 14 and 272 l. 11.

It is well known that already in his own time Alexander was portrayed with horns

according to the iconography of the Egyptian god Ammon. (A.R. Anderson,

“Alexander’s horns,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological

Association 58, 1927, [100–22] 101.) But the problem here is not to illustrate the entire

history of this image, something already investigated in detail by others, but rather to

show the proximate source of the information used in the Qur’an.

Josephus, De Bello Iudaico, 7.7.4. The ancient traditions on Alexander’s wall, its iron

gates, and its location are treated amply by A.R. Anderson, “Alexander’s Horns,”

109–10 and especially in “Alexander at the Caspian gates,” Transactions and

Proceedings of the American Philological Association 59, 1928, 130–63. The wall is

discussed further elsewhere in the present article.

In the Syriac Alexander Legend and in the Qur’an God gathers the peoples who will

fight (Syriac nkannem, Arabic fa-jama‘nahum jam’an). In the earlier tradition of

Revelation of John 20:7–9 it is Satan who “gathers” (sunagageîn) Gog and Magog

to fight.

It is likely that one should emend the text of the Qur’an from Yajuj (y’jwj) to Ajuj (’jwj)

on the basis of the Syriac source combined with the attestation of the form Ajuj in

Arabic recorded by al-Zamakhshari, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, and Ibn Hajar (E. van

Donzel and C. Ott, “Yadjudj wa-Madjudj,” EI 2 , vol. 11, 231a-3b). An unintended [y]

may be easily read in that position (before initial alif ) by mistake in either Syriac or

Arabic script.

Many examples of this usage are found in W. Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac

Manuscripts in the British Museum, London: Trustees of the British Museum,

1870–1872, vol. 3 (e.g. on 1090b, 1113a, 1127b).

For example, surat Maryam (Q 19:2) is headed, “a dhikr of the mercy of your lord on

his servant Zakariyya.” Here, dhikr clearly means “record” or “account.” Cf. surat Taha

(Q 20:99), where the word apparently refers to accounts of former (Biblical) times.

E.W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, Book 1, part 4, 1285c, entry “sabab.”

My study of Qur’anic sabab will appear elsewhere. The meaning “heavenly courses”

is explicit in Q 40:37, asbab al-samawat, where Pharaoh wants to vie with Moses in

reaching the asbab, the courses, of the heavens to behold Moses’ God. It also appears

in Q 38:10, fa-l-yartaqu fi l-asbab, where God challenges those who vie with his all-

mastery to reach heaven by ascending by asbab; in Q 22:15, fa-l-yamdud bi-sababin

ila l-sama’i thumma l-yaqta‘, which has been taken by many to refer to stringing a

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noose from the roof of a house; it appears rather to be a challenge to ascend to the

heavens by the extraordinary means of a heavenly course, but it is doomed to failure, as

in the previous example; and in Q 2:166, where God says that the asbab (the heavenly

cords) will collapse on judgment day. For this list of occurrences I used Arne

A. Ambros, A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004, 126–7.

K. van Bladel, “Heavenly cords and prophetic authority in the Qur’an and its Late

Antique context,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 70, 2007,

223–247; Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, article “thamanun,” Book 1, part 1, 355c-356a.

Asbab in this verse is preferred as the lectio difficilior.

Budge, History of Alexander, text 260, trans. 148.

The cosmology of the Alexander Legend is very similar to that found in the Book of

Enoch (1 Enoch) and a few of the elements of Alexander’s experiences of the far edges

of the world are just like those encountered by Enoch. Like Alexander, Enoch visits the

four corners of the earth. 1 Enoch 17–36 tells this story, in which Enoch sees the prison

(1 Enoch 18:14, 21:10: Greek desmotérion, Ethiopic beta moq7h) for fallen angels and

a place of punishment of the souls of sinners (1 Enoch 22:13, Greek hamartoloí,

Ethiopic xat7’an) in a far western place. This is quite like the prison that Alexander

draws those whom he sends into the deadly waters to test them. In his vision, it is the

winds that serve as the pillars of heaven over the earth (1 Enoch 18:3: Ethiopic

a‘7mada samay; Greek “foundation of heaven” steréoma toû ouranoû), pillars calling

to mind perhaps the Arabic asbab al-samawat under discussion. Enoch also finds

“gates of heaven” in the north (1 Enoch 34–6: Ethiopic x7wax7wa samay). In the

portion of the work known as “The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries,” 1 Enoch 75–82,

Enoch sees the gates of heaven (1 Enoch 72:2ff.: again Ethiopic x7wax7wa samay,

sing. xox7t) and the windows (1 Enoch 72:3ff. Ethiopic maskot, pl. masak7w) to their

right and left. The sun, moon, stars, and winds pass through these gates. (Words cited

here are taken from the Ethiopic and the surviving Greek portions of 1 Enoch: Das

Buch Henoch. Äthiopischer Text, J. Flemming (ed.), Leipzig: J.C. Heinrichs’sche

Buchhandlung, 1902 and Apocalypsis Henochi Graece, M. Black (ed.), Leiden: Brill,

1970). It is likely that the author of the Alexander Legend knew the story of Enoch or

shared its cosmology. Gates of Heaven, abwab al-sama’, are also mentioned in Q 7:40

and 54:11, where in the former case they seem to be portals leading to the Garden

(al-Janna) and in the latter case they are the hatches through which rains come to earth

in Noah’s story, reflecting the “windows of heaven” in Genesis 7:11 (Hebrew ÷rubbôt

hammamayim).

G.J. Reinink, “Die Entstehung der syrischen Alexanderlegende als politisch-religiöse

Propagandaschrift für Herakleios’ Kirchenpolitik,” in C. Laga, J.A. Munitiz, and

L. Van Rompay (eds), After Chalcedon. Studies in Theology and Church History

offered to Professor Albert van Roey for his Seventieth Birthday, Orientalia

Lovaniensia Analecta 18, Leuven: Peeters 1985, 263–81; “Ps.-Methodius,” 1992,

149–87; “Pseudo-Ephraems ‘Rede über das Ende’ und die syrische eschatologische

Literatur des siebenten Jahrhunderts,” Aram 5, 1993, 437–63; “Alexandre et le dernier

empereur du monde: les développements du concept de la royauté chrétienne dans les

sources syriaques du septième siècle,” in L. Harf-Lancner, C. Kappler et F. Suard (eds),

Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures occidentales et proche-orientales. Actes du

colloque de Paris, 27–29 novembre 1997, Nanterre: Centre des sciences de la littérature

de l’Université Paris X, 1999, 149–59; “Heraclius, the New Alexander;” “Alexander

the Great,” 2003, 150–78.

The Era of the Greeks began in 1 October 312 BC according to the Julian Era. The dates

can be converted by subtracting 312–311 from the Common Era year. On the use of

this era in Syriac see P. Ludger Bernhard, Die Chronologie der syrischen

Handschriften, Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland,

Supplementband 14, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1969, 110–2. One will notice that the Era of

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the Greeks, frequently called in Syriac tradition the Era of Alexander, does not actually

correspond with the death of Alexander. The assumption of the author of the Syriac

Alexander Legend, that the Era of Alexander began with Alexander’s death, is a

mistake easy to make. He wanted only to signal the dates of his prophecies with an era

in common use.

The little that is known of the general early history and ethnic affiliation of the Sabirs

is summarized by Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic

Peoples: Ethnogenesis and State-Formation in Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia

and the Middle East, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992, 104–6.

It is approved by, for example, Czeglédy, “The Syriac Legend,” 245.

Earlier scholarship has used the signal of the year 628–9 CE in Alexander’s prophecy

to date the text in different ways. Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 2003, shows that the

text was composed in 630 or just before that time.

Reinink, “Alexander the Great.”

For example, J. Howard-Johnston, “Heraclius’ Persian campaigns and the revival of the

East Roman Empire, 622–630,” War in History 6, 1999, (1–44) 26–40. W.E. Kaegi,

Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 160–2.

Idem, 163–4.

Idem, “Die Entstehung” and “Alexander the Great.”

Ibid.

A.R. Anderson, “Alexander’s Horns,” 109–10. Idem, “Alexander at the Caspian Gates”

gives an exhaustive account of the ancient and modern confusion over precisely where

these gates and the pass that they blocked were located. They were at least since the

first century CE mistakenly thought by many classical authors to have been located at

the pass of Darial in the middle of the Caucasus. Later, around the seventh century, this

site was confused with the pass at Darband along the Caspian Sea.

Robert H. Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

2001, 89; cf. maps 56 and 57 on 66–7.

Extensive bibliographies are found in E. Kettenhofen, “Darband,” Encyclopaedia

Iranica, 7, 13–19; G.G. Gamzatov, “Da∫estan i: Cultural relations with Persia,”

Encyclopaedia Iranica, 6, 568–75; D.M. Dunlop, “Bab al-Abwab,” EI 2 , 1, 835.

Hewsen, Armenia, 85, 90–1, contains maps of these walls and in particular a detailed

close-up map of the wall at Darband. For a list of frontier walls built by the Sasanians:

H. Mahamedi, “Wall [sic] as a system of frontier defense during the Sasanid period,”

in T. Daryaee and M. Omidsalar (eds), The Spirit of Wisdom: Essays in Memory of

Ahmed Tafazzoli, Costa Mesa: Mazda, 2004, 145–59; this study makes almost no use

of relevant Greek, Armenian, and other sources.

The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos, trans. and comment. R.W. Thomson and

J. Howard-Johnston, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999, 1, trans. 148.

Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii Scholastici libri IV. Cum Continuationibus,

Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum tomus II,

Bruno Krusch (ed.), Hannover: Hahn, 1888, (1–214) esp. 153.

Erich Kettenhofen, “Darband,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 7, 13–19, 16.

In so characterizing these names I paraphrase Reinink, “Heraclius, the New

Alexander,” 2002, 85. On the tradition of these names in Arabic, see E. van Donzel

and C. Ott, “Yadjudj wa-Madjudj,” EI 2 , 11, 231a-33b, and K. Lewinstein, “Gog and

Magog,” EQ, 2, 331–3.

Andreas, Commentary on Revelation, J. Schmid (ed.) in Studien zur Geschichte des

griechischen Apokalypse-Texte I. Der Apokalypse-kommentar des Andreas von

Kaisareia, Munich: Zink, 1955, 223 (kephalaion 63): eînai dè taûtá tines mèn Skuthikà

éthne nomízousin huperbóreia, háper kaloûmen Ounniká, páses epigeíou basileías,

hos horômen, poluanthropóterá te kaì polemikótera. “Some people think that these

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63

(scil. Gog and Magog) are the Scythian, Hyperborean nations, which we call Hunnic,

both most populous and most warlike, as we see, of the entire earthly kingdom.”

Cf. Josephus, Judaean Antiquities, 1.6.1.

For the complicated debate about the identity of the leader of the Türks (or their Khazar

subordinates) in these invasions see A. Bombaci, “Qui était Jebu Xak’an?” Turcica 2,

1970, 7–24. See also P. Golden, Khazar Studies, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó,

1980, 49–51.

Theophanes, Chronographia, C. de Boor (ed.), Hildesheim: Olms, 1963.The Chronicle

of Theophanes the Confessor, trans. and comment. Cyril Mango and Roger Scott,

Oxford: Clarendon, 1997, 446–8. See also the modern synthesis of W. Kaegi,

Heraclius, 142–6.

History of the Caucasian Albanians, trans. C.J.F. Dowsett, London: Oxford University

Press, 1961, 87.

J. Howard-Johnston, “Armenian Historians of Heraclius: An Examination of the Aims,

Sources, and Working-Methods of Sebeos and Movses Daskhurantsi,” in G.J. Reinink

and B.H. Stolte (eds), The Reign of Heraclius, 41–62. The earliest known citation of

the work is by Anania Mokac‘i, writing some time after 958, by which time the History

of the Caucasian Albanians had a reputation of its own (Dowsett, History of the

Caucasian Albanians, xv-xvi). Now that two palimpsest texts written in the Caucasian

Albanian (A„uan) language have been discovered in the Sinai and deciphered, proving

that there was at least an ecclesiastical literary tradition in this language, it is possible

to wonder whether the description of these invasions of Caucasian Albania was

originally composed in the local literary language before being translated into

Armenian. It is noteworthy that the anonymous author of these passages states that he

came from the village of Ka„ankatuk‘ (Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians,

84; this is the reason the compiler Movses Dasxuranc‘i is sometimes mistakenly called

Ka„ankuac‘i), located very near Partaw, the capital of Caucasian Albania (see the map

of Hewsen, Armenia, 41). For more on the discovery and decipherment of the

new Caucasian Albanian texts by Zaza Aleksidze, see the internet site armazi.uni-

frankfurt.de, following the link “Albanica.”

Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 83–4 (Book 2, chapter 11).

Budge, History of Alexander, text 263–5, trans. 150–1.

Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 75 (Book 2, chapter 9). Edition: Movses

“Ka„ankatuac‘i”, Patmut’iwn A„uanic‘ Amxarhi, M. Emin (ed.), Tbilisi, n.p., 1912

(reprint of M. Emin’s 1860 Moscow edition), ed. 144.

Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 165.

Idem, “Pseudo-Ephraems ‘Rede über das Ende’,” 455–63.

Idem, “Pseudo-Methodius,” and “Alexander the Great,” 171–7.

G. Reinink’s (“Alexander the Great,” 2003, 152) more general remarks on the inter-

relationships of early eight century apocalypses are worth repeating: “The postulating

of some older ‘common source,’ which is supposedly lost today, does not always form

a satisfactory explanation of the differences between these texts and especially not, if

we should completely ignore the specific literary and historical conditions under which

each of these works came into being, conditions which may have led to certain

reinterpretations, adaptations and modifications of the existing tradition.”

Stephen Gero, “The legend of Alexander the Great,” 7.

Budge, History of Alexander, text 155, trans. 270 l. 1.

On Ghassanid monophysitism and their connections with Heraclius, see I. Shahid,

Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks

Research Library and Collection, 1995, vol. 2.

On the raid at Mu’ta see W. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 171–4.

Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 165–8.

202ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN

64 F. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical

Writing, Princeton: Darwin, 1998, 228–9, includes a basic bibliography for early

Islamic apocalypticism. On apocalyptic feeling in other sources from this period, see

Reinink, “Heraclius, the New Alexander,” 81–3.

65 N.M. El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 24–33.

66 New Oxford Annotated Bible, 2nd edn. rev.

67 Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 75; Tbilisi edn, 144. Cf. the Gospel text

of Luke 21:25 edited by Beda O. Künzle, Das altarmenische Evangelium, New York:

Lang, 1984, 1, 205: i yahe„ barba ̋oy ibrew covu ew x ̋ovut‘ean.

68 Tbilisi edn 154, text, Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 84.

69 Tbilisi edn 156, Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 85.

70 Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 88.

71 Idem, 89.

72 Idem, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 83, Tbilisi edn, 153, l. 26.

73 Theophanes, Chronographia, 315–16.

74 Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredagarii, 153.

75 Anderson, “Alexander at the Caspian Gates,” 135.

76 New Oxford Annotated Bible, 2nd edn. rev.

77 The controversial thesis was published under the name Christoph Luxenberg, Die

Syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran, Berlin: Das arabische Buch, 2000. Detailed review

of this work can be found in other articles in the present volume.

78 For evidence that there was once a more substantial knowledge of the Alexander

Legend in Arabic, at least as early as the mid-ninth century, including some investigation

of the Qur’an commentaries on Q 18:83–102, see K. van Bladel, “The Syriac sources

of the early Arabic narratives of Alexander,” in H.P. Ray (ed.), Memory as History: The

Legacy of Alexander in South Asia, New Delhi: Aryan International, 2007, (54–75)

64–67. See also the important study of the Alexander Romance in Arabic by F.C.W.

Aerts, Alexander Magnus Arabicus: Zeven eeuwen Arabische Alexandertraditie: van

Pseudo-Callisthenes tot Suri, Dissertation, University of Leiden, 2003.

79 This was made amply clear by Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A

Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam,

Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1997.

80 I thank Alexander Treiger for commenting on this paper in discussion with me at

various points in its composition and for finding a number of errors in a draft version.

All the views expressed herein and any remaining errors are solely my responsibility.

203

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THE ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE
QUR’AN 18:83–102
Kevin van Bladel
In 1889 E.A. Wallis Budge edited a few Syriac texts about Alexander the Great
including the Syriac version of the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes.
Among these was the first edition of a Syriac work called Neshanâ dîleh
d-Aleksandrôs, roughly “The Glorious Deeds of Alexander,” extant in the same
five manuscripts as the Syriac Alexander Romance. 1 Though often discussed in
the context of the Alexander Romance tradition, and clearly inspired by traditions
about Alexander’s conquests like the Romance, this Neshanâ is nevertheless an
entirely different work with its own history and a different story to tell (to be
dealt with later in detail). Budge named it “A Christian Legend Concerning
Alexander” to distinguish it from the Alexander Romance itself. Recent scholar-
ship has shortened this name to “the Alexander Legend” to distinguish it from the
Alexander Romance. I follow this convention here.
The next year (1890), Theodor Nöldeke published his study of the Alexander
Romance, much of which was based on the Syriac version newly available in
Budge’s edition. In this he also devoted a few pages to the Alexander Legend,
arguing that it was in fact the source for an episode in the Qur’an, specifically the
Qur’anic story of Dhu l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83–102). 2 He stated that the Alexander
Legend must have been transmitted orally to Muhammad along with the other
ancient biblical and traditional stories circulating in the environment of Mecca. 3
To prove this relationship Nöldeke indicated a few specific, important elements
of the story of Alexander’s journeys appearing in both the Syriac Alexander
Legend and the Qur’an.
In the century since then, his discovery seems to have become almost forgotten
in Qur’anic studies. For example, the recent Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an article
“Alexander” does not even mention the Syriac Alexander Legend or Nöldeke’s
thesis on the matter, though there could be no more appropriate place for it. 4
Moreover, some recent scholarship has brought considerable confusion into the
study of Alexander stories in relation to the Qur’an. 5 The subject therefore
deserves to be revisited. As I hope to show, it still has much more to offer than
even Nöldeke expected.
175KEVIN VAN BLADEL
The present investigation will first show that Nöldeke was basically correct in
his view: the Qur’an 18:83–102 is a retelling of the story found in this particular
Syriac text. But that is just the beginning of the matter. Recent publications
by scholars of Syriac and Greek apocalyptic texts of the early seventh century,
especially several articles by G.J. Reinink, offer a precise understanding of the
context in which this Syriac Alexander Legend was composed and its political and
religious purposes in that context. These studies make it possible to shed new
light on the use of the Alexander Legend’s story in the Qur’an and on the concerns
of Muhammad’s community. Furthermore, once the affiliation of the Arabic and
Syriac texts is established and the character of that affiliation is identified, it is
possible to demonstrate (perhaps unexpectedly) the reliability of the traditional
lexicography as well as the soundness of the Arabic text of this Qur’anic passage.
All of these matters will be discussed later.
I am deliberately avoiding entering into a discussion of other texts related to the
Syriac Alexander Legend identified by previous scholars. Traces of the ancient
story of Gilgamesh are found in the Syriac Alexander Legend and in Q 18:83–102.
That these traces appear in both is unsurprising since both tell essentially the same
story. But some scholars have argued that the passage immediately preceding the
Dhu l-Qarnayn episode in the Qur’an, a story about Moses (Q 18:60–82), also
contains different traces of the Gilgamesh story. This is a matter of decades-long
controversy and it deserves further special studies of its own. 6 Since two adjacent
episodes in Qur’an 18 seem to contain material derived from the Gilgamesh story,
modern scholars have tended to search for a single source common to both
of them. Medieval Qur’an commentaries associated the two episodes together,
too, though it seems for different reasons, with the result that the Qur’an
commentaries are dragged into the modern confusion. I will also avoid dis-
cussing other texts in Syriac and in Greek that draw material from the Syriac
Alexander Legend. One of these is the so-called Song of Alexander (also called
Alexander Poem in modern scholarship), falsely ascribed to Jacob of Serugh
(d. 521). It was composed several years after and in reaction to the prose
Alexander Legend, but the story it relates is considerably different from that in
the Alexander Legend and does not exactly match those in the Qur’anic tale of
Dhu l-Qarnayn. What is most confusing for modern scholars is that still more
traces of the Gilgamesh story, different from those in the Alexander Legend, are
found in this Song of Alexander, but these are similar to the traces of Gilgamesh
allegedly found in Q 18:60–82, the Moses story just mentioned. The coincidence
has never been adequately explained, particularly since recourse must be had to a
poorly documented late, probably oral tradition of the Gilgamesh story. Then
there are other later seventh-century Christian apocalypses, such as the De fine
mundi of Pseudo-Ephraem and the influential Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius.
These also drew upon the Alexander Legend, evidently a widely known text in the
seventh century. 7
The bewildering interrelationships of all these traditions have made it difficult
for scholars to arrive at a consensus about them. But the reason that I am avoiding
176ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
discussing all these related texts here is that they are irrelevant to the thesis that
the Dhu l-Qarnayn episode in the Qur’an is derived from or retells the story
found in the Syriac Alexander Legend. The account in Q 18:83–102 does not
precisely match a story found anywhere other than in this one text, but previous
attempts to deal with the problem have become confused by discussing all of the
aforementioned traditions together. For example, one recent account, published
twice, posits complicated interrelationships between the two episodes in Qur’an
18:60–102, the Qur’an commentaries, the Alexander Romance tradition, and the
Song of Alexander, unfortunately just causing further misunderstanding and
omitting almost any account of the crucially relevant Alexander Legend. 8 In
the present article, however, only two main problems are to be discussed: the
relationship between the Alexander Legend and Qur’an 18:83–102 and the
historical context of this relationship.
The Syriac and the Arabic texts compared
To prove convincingly an affiliation between this passage of the Qur’an and the
Syriac Alexander Legend, a close comparison is required, closer at least than the
brief treatment that Nöldeke gave to it. Since the relevant Arabic text, Qur’an
18:83–102, amounts to only twenty verses, they can all be given here in translation.
83. And they are asking you about the Two-Horned One (Dhu l-Qarnayn).
Say: I will relate for you a glorious record (dhikr) about him.
84. We granted him power in the earth
and gave him a heavenly course (sabab) 9 out of every thing.
85. So he followed a heavenly course
86. until, when he reached the place of the sun’s setting,
he found it setting in a fetid spring
and he found by it a people.
We said, “O Two-Horned One, either you will punish (them) or do them
a favor.”
87. He said, “Whoever does wrong, we will punish him,
and then he will be sent back to his Lord
and He will punish them in an unknown way.”
88. “And whoever believes and acts righteously,
he will have the best reward and we will declare ease for him by our
command.”
89. Then he followed a heavenly course
90. until, when he arrived at the sun’s rising place,
he found it rising over a people for whom We did not make a shelter
beneath it.
91. Thus We knew everything that he encountered.
92. Then he followed a heavenly course
93. until, when he arrived between two barriers,
177KEVIN VAN BLADEL
he found outside them a people
who could scarcely understand speech.
94. They said, “O Two-Horned One, Yajuj and Majuj are destroying
the land.
Shall we make a payment to you on the condition that you make a barrier
between us and them?”
95. He said, “The power my Lord has given me is better, so, help me,
with strength, that I may make a barricade between you and them.”
96. “Bring me blocks of iron.” Eventually, when he had leveled it off
with the two clifftops, he said, “Blow.” Eventually, when he had made
it a fire, he said, “Bring me brass that I can pour upon it.”
97. Thus they could not surmount it and they could not break through it.
98. He said, “This is a mercy from my Lord. When His promise comes,
my Lord will make it a heap of earth and my Lord’s promise is true.”
99. And We shall leave them on that day surging like waves 10 against
each other
and the horn will be blown and We shall gather them all together
100. and We shall truly show Gehenna that day to the unbelievers
101. whose eyes were covered from recollecting Me, nor could they hear.
102. Do those who disbelieve plan to take My servants under Me as
protectors?
We have prepared Gehenna as a guest-house for the unbelievers!
For the purposes of this study, this can be divided into five parts.
1
2
3
4
5
an introduction to Dhu l-Qarnayn, the Two-Horned One (83–4),
his journey to the sun’s setting and his punishment of unjust people there
(85–8),
his journey to the sun’s rising place where the people have no shelter from
the sun (89–91),
his journey to a place threatened by Yajuj and Majuj where he is asked to
build a protective wall between two mountains, culminating in his uttering a
brief prophecy (92–8), and finally
God’s first-person warning of the events to come (99–102).
The Syriac Legend of Alexander is quite a bit longer, twenty-one pages of Syriac
text in the edition. A summary of the story, including its relevant details, here
follows, showing how each of the five parts of the Qur’anic story finds a match
in the Syriac text. Readers with insufficient knowledge of Syriac may find
Budge’s English translation to be helpful but should be warned that it strays into
error on some important points.
The story of the Neshanâ begins when King Alexander summons his court to
ask them about the outer edges of the world, for he wishes to go to see what
surrounds it. His advisors warn him that there is a fetid sea, Oceanos (Ôqyanôs), 11
178ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
like pus, surrounding the earth, and that to touch those waters is death. Alexander
is undeterred and wishes to go on this quest. He prays to God, whom he addresses
as the one who put horns upon his head, for power over the entire earth, and he
promises God to obey the Messiah should he arrive during his lifetime or, if not,
to put his own throne in Jerusalem for the Messiah to sit upon when he does
come. This in essence matches Q 18:83–4, part one earlier, where God gives the
two-horned one power over the entire earth.
On the way, he stops in Egypt where he borrows seven thousand Egyptian
workers of brass and iron from the king of Egypt to accompany his huge army.
Then they set sail for four months and twelve days until they reach a distant land.
Alexander asks the people there if they have any prisoners condemned to death in
their prisons, and he asks that those evil-doers (‘abday-bîmê) be brought to him.
He takes the prisoners and sends them into the fetid sea in order to test the
potency of the poisonous waters. All the evil-doers die, so Alexander, realizing
how deadly it is, gives up his attempt to cross the water. Instead he goes to a place
of bright water, up to the Window of the Heavens that the sun enters when it sets,
where there is a conduit of some kind leading through the heavens toward the
place where the sun rises in the east. Though the text is completely vague here in
its description of spaces, apparently Alexander follows the sun through its course
to the east during the night but “descends” (nahet) at the mountain called Great
Mûsas. 12 His troops go with him. We are also told that when the sun rises in the
eastern land, the ground becomes so hot that to touch it is to be burnt alive, so that
people living there flee the rising sun to hide in caves and in the water of the sea.
Alexander’s journeys west and east match Q 18:85–91, parts two and three
earlier, exactly in many specific details and in fact make some sense of the
cryptic Qur’anic story (though the Syriac leaves the specifics of his itinerary here
fairly murky).
We next find Alexander traveling at the headwaters of the Euphrates and the
Tigris, where he and his armies stop at locales given very specific place-names.
This specificity has rightly been taken as due to the Syriac author’s personal
familiarity with the upper Tigris region, probably his homeland. 13 Yet Alexander
continues northwards into mountains, evidently the Caucasus, until he comes to
a place under Persian rule where there is a narrow pass. The locals complain about
the savage Huns who live on the opposite side of the pass. The names of their
kings are listed to him, the first two of which are Gog and Magog. Alexander is
treated to a vivid description of the barbarism of the Huns. Among the gruesome
details it is reported that their cries are more terrible than those of a lion. The
Huns have no qualms in killing babies and pregnant women. In short, they do not
know civilization but only brutality. The people complain to Alexander that these
savages raid with impunity and they hope his dominion will be established. After
he satisfies his anthropological and geographical curiosity about the far northern
peoples, Alexander asks the locals if they want a favor, and they answer that they
would follow his command. So he suggests building a wall of brass and iron to
hold out the Huns. Together they accomplish the task with the help of the
179KEVIN VAN BLADEL
Egyptian metalworkers. This account matches Q 18:92–8, part four earlier, in
precise detail.
The next part of the story is crucial to dating the text. Alexander puts an
inscription on the gate containing a prophecy for events to follow his lifetime.
These events are given precise dates. First he says that after 826 years, the
Huns will break through the gate and go by the pass above the Haloras River 14
to plunder the lands. Then after 940 years, there will come a time of sin and
unprecedented worldwide war. “The Lord will gather together the kings and their
hosts,” he will give a signal to break down the wall, and the armies of the Huns,
Persians, and Arabs will “fall upon each other.” 15 So many troops will pass
through the breach in the wall that the passage will actually be worn wider by the
spear-points going through. “The earth shall melt through the blood and dung of
men.” 16 Then the kingdom of the Romans will enter this terrible war and they will
conquer all, up to the edges of the heavens. In closing, Alexander cites the prophet
Jeremiah, 1:14, “And evil shall be opened from the north upon all the inhabitants
of the earth.” Clearly this corresponds closely with Q 18:99–102, the fifth and last
part of the story of Dhu l-Qarnayn.
There are still some details and a conclusion to the story in the Syriac text that
have no corresponding part in the Qur’an. When Alexander comes into conflict
with the King of Persia, called Tûbarlaq, then, with the help of the Lord, who
appears on the chariot of the Seraphim along with the angelic host, Alexander’s
armies are inspired to conquer the king of Persia. When he is captured, the Persian
king Tûbarlaq promises to give Alexander tribute for fifteen years in return for a
restoration of the borders. But Tûbarlaq’s diviners predict that at the end of the
world, the Romans will kill the king of Persia and will lay waste to Babylon and
Assyria. Tûbarlaq himself puts the prophecy in writing for Alexander, saying that
the Romans will conquer the entire world and rule it all before handing power
over to the returning Messiah. The Alexander Legend finally comes to an end
with the remark that at the end of Alexander’s life, he establishes his silver throne
in Jerusalem just as he had promised. This last episode is not reflected in the
Qur’anic story, but it has proven important in recent scholarship in assigning a
date to the Syriac text (to be discussed later).
Precise correspondences between the two texts
Many of the correspondences between the Syriac and the Arabic stories are so
obvious that they do not need special attention. Simply relating both stories
together establishes their extraordinary similarity. However, some correspon-
dences require emphasis and further comment.
Alexander is twice said in the Syriac to have been granted horns on his head
by God. Once it is in a prayer that he himself utters, referring to his horns, and
the second time we are told that they were horns of iron. 17 Though Alexander
had been portrayed with horns as early as his own time, here one finds the epithet
Dhu l-Qarnayn, the Horned One, as one element matching the present Syriac text. 18
180ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
When Alexander came to the people in the west, he tested the efficacy of the
deadly, fetid waters with the lives of convicts. This passage helps to explain the
option given, for no apparent reason, by God to Dhu l-Qarnayn in the Qur’an:
either to punish the people or to do them a kindness. Dhu l-Qarnayn says he will
punish only wrongdoers (man zalama), who are like the prisoners sentenced to
death in the Syriac text, described there as evil-doers (‘abday-bîmê).
The Syriac text has Alexander travel from that point, near to where the sun sets,
in the direction of the place where the sun rises, just as does Dhu l-Qarnayn in the
Qur’an. The sun does not exactly set in the fetid water, but more vaguely nearby.
And it is only this Syriac text that explains the meaning of Q 18:90, where the
otherwise unknown eastern people who have no cover from the sun are mentioned.
On his third journey, the people who can hardly understand speech are explained
by the Syriac text as “Huns,” here a generic term for Central Asian pastoralists,
who appeared to the residents of the Middle East as savages. Their allegedly
bestial barbarism is explained at length in the Syriac. The Qur’anic text saying
that they “could scarcely understand speech” together with reference by name to
Gog and Magog makes sense only in the context of this Syriac tale.
Dhu l-Qarnayn’s ability to build a wall of iron and brass is explained in the
Syriac story by his being accompanied by seven thousand Egyptian “workers
in brass and iron,” precisely the same metals. In both texts our hero builds the
wall at a place between two mountains in order to fend off savages. Though
the tradition of Alexander’s wall holding off the Huns is an ancient one going
back at least to Josephus (d. ca 100), who specifies that the gates were of iron,
nevertheless the details of the Arabic account are all matched only by this Syriac
Alexander Legend. 19 Most importantly, in both texts the hero issues a prophecy
upon completing the fortification foretelling the end of the world in a time of
great battles among nations.
Thus, quite strikingly, almost every element of this short Qur’anic tale finds a
more explicit and detailed counterpart in the Syriac Alexander Legend. In both
texts the related events are given in precisely the same order. Already earlier
several cases of specific words that are exact matches between the Syriac and the
Arabic were indicated. The water at the place where the sun sets is “fetid” in both
texts, a perfect coincidence of two uncommon synonyms (Syriac saryâ, Arabic
hami’a). Also, the wall that Alexander builds is made specifically of iron and brass
in both texts. We are told in the Syriac that God will “gather together the kings and
their hosts,” which finds a nearly perfect match in Q 18:99: “the horn will be
blown and we shall gather them together.” 20 The proper names of Yajuj and Majuj
are not uniquely matched by this Syriac text (where they appear as Agôg 21 and
Magôg), for their tradition is derived from the books of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse
of John, but they do still count as specific word correspondences between the
Syriac and Arabic texts in question here. In the Qur’an God is characterized as
saying, “We shall leave them on that day surging like waves against each other,”
wa-tarakna ba‘dahum yawma’idhin yamuju fi ba‘din, while the Syriac says similarly
“and kingdoms will fall upon each other,” w-naplan malkwata hda ‘al hda.
181KEVIN VAN BLADEL
The title of the Syriac work is “Neshanâ of Alexander.” The word neshanâ
means “glory” or “victory” but was often used to refer to a narrative account of
a person’s heroic acts. 22 In Q 18:83 God is portrayed as commanding Muhammad
to say that he will recite a dhikr about the Dhu l-Qarnayn. Dhikr in Arabic
has most of the same connotations as Syriac neshanâ: it refers to glory or good
repute but it also can refer to an account remembered about someone. Could the
word dhikr in Q 18:83 be a translation of the very title of the Syriac Alexander
Legend? It is a tempting consideration, but there are a few other instances in the
Qur’an where a dhikr of a person is related without any apparent reference to a
written work. 23
The translation of sabab (pl. asbab), occurring in Q 18:84, 85, 89, and 92 as
“heavenly course” requires some explanation. These are conventionally translated
merely as the “ways” that Dhu l-Qarnayn is made to follow, since among the
many meanings of sabab in Arabic are prominently “means” and “ways of
access.” However, Arabic lexicographers and much other evidence attest to the
early use of the word to mean in particular heavenly courses, specifically cords
leading to heaven along which a human might travel: asbab al-sama’, “ways to
heaven” or “sky-cords.” 24 In fact this is probably the only meaning of the word
occurring in the Qur’an, appearing in four other places. 25 Nor are these isolated
cases of such a usage in Arabic. For example, it is also attested in the poetry
of al-A‘sha (d. 625), an exact contemporary of Muhammad, where the phrase
wa-ruqqita asbaba l-sama’i bi-sullam, “and were you to be brought up the gateways
of heaven by a flight of steps,” is found with the synonymous, variant reading
abwab al-sama’ “gates of heaven.” 26 Thus, the translation given earlier, though
unconventional, is not only suitable but likely. In the case of Dhu l-Qarnayn’s tale,
it matches the window of heaven (kawwteh da-mmayyâ) 27 through which the sun
passes on its course, and which Alexander follows, in the Syriac Alexander
Legend. The remaining problem is then to account for the third “way” mentioned
in Q 18:92, the northward path that is not connected with any course of a heavenly
body in the Alexander Legend. Here one may excuse the Arabic as following the
pattern of the earlier journeys. The matter is bound up with the problem of how
these heavenly courses were imagined, something I treat in detail elsewhere. 28
If there were a closer correspondence of the Syriac and Arabic, it would be
possible to argue that one was just a much modified translation of the other. As it
is, however, the correspondences shown earlier are still so exact that it is obvious
in comparison that the two texts are at least connected very closely. They relate
the same story in precisely the same order of events using many of the same
particular details. Every part of the Qur’anic passage has its counterpart in the
Syriac, except that in the Qur’an the story is told through the first-person account
of God. Also, as explained earlier, the Qur’an does not include the last part of the
Alexander Legend, in which Alexander defeats the Persian emperor Tûbarlaq,
who writes his own prophecy down for Alexander and gives it to him, to the effect
that the Romans would one day decisively defeat the Persians, establishing a
worldwide Christian rule that would remain until the return of the Messiah.
182ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
The Qur’anic account puts more emphasis on the coming end of things and God’s
judgment and, not surprisingly, does not mention any expectation of universal
Christian empire for the Romans.
Dating and contextualizing the Syriac
Alexander Legend
At this point I think there can be no doubt whatsoever of the affiliation between
the Qur’anic passage and the Syriac Alexander Legend. The question now becomes
how to specify that affiliation. Here we will be assisted by finding a date and
historical context for the Syriac text. Fortunately G.J. Reinink has devoted many
articles to the problems posed by this Alexander Legend and related texts which
have succeeded in determining definitively where, why, and when the Alexander
Legend was written. I employ his detailed studies extensively in what follows, and
the reader is urged to pursue them for further information that can be used
to assign a date to this Syriac work. 29 This section may seem to be a bit of an
excursus, but it is crucially important to contextualize the Syriac text in order to
relate it to the Qur’an.
The Alexander Legend is an apocalyptic text in which the ancient Alexander is
portrayed as presenting a prophecy written long ago for events to come, which
were intended to be understood by the audience at the real time of authorship
as referring to events leading up to and including their own time. This is how
many texts of the apocalyptic genre work. Thus the date of composition for such
apocalypses can often be found by locating the latest point at which events
allegedly predicted match actual historical events. Where the events “predicted”
diverge from history, there one usually can find the date of the composition. The
message of the apocalypse for its own time is not just in the events it describes,
but rather in the way it describes these events and the future that it expects to
unfold given what has occurred.
In the Syriac Legend, Alexander’s prophecy, written on the wall he himself
erected, gives two dates marking the invasion of Central Asian nomads, called
Huns, whose penetration of the great wall and arrival at the headwaters of the
Tigris are portentous events to be taken as signs of the final battles preceding
Christ’s return and the end of time. Alexander specifies how many years must
elapse before these events take place. Already Nöldeke in 1890 calculated the
dates according to the Seleucid Era (beginning 1 October 312 BCE ) normally
followed in Syriac tradition, also called the Era of the Greeks and, importantly,
the Era of the Alexander. 30 The first of the two dates is thus converted from
826 years later to 514–15 CE , precisely the time of the invasion of the nomadic
Sabirs who entered Syria and Anatolia. 31 Evidently this invasion, which holds no
importance in the narrative, serves just as a key for the contemporary audience of
the text that they can use to verify the accuracy of the second, more elaborate
prophecy, associated with a later date. In any case, no scholar after Nöldeke has
disputed the calculation of this first dating, as far as I have seen. 32
183KEVIN VAN BLADEL
The second of the two dates, 940 years after Alexander, which marks the time
of the final war preceding the Messiah’s return according to the prophecy, is
converted likewise to 628–9 CE . The message of the prophecy actually concerns
events around this date, which coincides with the end of a long and extremely
difficult war between the Persians and the Romans (603–30) during which
Jerusalem was devastated, the relic of the True Cross stolen from that city, and the
Persians conquered Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, occupying Anatolia, too, and
they even besieged Constantinople itself in 626 CE in concert with the Avars, who
invaded from the north. The Byzantine remainder of the Roman Empire was only
barely saved from the Persian onslaught by the emperor Heraclius’ daring campaign
through Armenia, ending in the winter of 627–8 with a surprise invasion into
Mesopotamia and damaging raids on the rich estates around Ctesiphon. In these
invasions the Türks joined the Byzantines in raids south of the Caucasus at
Heraclius’ invitation and afterwards continued to make war on Persian territory in
Transcaucasia, plundering until 630. The Byzantine invasion of Mesopotamia led
the Persian nobles to remove their King of Kings, Khosro II, from power in
February of 628 and to negotiate for peace. 33 Persian forces occupying former
Byzantine territory withdrew to Persia in 629, and early in 630 Heraclius person-
ally returned the relic of the True Cross to Jerusalem in a formal celebration.
(Just a few months before Heraclius’ arrival in Jerusalem, tradition tells us, the
inhabitants of Mecca surrendered peacefully to Muhammad and submitted to his
government.) Given the date that Alexander’s prophecy signals, 628–9 CE , it must
be referring to the devastating wars of that time and their successful end for
the Romans.
Reinink has shown that the Alexander Legend demonstrates, through its prophecy
and its use of Alexander to prefigure the emperor Heraclius, detailed knowledge
of the events of that war and its resolution with the restoration of the earlier
borders, a peace treaty, and a final reference to Jerusalem. Using this information,
too much to repeat entirely here, he has persuasively argued that the Alexander
Legend was composed just after 628, perhaps in 630, the year in which Heraclius
restored the cross to Jerusalem. 34 In the course of the war, while the Byzantines
were very hard pressed by the Persians, Heraclius resorted to highly religious
propaganda in order to rally his allies and to improve Roman morale. This prop-
aganda has received recent scholarly attention. 35 Likewise Heraclius’ attempts
to eradicate the schisms in the Church after the war are well known. Reinink
considers Alexander Legend to be a piece of pro-Heraclian postwar propaganda
designed to promote the emperor’s political cause not long after the war’s end,
re-establishing Roman rule over provinces that had been under Persian power
for well over a decade and trying to overcome the schismatic Christological
differences dividing his Chalcedonian court from the monophysites of the
provinces recently recovered from the Persians. His thesis is that the Syriac
Legend of Alexander was composed “shortly after 628” (i.e. in 629 or 630) by an
inhabitant of Amida or Edessa, or some other place near to those, in support of
184ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
Heraclius. 36 He argues that the monophysite Syrians were the primary audience
(although it is possible that the story was intended also to win over monophysites
of other nations such as Arabs). 37 Heraclius’ visit to Edessa in late 629 might have
been an occasion for its composition. It is also possible that the text was written
a few months later when Heraclius restored the cross to Jerusalem. 38
The specific details in the Alexander Legend that reflect this historical context
are numerous. But unlike the Qur’anic story of Dhu l-Qarnayn, the Syriac
text ends with the Persian king’s own prophecy containing what Reinink has
characterized rightly as a message of Byzantine Imperial eschatology: the
prediction that one Byzantine emperor will soon establish a worldwide Christian
rule which will be followed by the return of the Messiah. 39 This was intended to
counter the belief, widely held at the time as many sources show, that the total
destruction of the Roman/Byzantine Empire and even the end of the world were
imminent. As Reinink sums it up, the author of the Alexander Legend
wants to demonstrate the special place of the Greek-Roman empire, the
fourth empire of the Daniel Apocalypse, in God’s history of salvation,
from the very beginning of the empire until the end of times, when the
empire will acquire world dominion. He created an Alexander-Heraclius
typology, in which the image of Alexander is highly determined by
Byzantine imperial ideology, so that his contemporaries would recognize
in Heraclius a new Alexander, who, just like the founder of the empire,
departed to the east at the head of his army and combated and defeated
the Persians.
(G.J. Reinink, “Heraclius, the New Alexander.
Apocalyptic Prophecies during the
Reign of Heraclius,” 26)
By now it should be amply clear that the Alexander Legend is the product of
a very specific, identifiable historical and cultural environment, the end of a
devastating war widely believed to carry eschatological implications, ending with
Heraclius’ campaign in 628 and in 629 with the final withdrawal of the Persian
armies. This needs to be held in mind when the relationship between this text and
the Qur’an is considered.
If this is the message of the Alexander Legend, what is the point in having
Alexander make his journeys west, then east, then north, then return south? The
answer is clearer when one imagines a map of his itinerary. In effect Alexander’s
travels make a sign of the cross over the whole world. This symbol seems to have
been overlooked by other commentators, but I believe it was intended by the
author of the Alexander Legend. The sign of the cross was the emblem of victory
for the Christian empire, and the prophecies in the Legend indicate the imminent
universal rule of the Christian empire. One may even speculate that this cross-
shaped itinerary was intended symbolically to refer to Heraclius’ return of the
185KEVIN VAN BLADEL
relic of the True Cross early in 630 to Jerusalem, the city where Alexander places
his throne at the end of the Alexander Legend. Alexander’s journeys describe the
symbol of Christian Roman power across the entire world, which it will come to
rule in its entirety according to the prophecy.
But what is the point of having Alexander build the Wall of Gog and Magog?
According to Greek and Latin traditions from the first century CE onward,
Alexander was indeed credited with building gates in the Caucasus to keep out
invaders. These gates, described by many ancient Greek and Latin authors, were
usually identified as located at the pass of Darial in the middle of the Caucasus
(Arabic Bab al-Lan). 40 However, in the seventh century, just around the time of
the Syriac Alexander Legend, confusion arose concerning the location of
Alexander’s fortified pass. It now came to be identified with a gated wall situated
on the Caspian coast that had been built more recently (Arabic Bab al-Abwab).
By the mid-sixth century, the waters of the Caspian had receded considerably on
their western shore, exposing a wide pass of land around the eastern end of the
Caucasus. 41 The Sasanian shahs constructed a very large wall (or series of walls)
with a great gate in order to block this coastal gap as a defense against northerners
who might otherwise easily raid Iran, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. The scholarly
literature documenting the existence and history of these walls through archaeology
and written sources is enormous. 42 The town Darband eventually came to be at
these walls at the Caspian, presumably at first just a garrison town, eventually a
very important site. Its Persian name, meaning “Door-Bolt,” indicates its original
purpose. Seventh century sources mention these fortifications a number of times.
For example, the Armenian historian called Sebeos, writing in the 680s, called it
“the Gate of the Huns.” 43 But the displacement of Alexander’s gate from Darial
to the wall at Darband does not appear unambiguously in the sources until the
Frankish Latin chronicler known as Fredegarius (wr. ca 660), in his report on the
year 627, described Alexander’s gates as having been built over the Caspian Sea
(super mare Cespium [sic]), saying that these are the gates that Heraclius opened
to admit the savage nations living beyond them. 44 From this time onward,
Alexander’s Caspian gates were widely thought to be those at Darband. What
caused this confusion to be held generally between Latin and Arabic tradition? It
seems that the Syriac Alexander Legend may have prompted it. While it may have
intended the pass at Darial (though the geographical expertise of the author is
subject to doubt), the invasions of the Türks through the wall at Darband in
626–30 must have forced the association of Alexander’s walls with that route.
In the early twentieth century Russian scholars discovered a number of Pahlavi
inscriptions on the old wall at Darband, dated variously at first but with a final,
general consensus to the sixth century. 45 Thus the author of the Syriac Legend
of Alexander was using common lore that would be readily understood by its
audience: Alexander was thought to have built a real wall with a gate that was
known to the inhabitants of the Caucasus region and indeed was famous far and
wide, a wall that bore inscriptions. It is easy to see how one of these inscriptions
might have been thought to have been carved there by Alexander.
186ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
The Alexander Legend’s account identifies the people beyond the wall, the
“Huns,” as Gog and Magog. These names originally come from Hebrew scripture.
They are associated by Ezekiel 38–9 with northern, invading nations, serving as
God’s punishment, and then later by the Revelation of John 20 with final turmoil
just before the ultimate redemption. Gog and Magog are, in short, an eschatological
motif: they are northern nations whose invasion heralds the end of time. 46 In the
sixth century Andreas of Caesarea had made this association clear in his
commentary on the Revelation of John, identifying Gog and Magog with the
Huns, and in doing so he was following the sources going back at least to
Josephus (d. ca 100). 47
Thus the Alexander Legend combines two traditions (1) Alexander’s building
of a wall in the Caucasus to hold out Huns and (2) the identification of Huns, a
generic term for all Central Asian peoples, with Gog and Magog, thereby
associating Alexander with the end of time and giving him an occasion to make
eschatological prophecies. Alexander’s wall also explains why the Huns (Gog and
Magog) cannot invade at just any time; they have to surmount the wall first. But
when that wall is breached, that will be a sign of the approaching end. Once these
traditions were combined, it was now easy to link Heraclius both with the world
conquering Alexander, who similarly defeated the Persian emperor, and with the
end of time.
As already stated, in his final campaigns against the Persians, Alexander’s
former enemies, Heraclius actually did enlist the help of Inner Asian peoples, the
Kök Türks, in his war against the Persians (626–7) – they are called variously in
the sources Türks and Khazars, being perhaps Khazars under Kök Türk rule,
though the specific tribal or ethnic identity of these invaders is a subject of very
long debate – and afterward these Türks fiercely raided Caucasian Albania, Georgia,
and Armenia until 630. 48 One wonders whether Heraclius or his supporters
promoted the idea that his Türk allies, summoned from the north, were the people
of Gog and Magog come to punish the Persians. The Türk invasions are known
from the Greek chronicle of Theophanes 49 and in some detail from a compilatory
seventh-century source used by the Armenian History of the Caucasian Albanians
(Patmut’iwn A„uanic’) by Movses Dasxuranc‘i. As it says, “During this period
(Heraclius) . . . summoned the army to help him breach the great Mount Caucasus
which shut off the lands of the north-east, and to open up the gates of #‘o„ay
[i.e. the gates at Darband] so as to let through many barbarian tribes and by
their means to conquer the king of Persia, the proud Xosrov.” 50 Fredegarius,
as mentioned, also states that Heraclius opened these gates. Thus the devastating
raids of the terrifying “Huns” – “predicted” in the Alexander Legend – also
match the Türk campaigns in the years 626–7 (alongside Heraclius) and 628–30
(independently), and inhabitants of Caucasian Albania and Iberia, Armenia,
and the neighboring lands such as Mesopotamia and Syria were surely well aware
of them.
Moreover, Greek and Armenian sources show that these real invasions of
Türk warriors in the early seventh century were actually interpreted then in
187KEVIN VAN BLADEL
apocalyptic terms and associated with the eschatological motif of Gog and Magog.
J. Howard-Johnston has dubbed the source of historical information on these
Caucasian campaigns used by the Armenian Movses Dasxuranc’i as the 682 History
(because its reports end with the year 682 and we do not know its original
name). 51 This source describes the nomadic invaders in horrific terms in connection
with the joint Byzantine-Türk siege of the Caucasian Albanian capital, Partaw
(Arabic: Bardha‘a). They are depicted as ugly savages, like merciless wolves, who
kill regardless of the victim’s age or sex. 52 The Syriac Alexander Legend describes
the Huns in quite similar terms, also stressing their readiness to kill women and
children and their bestial nature. 53
The way in which the Armenian source describes these wars between the
Byzantines, the Türks, and the Persians gives yet another example for how people
really did expect the end of time during or soon after these wars. The 682 History
focuses its attention on the events around the Caucasian Albanian capital of
Partaw, but first it begins with a special prologue to the description of these
invasions, which are characterized as part of not just local but the universal
calamities (i tiezerakan haruacoc‘s) prophesied by Jesus in the Gospels about the
times of tribulations (i Δamanaki 3‘ar3‘aranac‘n). 54 This understanding is based
in the 682 History explicitly on quotations of Jesus’ prophecies selected from
Matthew 24 and Luke 21:5–28. The full prophecy of Jesus in Matthew, not cited
in its entirety by the Armenian historian, indicated particularly that a siege of
Jerusalem would be one of the signs of the end (Luke 21:20). This would be
accompanied by signs in the heavens and confusion among nations before
the final redemption. All of this helps to contextualize the role of the Huns in
the Syriac Alexander Legend, who are to be identified with the Türks and their
invasions into the Caucasus region from 626 to 630.
To sum up, the Alexander Legend is seen to reflect many specific events and
cultural tendencies of the period around 628–9, the year it indicates as a time of
wars between many nations beginning with the breaking of Alexander’s wall by
the Huns. Out of these wars the Roman Empire would emerge victorious, some
time after which the Roman Empire would permanently overthrow the Persians
and establish a universal Christian empire. It is best understood, following
Reinink, as a piece of propaganda composed by someone sympathetic to the need
of Heraclius around 630, immediately after almost thirty years of demoralizing
war and unprecedented military loss, to help in reconsolidating quickly the loyal-
ties of the regained territories of the empire and their monophysite inhabitants.
The success or popularity of the Alexander Legend is indicated in that it was used
by at least three more apocalypses, the so-called Song of Alexander attributed
falsely to Jacob of Serugh (composed just a few years later but before the Arab
conquest, between 630 and 636), 55 the Syriac apocalypse De fine mundi attributed
falsely to Ephraem (composed sometime between 640–83), 56 and the Apocalypse
of Pseudo-Methodius (composed around 692, quite possibly in reaction to the
building of the Dome of the Rock). 57 The Alexander Legend was evidently well
known in the early seventh century.
188ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
The relationship between the Alexander Legend
and Qur’an 18:83–102
To return to the main question, the extremely close correspondences between the
Syriac Alexander Legend and Qur’an 18:83–102, reviewed earlier, must mean
that the two texts are related. On the one hand, there is a Syriac text the date of
which is almost certain, about 629–30 CE , and the historical context and political
meaning of which is known fairly precisely (as just explained); on the other, we
have a passage from the Qur’an, an Arabic compilation the precise dates and
historical circumstances of which are debated by historians, but which tradition
has understood to be collected into its current form during the caliphate of
‘Uthman (644–56) or at least after Muhammad’s death (632). It is possible to
approach the problem of affiliation between the two systematically. The two texts
must be related. That is the only explanation for their point-for-point correspon-
dence. In that case there are three reasonable possibilities: (1) the Syriac takes its
account from the Qur’an, or (2) the two texts share a common source, or (3) the
Qur’an uses the account found in the Syriac.
Could the Syriac text have its source in the Qur’an? If this were the case, then
the Syriac text would have to be seen as a highly expanded version of the
Qur’anic account, which would then need to be understood as an attempt to
explain the cryptic Qur’anic story with rationalizations drawn from stories
about Alexander. However, the Syriac text contains no references to the Arabic
language the type of which one might expect to find if its purpose was to explain
an Arabic text, and it is impossible to see why a Syriac apocalypse written around
630 would be drawing on an Arabic tradition some years before the Arab
conquests, when the community at Mecca was far from well known outside
Arabia. Moreover, the very specific political message of the Alexander Legend
would not make any sense in this scenario. This possibility must therefore
be discounted.
Could the two texts share a common source? This also becomes practically
impossible for some of the same reasons. The Syriac Alexander Legend was
written to support Heraclius by indicating the author’s belief in the significance
of events leading up to 629 AD , events supposed to be foreshadowing the estab-
lishment of a Christian world empire and the coming of the Messiah. Yet relating
Dhu l-Qarnayn’s first prophecy of the end times is also the very purpose of the
story in the Qur’an: the prediction of God’s actions at the time of judgment using
an ancient voice of great authority. As already explained, the war between
Byzantium and Ctesiphon went very badly for the Byzantines until the very end,
prompting an intense bout of political and religious propaganda to boost the
desperate war effort and to consolidate allegiances after the victory. Reinink has
shown that this Syriac text, given its contents, must be understood as pro-Heraclian
propaganda belonging to this milieu, dated to 629–30. If Alexander’s prophecy
was composed just for this purpose at this time, then the correspondence between
the Syriac and the Arabic, which contains the same prophecy reworded, cannot be
189KEVIN VAN BLADEL
due to an earlier, shared source. 58 Put differently, the only way to posit a common
source is to assume that everything held in common between the Qur’anic
account and the Syriac Alexander Legend could have been written for and would
have made sense in an earlier context. In light of the detailed contextualization
given earlier, and in light of G.J. Reinink’s work referred to earlier as well, this
becomes impossible.
Stephen Gero implied in one article that since the text comes from this date
(629 CE or later), it cannot be regarded as a source of the Qur’an. He does not
explain in detail but I take the implication to be that such a date of composition
is too late for it to have reached the human agents who related the Qur’an. 59 But
to me this seems to be the only real possibility because the others are invalid, as
just explained. The Qur’anic account must draw from the Syriac account, if not
directly then by oral report.
Since the Qur’an is using the material found in this Syriac text, a text composed
for a very specific context in contemporary politics and loaded with particular
religious meaning, this gives historians an important opportunity to understand
the religion of Muhammad and his early followers without relying entirely on later
tradition. Before considering the significance of this further, it is important to ask
how the text could have been known in Arabic and under what circumstances.
The transmission of the story from the Syriac
text into Arabic
How could a Syriac text composed in northern Mesopotamia in 629–30 CE or just
about that time have been transmitted to an Arab audience in Medina or Mecca
so that it could become relevant enough to the followers of Muhammad to warrant
a Qur’anic pronouncement upon it? Such a transmission would have been quite
possible in the circumstances around 628–30 CE and soon after. Contemporary
records in Greek, Syriac, Armenian and Arabic (poetry) repeatedly note the
involvement of Arabs as troops and scouts on both Roman and Persian sides
during and at the end of the great war of 603–30, and the Syriac Alexander
Legend itself mentions Arabs as one of the nations involved in the last wars. 60
Indeed, the Alexander Legend is likely to have been circulated widely if it was
part of the Byzantine rallying cry after the war in the face of great losses and as
a tool of Heraclius for rebuilding his subjects’ loyalty to the idea of a universal
Christian empire undivided by schism. If it was aimed particularly at monophysites,
as Reinink also proposed, then one would expect it to have been deliberately
spread among the monophysite Arabs of the Ghassanid phylarchate, some of
Heraclius’ close allies. 61 It is even possible that Muhammad’s own followers
heard the story of the Alexander Legend, for example during their raid on Mu’ta,
around the southeast end of the Dead Sea (probably September 629) just a few
months after the Persian withdrawal from Roman territory and a few months
before Heraclius’ triumphant return of the cross to Jerusalem. 62
190ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
Yet one is left wondering exactly how apocalyptic works were disseminated
during these decades. Since they are full of political significance for a particular
period of time, one expects that they would have been published and promoted
actively by their authors. In any case, one can hardly doubt that this text was
widely known. An indication of that was aforementioned: the Alexander Legend
provoked a monophysite response in Syriac within a few years, one more cynical
about the durability of Heraclius’ kingdom, and information connected with the
Alexander Legend was known as far away as Gaul a few decades later (on which,
see the discussion about Fredegarius, later). 63
Nor is it difficult to suggest motives for Muhammad or his followers to have
paid attention to this apocalypse. Even with the extraordinary skepticism over
the early records of Islam prevailing today, no one disputes that Muhammad’s
movement was based on the belief in prophets. The Qur’an contains many
references to the prophets of the past. The Syriac Alexander Legend presents
Alexander the Two-Horned as just such a prophet. Moreover, Alexander’s
prophecy clearly indicates that final wars heralding the end of the world were
taking place. Many in the community that followed Muhammad seem to have
shared this apocalyptic sentiment with others in the contemporary Middle East. 64
However, the Qur’anic account leaves out all mention of the Roman Empire’s
inevitable, universal, Christian victory before the return of the Messiah, an important
aspect of the last section of the Legend. Instead it focuses on and culminates in
Dhu l-Qarnyan’s prophetic warning that God’s judgment will come in a time of
wars between great armies. Evidently that was the message of the story that was
most meaningful to the adaptor of the Arabic account, and the elements that make
the story sensible as Byzantine propaganda are omitted completely in the Arabic.
One may even suppose the words of Q 18:83, “And they are asking you about
the Two-Horned One (Dhu l-Qarnayn). Say: I will relate for you a glorious record
(dhikr) about him,” to be a true reflection of the environment in which the Syriac
Alexander Legend was circulating. Here was an apocalypse widely known and
certainly currently relevant. Perhaps Muhammad’s followers or others in the
vicinity wanted an explanation of this apocalypse from him, and so they were
given an account of it, adapted to make it appropriate to their movement. It may
also be possible to see reflections of the prophecy of the Alexander Legend in
surat al-Rum (Q 30:1–6), where the war between the Persians and Romans is
referred to, but the Romans are said to be destined to conquer, at least according
to the preferred reading of early Qur’anic exegetes. 65
In short, there are many indicators that the Alexander Legend could easily have
reached the community at Medina or Mecca and that, when it did, it would have
been meaningful to them. There is no reason to doubt this possibility, and the rela-
tionship between the Syriac and Arabic texts determined earlier requires one to
suppose that the Alexander Legend was in fact transmitted somehow. However,
the precise time at which the story of Dhu l-Qarnayn entered the Qur’an – in
Muhammad’s last years, or later – is still undecided.
191KEVIN VAN BLADEL
Floods of nations and the prophecy of Jesus
There is one more point related to the Qur’anic retelling of this Syriac text that
deserves attention. While it is widely known that Jesus was and is regarded as a
prophet by Muslims, since he is so designated in the Qur’an (19:30), there is little
discussion of just what Jesus was supposed to be a prophet of. It is often over-
looked that Jesus was thought even by Christians to be prophesying nothing less
than the end of the world (as in Matthew 24 and Luke 21:5–28), and that this
would be preceded by a siege of Jerusalem (Luke 21:20). The sack of Jerusalem
by the Persians in 614 therefore shocked Christian contemporaries especially
because it seemed to indicate that the end the world and the return of the Messiah
were near according to the very words of Jesus. Other signs predicted by Jesus
preceding the end would be seen in the heavens, and there would be “distress of
nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves” (Luke 21:25). 66
Contemporary sources show that witnesses to the great war of 603–30 saw the
fulfillment of Jesus’ words in it.
Most important here is the account of the Türk invasion of Caucasian Albania
used by the Armenian author Movses Dasxurants‘i, the 682 History. Before
describing how the Türks broke through the Wall at Darband, this source adapts
the prophecies appearing in Matthew 24:6–7, 29 and Luke 21:25 in its prologue,
paraphrasing them, saying that there would be “confusion of nations like the
confusion of the waves of the sea” x ̋ovut‘iwnk‘ Δo„ov7rdoc‘ orpes aleac‘ covu
x ̋oveloy. 67 Then it goes on to describe the events of the wars, using allusions to
these paraphrased words of Jesus’ prophecy in order to prove that the prophecies
were fulfilled. For this purpose, the Türks are likened explicitly to overwhelming
waves, the waves of confusion among nations in Jesus’ predictions: “Then grad-
ually the waves moved on against us,” apa takaw marΔein alik‘n 7nddem mer. 68
After raiding Caucasian Albania the Türks turned west: “the floods (u„xn) rose
and rushed over the land of Georgia.” 69 Even Khosro II “rose up like a raging tor-
rent” when he set out to war against them 70 and we are reminded of the image
again with the phrase, “waves of invaders.” 71 Thus the author of the 682 History
takes every opportunity to show that Jesus’ prophecy was being fulfilled in the
invasions of the Türks and the wars of this period in general.
This image of nations as waves was also used specifically to describe the
Türks’ overwhelming of the walls at Darband. The 682 History does not connect
Alexander with these walls, but it does say that near #‘o„ (a town near the gate at
Darband) were
magnificent walls which the kings of Persia had built at great expense,
bleeding their country and recruiting architects and procuring many
different materials for the construction of the wonderful works with
which they blocked [the passes] between Mount Caucasus and the
eastern sea [the Caspian]. When the universal wrath confronting us
192ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
all came, however, the waves of the sea flooded over and struck it down
and destroyed it to its foundations at the very outset.
(Movses Dasxuranc‘i, trans. Dowsett, History of
the Caucasian Albanians, 83)
These waves are not real waves of the Caspian but rather attackers from the north.
The text immediately next describes the physical appearance of the Türk invaders,
portrayed as monstrous, whom Heraclius had invited to war as his allies. It is striking
that this author, a resident of Caucasian Albania, the territory immediately south of
these walls, reports that the Türks actually destroyed the wall (i himanc‘ tapaleal,
“demolished it to the foundations”), 72 just as Alexander’s Syriac prophecy in the
Legend said that they would be destroyed. The Byzantine chronicler Theophanes
also states that, at the beginning of their invasions, “the Khazars broke through the
Gates of the Caspian” (diarrhéxantes tàs Kaspías púlas). 73 Just so, in the Qur’an
(18:98), Dhu l-Qarnayn prophesies that God will make the barrier a heap of earth
at the time of his promise, the final judgment (fa-idha ja’a wa‘du rabbi ja‘alahu
dakka’a). But the difference in the Armenian source is that in it the breaking of the
wall by the Türks was identified as part of the fulfillment of Jesus’ words.
There are not many other surviving reports about these Türk invaders and their
passage through the wall. That is why it is especially striking that one of the few
other authors to mention it, the contemporary Frankish chronicler known as
Fredegarius (wr. ca 660) describes the gates as having been built out of bronze
(aereas) by Alexander propter inundacione gentium sevissemorum (sic), “on
account of the surging wave of most savage nations.” Here again the invaders are
described as a surging wave, an inundacio of nations, held back by the gates that,
Fredegarius goes on immediately to say, Heraclius himself ordered to be opened:
easdem portas Aeraglius aperire precipit (sic). 74 In light of the description of the
Armenian 682 History, which was explicitly connected with the prophecies of
Jesus, it seems likely that Fredegarius was drawing from a source that made a
similar allusion to the waves of nations, paraphrasing Jesus’ prophecy in Luke
21:25. Moreover, this Latin chronicle’s association of Heraclius with the opening
of the gates of Alexander that held back savages brings together most of the
parts of the Alexander Legend. It is in fact the earliest known association of
Alexander specifically with the wall at Darband (and not the wall at the Darial
pass or another, unspecified place, as in the Alexander Legend). 75 What is
missing in Fredegarius is reference to Gog and Magog. But in his confusion that
chronicle’s author bizarrely thinks that the Hagarene Saracens were admitted by
this gate, not the Türks. This implies that he identified the Arabs as the people of
Gog and Magog, though it is not explicitly stated.
Now, the description of the Hun invaders as waves is not found in the Syriac
Alexander Legend. However, as shown earlier, God is portrayed as saying in the
Qur’an 18:99, “And We shall leave them on that day surging like waves (yamuju)
against each other” when the wall holding back Gog and Magog is demolished.
193KEVIN VAN BLADEL
It is tempting therefore to think that the Syriac Alexander Legend was associated
consciously at some stage of the transmission into Arabic with an explanation or
oral commentary including reference to Jesus’ prophecies of the end of the world,
since the near-contemporary source of Movses Dasxuranc‘i, the 682 History,
shows that the reference to waves in Jesus’ prophecy was taken to refer to the
invasions of the Türks, identified elsewhere by contemporaries as the eschatological
peoples of Gog and Magog, and their involvement in a war of many nations.
Fredegarius’ chronicle also describes them as waves. If this hypothesis is correct,
the word yamuju, “surging like waves,” in the Qur’an, is essentially a verbal echo
of Luke 21:25 (sunokhè ethnôn en aporíai ékhous thalásses kaì sálou), the
“distress of nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves,” 76 Jesus’
prophecy of what would happen before the final redemption. It suggests that
Movses Dasxuranc‘i’s source (the 682 History) and Fredegarius’ source were not
the only ones to consider Jesus’ prophecies to be fulfilled in these wars.
Muhammad’s earliest followers may have understood the story of Dhu l-Qarnayn
not just as the prophecy of the imminent end made by Alexander, regarded as
a pious, ancient world-conqueror, but also as an allusion to the prophet Jesus’
similar warning of the end times, now very near, which they expected as seriously
as other inhabitants of the region, when nations did indeed crash together, as it
might have appeared on a field of battle, like waves of the sea.
The language of Q 18:83–102
Now that the continuity of tradition between the Syriac Alexander Legend of
Alexander and the Qur’anic passage in question (Q 18:83–102) is established, it
is possible to draw some new conclusions about the language of the Qur’an here.
Though controversy has been aroused by the recent attempt to find Syriac or
Aramaic words in the Qur’an where they had not been part of the traditional
reading, now one can see that where the Qur’an is definitely reinterpreting a
Syriac text, not a single Syriac word is found, but rather there are true Arabic
equivalents of Syriac words. 77 Q 18:83–102 is a distinctively Arabic text and in
no way is it Syriac. Thus it is clear that Qur’anic tradition and, in particular, the
traditional Islamic lexicography of the Arabic words in this passage prove to be
quite reliable. A high number of exact parallels of meaning between the Syriac
and the Arabic (though the Arabic passage is short) come to light while reading
the Qur’anic text in a way that accords very closely with the traditional Muslim
interpretation – interpretation of the words themselves, that is, the lexicography,
and not the explanatory commentary or tafsir. Whatever problems one finds in
the grammar and script of the Qur’an, it is quite clear that the words and basic
meanings of this passage of the Qur’an have been understood by Islamic tradition
correctly. In a sense this Syriac Alexander Legend vindicates the reliability of
some basic, traditional claims about this Qur’anic passage, providing means to
verify Arabic tradition.
194ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
Conclusions
The main conclusion reached here is that a Syriac text quite current and important
in the last years of Muhammad’s life was adapted for twenty verses of the Qur’an.
This is not entirely new, since Nöldeke made a similar argument in 1890. Nor is
it surprising, since the Qur’an relates many other well known ancient stories in its
own way to deliver its own message, as Muslims generally accept. However, it
is now shown beyond any reasonable doubt that this is the case for a text
contemporary with Muhammad. Moreover, what is most important for our under-
standing of the adaptation of the Alexander Legend in the Qur’an is not the fact
of the borrowing but rather the way in which the particular religious and political
message associated with the Alexander Legend was used, truncated, and altered
for new purposes.
This is not a sweeping theory about the formation of the Qur’an, for it only
concerns one small portion of a text agreed upon by almost all to have been
compiled from different oral and written materials collected together after the
death of the prophet. This theory makes no claims about the text of the Qur’an as
a whole, but it nevertheless requires that the Syriac Alexander Legend be taken
into account by any theory attempting to account for the whole Qur’an. It is only
in studying the Qur’an as a text in its own historical context, which historians
of the Qur’an have neglected to a surprising extent in their overdependence on
later Arabic sources for the history of the seventh century, that it will become
comprehensible to the historian and to those truly concerned with understanding
its inimitable history.
The findings of this article may be summarized as follows. The Syriac
Alexander Legend, written in 629–30 as religious and political propaganda in
favor of Heraclius after a devastating war, puts forth two prophecies: one about
the impending end of the world in a war of all nations, the other predicting that
Roman, Christian rule would come over the entire earth before the Messiah’s
return. This text was evidently well known soon after is publication since several
other texts written in the seventh century react to or include material derived from
it. The Arabic, Qur’anic account of Dhu l-Qarnayn also repeats this story, but
includes only the first of its two prophecies, along with the narrative of
Alexander’s journeys. If Muhammad himself did speak Q 18:83–102, then it may
well have been his response to questions concerning the publication of these
prophecies (“They ask you about the Two-Horned One. Say. . . .”). Whatever the
precise circumstances of the Arabic composition were, its primary message is that
God’s judgment is very much imminent. The reference to contemporary wars
reflects the notion, widely held around this time, that the violence and strife of
this period were indeed an indicator of the rapidly approaching end of the world.
It is not surprising that a community of Arabs whose religion was based on a
belief in prophecy would find the contents of this story meaningful, since it put
a prophecy supporting the apocalyptic sentiments that they shared, designed for
their troubled times, into the mouth of an ancient and respected world-conqueror.
195KEVIN VAN BLADEL
What is striking is that the strongly pro-Roman element, appearing especially in
the second prophecy of the Alexander Legend, is completely omitted, though
many details of the other parts of the story are included. Surely this omission also
reflects some attitude in the community of Muhammad. Finally, though it depends
(probably through oral report) on a Syriac work for its content, Q 18:83–102
shows no hint of Syriac vocabulary. It is an entirely Arabic text likely to have been
first uttered in the early seventh century. The extraordinary correspondences
between the Syriac and the Arabic vindicate the early Muslim understanding of
the meaning of the words in this text, but not their exegesis of it. 78
Approaching the Qur’an by contextualizing it in the milieu of the early seventh
century clearly has much to offer, but it is surprising to find how disconnected the
field of Qur’anic research is from other historical studies on the same period and
region, with some notable recent exceptions. It seems now that the future of
Qur’anic studies lies not within the discipline construed as Islamic studies alone
but rather that many major historical problems of the Qur’an will be solved by
historians of Late Antiquity, whose approaches to the first century of Islam are
proving more successful than the various apologetic and polemical approaches
that predominate in the modern study of early Islam. That is perhaps to be
expected, since scholars in the field of Islamic studies are largely concerned with
later tradition and has generally (though not in every case) failed to find adequate
tools for approaching the Qur’an in its original context, the early seventh century.
Yet almost every primary source used in the present study was published more
than fifty years ago, many of them more than a century ago. Scholars of Islamic
studies have brought historical–epistemological problems – which are problems
particularly when they confine themselves to late sources – so prominently to
the foreground that it is nearly impossible to read the texts themselves, while the
general abandonment of the basic preliminary tools of historical scholarship – the
philological methods used to establish text that can then serve as objects of
historical research – are sorely neglected. But Qur’anic studies now require
scholars trained in Greek and Syriac, not to mention other forms of Aramaic, and
even Armenian, Ethiopic and other languages, as much as in Arabic. 79 With the
great surge in research and publication on Late Antiquity, the very context into
which Islam came, answers to the pressing theoretical questions as well as to
some of the historical ones also may at last appear. 80
Notes
1 E.A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac Version of the
Pseudo-Callisthenes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889.
2 Th. Nöldeke, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans,” Denkschriften der
Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, philosophisch-historische Klasse,
38, 1890, 5, 27–33.
3 Nöldeke, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans,” 32, “Wie andre
Geschichten so hat Muhammed natürlich auch diese auf mündlichen Wege erhalten.”
196ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
4 J. Renard, “Alexander,” in EQ, vol. 1, 61–2. The article “Gog and Magog” in the same
encyclopaedia (Keith Lewinstein, vol. 2, 331–3) at least mentions the Syriac Alexander
Legend and cites Nöldeke’s work, but it does not refer to Nöldeke’s thesis that this text
was a source of the Qur’an, rather citing the Alexander Legend with extraordinary
understatement inconclusively as one of a few “suggestive parallels.”
5 See note 8.
6 Like Gilgamesh, the Alexander of this Legend travels to the edges of the world where
he found a sea of deadly waters, the touch of which meant death. Also like Gilgamesh,
this Alexander journeys through the passage through which the sun passes every night,
entering it at sunset and emerging at the eastern end at sunrise. Both Gilgamesh and
Alexander follow the sun’s nightly course just after it sets, apparently having to pass
through before the sun comes around again and catches them. In both stories, the sun’s
passage is associated with a mountain, Mamu in the Akkadian and Mûsas in the Syriac,
evidently related names. Thus there seems to have been an oral tradition of the
Gilgamesh story that became associated at an unknown time with Alexander.
Moreover, the Syriac Song of Alexander, written in reaction to the Alexander Legend,
and a Talmudic account of Alexander contain more material derived from the
Gilgamesh tradition (such as the search for the water of life). This points to the exis-
tence of a late antique Aramaic oral tradition of Gilgamesh in which the name
Alexander replaced the more ancient hero’s name. References to literature on connec-
tions between Alexander, Gilgamesh, and the Qur’an are collected in Brannon
Wheeler, Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis, London and New York:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, 10–37 (plus endnotes), though the conclusions reached there
are sometimes doubtful (see note 8).
7 G.J. Reinink, “Heraclius, the new Alexander: Apocalyptic prophecies during the reign
of Heraclius,” in G.J. Reinink and B.H. Stolte (eds), The Reign of Heraclius (610–641):
Crisis and Confrontation, Groningen Studies in Cultural Change 2, Leuven: Peeters,
2002, 81–94; idem, “Alexander the Great in the Seventh-Century Syriac ‘Apocalyptic’
Texts,” Byzantinorossika 2, 2003, 150–78 (this journal is available online at
http://byzantinorossica.org.ru/byzantinorossika.html where it can be viewed with DjVu
software, which is, at the time of this writing, available elsewhere online as a free
download); now out of date but full of useful information is F. Pfister, “Alexander der
Große in Offenbarungen der Griechen, Juden, Mohammedaner und Christen,” in F.
Pfister, Kleine Schriften zum Alexanderroman, Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie 61,
1976, 301–37.
8 B. Wheeler, “Moses or Alexander? Q 18:60–5 in early Islamic exegesis,” Journal of
Near Eastern Studies 57.3, 1998, 191–215 and idem, Moses, 10–36. Wheeler does not
address directly Nöldeke’s hypothesis of the relationship of the Alexander Legend to
Q 18:83–102, which is the subject of the present paper, though he does refer in his
notes to Nöldeke’s work (“Moses or Alexander?” 201, n. 52; Moses, 138, n. 55 to
chapter 1). This strikes me as an unfortunate oversight. While this is not the place
to redraw Wheeler’s charts showing the supposed interrelationships of these texts, a
few critical remarks are in order to guide the reader. In discussing the Qur’an, its
commentaries, three different texts about Alexander (the Legend, the Song, and
different recensions of the Romance), and then also the Talmudic story of Alexander,
Wheeler has overlooked a good deal of relevant published research (e.g. see later in
this note) but has almost completely avoided getting into the details of the texts that
could be used to establish their real interrelationships. To take just one of the prob-
lematic conclusions as an example, his charts of affiliations (Wheeler, “Moses or
Alexander?” 202–3; Moses, 17, 19) argue that the Babylonian Talmud is a source of
the Christian Song of Alexander, which is extremely unlikely. He argues, without foun-
dation, that when Qur’an commentators refer to extra-Qur’anic traditions, it becomes
197KEVIN VAN BLADEL
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10
11
12
impossible for the Qur’an to refer to the same extra-Qur’anic traditions; the Qur’an
itself is cleared of relying on the same ancient traditions (Moses, 28–9). This and other
problematic schemata aside, Wheeler has not included the Legend of Alexander in his
chart of affiliations, but only the Song of Alexander, which has been shown not actually
to be by Jacob of Serugh, as Wheeler seems to think: “Moses or Alexander?” 201;
Moses, 17; following Nöldeke, actually, but missing much of the subsequent scholarship:
for example, A. Baumstark, Geschichte der Syrischen Literatur, Bonn: A. Markus und
E. Weber, 1922, 191; K. Czeglédy, “Monographs on Syriac and Muhammadan sources
in the literary remains of M. Kmoskó,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum
Hungaricae 4, 1955, (19–90) 35–6; G.J. Reinink, “Ps.-Methodius: A concept of history
in response to Islam,” in A. Cameron and L.I. Conrad (eds) The Byzantine and Early
Islamic Near East I: Problems in the Literary Source Material, Studies in Late
Antiquity and Early Islam 1, Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1992, (149–87) 167 n. 73;
S. Gero, “The legend of Alexander the Great in the Christian orient,” Bulletin of the
John Rylands Library 75, 1993, 3–9, 7; and above all the introduction accompanying
the standard edition of the Song of Alexander itself: Das syrische Alexanderlied. Die
Drei Rezensionen, CSCO 454 (edition)-455 (translation), Scriptores Syri 195–6, Trans.
G.J. Reinink (ed.), Louvain: Peeters, 1983. Compare Wheeler’s reference to “the brief
so-called Legend of Alexander, which is often said to be a prose version of Jacob of
Serugh’s (Song) . . .” (Wheeler, Moses, 17, no references given) with Reinink’s statement:
“No scholar has seriously considered the possibility that the legend is dependent on
the (Song)” (Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 153). Not even Budge, who first edited the
Legend, thought that it was a prose version of the Song; rather he supposed that they
shared a common source (Budge, History of Alexander, lxxvii). As Reinink has shown,
the Song of Alexander is to some degree a reaction to the Alexander Legend composed
not many years after the latter, probably between 630 and 640 CE (Reinink, “Alexander
the Great,” 152–5 and 165–8).
On the translation of sabab as “heavenly course,” see my discussion later in the article.
The verb yamuju here means to move as waves move. The reference to the armies
moving like waves becomes important in what follows.
Budge, The History of Alexander, text 256, line 12, trans. 145.
Here Budge has misunderstood the passage leading to a nonsensical translation (The
History of Alexander, text 260–1, trans. 148): “And when the sun enters the window
of heaven, he straightway bows down and makes obeisance before God his Creator;
and he travels and descends the whole night through the heavens, until at length he
finds himself where he rises. And Alexander looked toward the west, and he found a
mountain that descends, and its name was ‘the great Mûsâs;’ and [the troops]
descended it and came out upon Mount Ülaudiâ.”
The passage should rather be understood as follows: “And when the sun entered the
window of heaven, he (Alexander) immediately bowed down and made obeisance
before God his Creator, and he traveled and descended the whole night in the heavens,
until at length he came and found himself where it (the sun) rises. He saw the land of
the setting sun and found a mountain where he descended, named Great Mûsas, and
they (the troops) descended and arrived with him. And they went forth to Mount
Qlawdiyâ (Claudia).” The role of Mount Ararat, called Great (Mec) Masis in
Armenian, in this story goes back to the very ancient times. At some unknown point it
was identified as the mount Mamu (ma-a-mu) of Tablet IX of the Gilgamesh epic, where
Gilgamesh finds a way into the passage through which the sun enters at nightfall. The
later Arabic rendering of the story found in an Adalusian manuscript (on which more
later) renders the name of the mountain as al-Judi, an Arabic name for another, smaller
mountain at the northern end of Mesopotamia called Ararad. On the confusion about
these mountains see M. Streck, “Djudi,” EI 2 , vol. 2, 573b-4a. On the various mountains
198ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
known in Armenian as Masis, see J.R. Russell, “Armeno Iranica,” in Papers in Honour
of Professor Marcy Boyce, Acta Iranica 25, Homages et opera minora vol. XI, Leiden:
Brill, 1985 (447–58) 456. For the occurrence of al-Judi in a later Arabic translation of
the Alexander Legend (discussed in the present article), see E. García Gómez, Un texto
árabe occidental de la Leyenda de Alejandro, Madrid: Instituto de Valencia de Don
Juan, 1929, Arabic edition 50, l. 24.
K. Czeglédy, “The Syriac Legend Concerning Alexander the Great,” Acta Orientalia
Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 7, 1957, (231–49) 245, who seeks to localize the
author by reference to the rivers Haloras and Kallath. Reinink, “Entstehung,” 280, and
idem, “Alexander the Great,” 161, suggested that the author’s home was Edessa
or Amida.
The Haloras (Arabic Haluras, Armenian Olor) is a high tributary of the Eastern Tigris,
upstream north of Amida. Just beyond its head is a pass leading down from the
Arsanias river, so that by this way one could cross between the Armenian valleys and
northern Mesopotamia.
Budge, The History of Alexander, text 269–270, trans. 154–5.
Idem, The History of Alexander, text 270, trans. 155.
Idem, The History of Alexander, trans. 146 and 156; text 257 l. 14 and 272 l. 11.
It is well known that already in his own time Alexander was portrayed with horns
according to the iconography of the Egyptian god Ammon. (A.R. Anderson,
“Alexander’s horns,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 58, 1927, [100–22] 101.) But the problem here is not to illustrate the entire
history of this image, something already investigated in detail by others, but rather to
show the proximate source of the information used in the Qur’an.
Josephus, De Bello Iudaico, 7.7.4. The ancient traditions on Alexander’s wall, its iron
gates, and its location are treated amply by A.R. Anderson, “Alexander’s Horns,”
109–10 and especially in “Alexander at the Caspian gates,” Transactions and
Proceedings of the American Philological Association 59, 1928, 130–63. The wall is
discussed further elsewhere in the present article.
In the Syriac Alexander Legend and in the Qur’an God gathers the peoples who will
fight (Syriac nkannem, Arabic fa-jama‘nahum jam’an). In the earlier tradition of
Revelation of John 20:7–9 it is Satan who “gathers” (sunagageîn) Gog and Magog
to fight.
It is likely that one should emend the text of the Qur’an from Yajuj (y’jwj) to Ajuj (’jwj)
on the basis of the Syriac source combined with the attestation of the form Ajuj in
Arabic recorded by al-Zamakhshari, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, and Ibn Hajar (E. van
Donzel and C. Ott, “Yadjudj wa-Madjudj,” EI 2 , vol. 11, 231a-3b). An unintended [y]
may be easily read in that position (before initial alif ) by mistake in either Syriac or
Arabic script.
Many examples of this usage are found in W. Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac
Manuscripts in the British Museum, London: Trustees of the British Museum,
1870–1872, vol. 3 (e.g. on 1090b, 1113a, 1127b).
For example, surat Maryam (Q 19:2) is headed, “a dhikr of the mercy of your lord on
his servant Zakariyya.” Here, dhikr clearly means “record” or “account.” Cf. surat Taha
(Q 20:99), where the word apparently refers to accounts of former (Biblical) times.
E.W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, Book 1, part 4, 1285c, entry “sabab.”
My study of Qur’anic sabab will appear elsewhere. The meaning “heavenly courses”
is explicit in Q 40:37, asbab al-samawat, where Pharaoh wants to vie with Moses in
reaching the asbab, the courses, of the heavens to behold Moses’ God. It also appears
in Q 38:10, fa-l-yartaqu fi l-asbab, where God challenges those who vie with his all-
mastery to reach heaven by ascending by asbab; in Q 22:15, fa-l-yamdud bi-sababin
ila l-sama’i thumma l-yaqta‘, which has been taken by many to refer to stringing a
199KEVIN VAN BLADEL
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noose from the roof of a house; it appears rather to be a challenge to ascend to the
heavens by the extraordinary means of a heavenly course, but it is doomed to failure, as
in the previous example; and in Q 2:166, where God says that the asbab (the heavenly
cords) will collapse on judgment day. For this list of occurrences I used Arne
A. Ambros, A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004, 126–7.
K. van Bladel, “Heavenly cords and prophetic authority in the Qur’an and its Late
Antique context,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 70, 2007,
223–247; Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, article “thamanun,” Book 1, part 1, 355c-356a.
Asbab in this verse is preferred as the lectio difficilior.
Budge, History of Alexander, text 260, trans. 148.
The cosmology of the Alexander Legend is very similar to that found in the Book of
Enoch (1 Enoch) and a few of the elements of Alexander’s experiences of the far edges
of the world are just like those encountered by Enoch. Like Alexander, Enoch visits the
four corners of the earth. 1 Enoch 17–36 tells this story, in which Enoch sees the prison
(1 Enoch 18:14, 21:10: Greek desmotérion, Ethiopic beta moq7h) for fallen angels and
a place of punishment of the souls of sinners (1 Enoch 22:13, Greek hamartoloí,
Ethiopic xat7’an) in a far western place. This is quite like the prison that Alexander
draws those whom he sends into the deadly waters to test them. In his vision, it is the
winds that serve as the pillars of heaven over the earth (1 Enoch 18:3: Ethiopic
a‘7mada samay; Greek “foundation of heaven” steréoma toû ouranoû), pillars calling
to mind perhaps the Arabic asbab al-samawat under discussion. Enoch also finds
“gates of heaven” in the north (1 Enoch 34–6: Ethiopic x7wax7wa samay). In the
portion of the work known as “The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries,” 1 Enoch 75–82,
Enoch sees the gates of heaven (1 Enoch 72:2ff.: again Ethiopic x7wax7wa samay,
sing. xox7t) and the windows (1 Enoch 72:3ff. Ethiopic maskot, pl. masak7w) to their
right and left. The sun, moon, stars, and winds pass through these gates. (Words cited
here are taken from the Ethiopic and the surviving Greek portions of 1 Enoch: Das
Buch Henoch. Äthiopischer Text, J. Flemming (ed.), Leipzig: J.C. Heinrichs’sche
Buchhandlung, 1902 and Apocalypsis Henochi Graece, M. Black (ed.), Leiden: Brill,
1970). It is likely that the author of the Alexander Legend knew the story of Enoch or
shared its cosmology. Gates of Heaven, abwab al-sama’, are also mentioned in Q 7:40
and 54:11, where in the former case they seem to be portals leading to the Garden
(al-Janna) and in the latter case they are the hatches through which rains come to earth
in Noah’s story, reflecting the “windows of heaven” in Genesis 7:11 (Hebrew ÷rubbôt
hammamayim).
G.J. Reinink, “Die Entstehung der syrischen Alexanderlegende als politisch-religiöse
Propagandaschrift für Herakleios’ Kirchenpolitik,” in C. Laga, J.A. Munitiz, and
L. Van Rompay (eds), After Chalcedon. Studies in Theology and Church History
offered to Professor Albert van Roey for his Seventieth Birthday, Orientalia
Lovaniensia Analecta 18, Leuven: Peeters 1985, 263–81; “Ps.-Methodius,” 1992,
149–87; “Pseudo-Ephraems ‘Rede über das Ende’ und die syrische eschatologische
Literatur des siebenten Jahrhunderts,” Aram 5, 1993, 437–63; “Alexandre et le dernier
empereur du monde: les développements du concept de la royauté chrétienne dans les
sources syriaques du septième siècle,” in L. Harf-Lancner, C. Kappler et F. Suard (eds),
Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures occidentales et proche-orientales. Actes du
colloque de Paris, 27–29 novembre 1997, Nanterre: Centre des sciences de la littérature
de l’Université Paris X, 1999, 149–59; “Heraclius, the New Alexander;” “Alexander
the Great,” 2003, 150–78.
The Era of the Greeks began in 1 October 312 BC according to the Julian Era. The dates
can be converted by subtracting 312–311 from the Common Era year. On the use of
this era in Syriac see P. Ludger Bernhard, Die Chronologie der syrischen
Handschriften, Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland,
Supplementband 14, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1969, 110–2. One will notice that the Era of
200ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
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46
47
the Greeks, frequently called in Syriac tradition the Era of Alexander, does not actually
correspond with the death of Alexander. The assumption of the author of the Syriac
Alexander Legend, that the Era of Alexander began with Alexander’s death, is a
mistake easy to make. He wanted only to signal the dates of his prophecies with an era
in common use.
The little that is known of the general early history and ethnic affiliation of the Sabirs
is summarized by Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic
Peoples: Ethnogenesis and State-Formation in Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia
and the Middle East, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992, 104–6.
It is approved by, for example, Czeglédy, “The Syriac Legend,” 245.
Earlier scholarship has used the signal of the year 628–9 CE in Alexander’s prophecy
to date the text in different ways. Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 2003, shows that the
text was composed in 630 or just before that time.
Reinink, “Alexander the Great.”
For example, J. Howard-Johnston, “Heraclius’ Persian campaigns and the revival of the
East Roman Empire, 622–630,” War in History 6, 1999, (1–44) 26–40. W.E. Kaegi,
Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 160–2.
Idem, 163–4.
Idem, “Die Entstehung” and “Alexander the Great.”
Ibid.
A.R. Anderson, “Alexander’s Horns,” 109–10. Idem, “Alexander at the Caspian Gates”
gives an exhaustive account of the ancient and modern confusion over precisely where
these gates and the pass that they blocked were located. They were at least since the
first century CE mistakenly thought by many classical authors to have been located at
the pass of Darial in the middle of the Caucasus. Later, around the seventh century, this
site was confused with the pass at Darband along the Caspian Sea.
Robert H. Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2001, 89; cf. maps 56 and 57 on 66–7.
Extensive bibliographies are found in E. Kettenhofen, “Darband,” Encyclopaedia
Iranica, 7, 13–19; G.G. Gamzatov, “Da∫estan i: Cultural relations with Persia,”
Encyclopaedia Iranica, 6, 568–75; D.M. Dunlop, “Bab al-Abwab,” EI 2 , 1, 835.
Hewsen, Armenia, 85, 90–1, contains maps of these walls and in particular a detailed
close-up map of the wall at Darband. For a list of frontier walls built by the Sasanians:
H. Mahamedi, “Wall [sic] as a system of frontier defense during the Sasanid period,”
in T. Daryaee and M. Omidsalar (eds), The Spirit of Wisdom: Essays in Memory of
Ahmed Tafazzoli, Costa Mesa: Mazda, 2004, 145–59; this study makes almost no use
of relevant Greek, Armenian, and other sources.
The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos, trans. and comment. R.W. Thomson and
J. Howard-Johnston, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999, 1, trans. 148.
Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii Scholastici libri IV. Cum Continuationibus,
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum tomus II,
Bruno Krusch (ed.), Hannover: Hahn, 1888, (1–214) esp. 153.
Erich Kettenhofen, “Darband,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 7, 13–19, 16.
In so characterizing these names I paraphrase Reinink, “Heraclius, the New
Alexander,” 2002, 85. On the tradition of these names in Arabic, see E. van Donzel
and C. Ott, “Yadjudj wa-Madjudj,” EI 2 , 11, 231a-33b, and K. Lewinstein, “Gog and
Magog,” EQ, 2, 331–3.
Andreas, Commentary on Revelation, J. Schmid (ed.) in Studien zur Geschichte des
griechischen Apokalypse-Texte I. Der Apokalypse-kommentar des Andreas von
Kaisareia, Munich: Zink, 1955, 223 (kephalaion 63): eînai dè taûtá tines mèn Skuthikà
éthne nomízousin huperbóreia, háper kaloûmen Ounniká, páses epigeíou basileías,
hos horômen, poluanthropóterá te kaì polemikótera. “Some people think that these
201KEVIN VAN BLADEL
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
(scil. Gog and Magog) are the Scythian, Hyperborean nations, which we call Hunnic,
both most populous and most warlike, as we see, of the entire earthly kingdom.”
Cf. Josephus, Judaean Antiquities, 1.6.1.
For the complicated debate about the identity of the leader of the Türks (or their Khazar
subordinates) in these invasions see A. Bombaci, “Qui était Jebu Xak’an?” Turcica 2,
1970, 7–24. See also P. Golden, Khazar Studies, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó,
1980, 49–51.
Theophanes, Chronographia, C. de Boor (ed.), Hildesheim: Olms, 1963.The Chronicle
of Theophanes the Confessor, trans. and comment. Cyril Mango and Roger Scott,
Oxford: Clarendon, 1997, 446–8. See also the modern synthesis of W. Kaegi,
Heraclius, 142–6.
History of the Caucasian Albanians, trans. C.J.F. Dowsett, London: Oxford University
Press, 1961, 87.
J. Howard-Johnston, “Armenian Historians of Heraclius: An Examination of the Aims,
Sources, and Working-Methods of Sebeos and Movses Daskhurantsi,” in G.J. Reinink
and B.H. Stolte (eds), The Reign of Heraclius, 41–62. The earliest known citation of
the work is by Anania Mokac‘i, writing some time after 958, by which time the History
of the Caucasian Albanians had a reputation of its own (Dowsett, History of the
Caucasian Albanians, xv-xvi). Now that two palimpsest texts written in the Caucasian
Albanian (A„uan) language have been discovered in the Sinai and deciphered, proving
that there was at least an ecclesiastical literary tradition in this language, it is possible
to wonder whether the description of these invasions of Caucasian Albania was
originally composed in the local literary language before being translated into
Armenian. It is noteworthy that the anonymous author of these passages states that he
came from the village of Ka„ankatuk‘ (Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians,
84; this is the reason the compiler Movses Dasxuranc‘i is sometimes mistakenly called
Ka„ankuac‘i), located very near Partaw, the capital of Caucasian Albania (see the map
of Hewsen, Armenia, 41). For more on the discovery and decipherment of the
new Caucasian Albanian texts by Zaza Aleksidze, see the internet site armazi.uni-
frankfurt.de, following the link “Albanica.”
Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 83–4 (Book 2, chapter 11).
Budge, History of Alexander, text 263–5, trans. 150–1.
Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 75 (Book 2, chapter 9). Edition: Movses
“Ka„ankatuac‘i”, Patmut’iwn A„uanic‘ Amxarhi, M. Emin (ed.), Tbilisi, n.p., 1912
(reprint of M. Emin’s 1860 Moscow edition), ed. 144.
Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 165.
Idem, “Pseudo-Ephraems ‘Rede über das Ende’,” 455–63.
Idem, “Pseudo-Methodius,” and “Alexander the Great,” 171–7.
G. Reinink’s (“Alexander the Great,” 2003, 152) more general remarks on the inter-
relationships of early eight century apocalypses are worth repeating: “The postulating
of some older ‘common source,’ which is supposedly lost today, does not always form
a satisfactory explanation of the differences between these texts and especially not, if
we should completely ignore the specific literary and historical conditions under which
each of these works came into being, conditions which may have led to certain
reinterpretations, adaptations and modifications of the existing tradition.”
Stephen Gero, “The legend of Alexander the Great,” 7.
Budge, History of Alexander, text 155, trans. 270 l. 1.
On Ghassanid monophysitism and their connections with Heraclius, see I. Shahid,
Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection, 1995, vol. 2.
On the raid at Mu’ta see W. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 171–4.
Reinink, “Alexander the Great,” 165–8.
202ALEXANDER LEGEND IN THE QUR’AN
64 F. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical
Writing, Princeton: Darwin, 1998, 228–9, includes a basic bibliography for early
Islamic apocalypticism. On apocalyptic feeling in other sources from this period, see
Reinink, “Heraclius, the New Alexander,” 81–3.
65 N.M. El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 24–33.
66 New Oxford Annotated Bible, 2nd edn. rev.
67 Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 75; Tbilisi edn, 144. Cf. the Gospel text
of Luke 21:25 edited by Beda O. Künzle, Das altarmenische Evangelium, New York:
Lang, 1984, 1, 205: i yahe„ barba ̋oy ibrew covu ew x ̋ovut‘ean.
68 Tbilisi edn 154, text, Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 84.
69 Tbilisi edn 156, Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 85.
70 Dowsett, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 88.
71 Idem, 89.
72 Idem, History of the Caucasian Albanians, 83, Tbilisi edn, 153, l. 26.
73 Theophanes, Chronographia, 315–16.
74 Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredagarii, 153.
75 Anderson, “Alexander at the Caspian Gates,” 135.
76 New Oxford Annotated Bible, 2nd edn. rev.
77 The controversial thesis was published under the name Christoph Luxenberg, Die
Syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran, Berlin: Das arabische Buch, 2000. Detailed review
of this work can be found in other articles in the present volume.
78 For evidence that there was once a more substantial knowledge of the Alexander
Legend in Arabic, at least as early as the mid-ninth century, including some investigation
of the Qur’an commentaries on Q 18:83–102, see K. van Bladel, “The Syriac sources
of the early Arabic narratives of Alexander,” in H.P. Ray (ed.), Memory as History: The
Legacy of Alexander in South Asia, New Delhi: Aryan International, 2007, (54–75)
64–67. See also the important study of the Alexander Romance in Arabic by F.C.W.
Aerts, Alexander Magnus Arabicus: Zeven eeuwen Arabische Alexandertraditie: van
Pseudo-Callisthenes tot Suri, Dissertation, University of Leiden, 2003.
79 This was made amply clear by Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A
Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam,
Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1997.
80 I thank Alexander Treiger for commenting on this paper in discussion with me at
various points in its composition and for finding a number of errors in a draft version.
All the views expressed herein and any remaining errors are solely my responsibility.
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