page_title: Hypotheses about the identity of Dhu al-Qarnayn
section_title: Arabic traditions
hierarchical_section_title: Hypotheses about the identity of Dhu al-Qarnayn / Islamic depictions of Alexander the Great / Arabic traditions
caption_attribution_description: source: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/physiognomy2.html "Two charts for determining whether a person will live or die based on the numerical value of the patient's name. From copy of a portion of Kitab Sirr al-asrar (The Secret of Secrets) falsely attributed to Aristotle. The copy is dated on fol. 9b, line 12: Rajab 1264 [= 3 June-2 July 1848]."
context_page_description: The story of Dhul-Qarnayn, mentioned in the Quran, may be a reference to Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great. Some Western and traditional Muslim scholars identify Alexander the Great as Dhul-Qarnayn. However, some early Muslim scholars believed it to be a reference to a pre-Islamic monarch from Persia or south Arabia, with, according to Maududi, modern Muslim scholarship also leaning in favour of identifying him with Cyrus the Great.
  Peter Bietenholz argues that the story of Dhul-Qarnayn has its origins in legends of Alexander the Great current in the Middle East in the early years of the Christian era.
context_section_description: Alexander the Great features prominently in early Arabic literature. There are many surviving versions of the Alexander romance in Arabic that were written after the conquest of Islam. It is also thought that pre-Islamic Arabic versions of the Alexander romance may have existed.
  The earliest surviving Arabic narrative of the Alexander romance was composed by Umara ibn Zayd (767–815 AD). In the tale, Alexander travels a great deal, builds the Wall against Gog and Magog, searches for the Water of Life (Fountain of Youth), and encounters angels who give him a   "wonder-stone" that both weighs more than any other stone but is also as light as dust. This wonder-stone is meant to admonish Alexander for his ambitions and indicate that his lust for conquest and eternal life will not end until his death. The story of the wonder-stone is not found in the Syriac Christian legend, but is found in Jewish Talmudic traditions about Alexander as well as in Persian traditions.
  A South Arabian Alexander legend was written by the Yemenite traditionist Wahb ibn Munabbih (?–732 AD) and this legend was later incorporated in a book by Ibn Hisham (?–833 AD) regarding the history of the Himyarite Kingdom in ancient Yemen. In the Yemenite variation, Dhul-Qarnayn is identified with an ancient king of Yemen named Tubba', rather than Alexander the Great, but the Arabic story still describes the story of Alexander's Wall against Gog and Magog and his quest for the Water of Life. The story also mentions that Dhul-Qarnayn (Tubba') visited a castle with glass walls and visited the Brahmins of India. The South Arabian legend was composed within the context of the division between the South Arabs and North Arabs that began with the Battle of Marj Rahit in 684 AD and consolidated over two centuries.
  The Alexander romance also had an important influence on Arabic wisdom literature. In Secretum Secretorum ("Secret of Secrets", in Arabic Kitab sirr al-asrar), an encyclopedic Arabic treatise on a wide range of topics such as statecraft, ethics, physiognomy, alchemy, astrology, magic and medicine, Alexander appears as a speaker and subject of wise sayings and as a correspondent with figures such as Aristotle. The origins of the treatise are uncertain. No Greek original exists, though there are claims in the Arabic treatise that it was translated from the Greek into Syriac and from Syriac into Arabic by a well-known 9th century translator, Yahya ibn al-Bitriq (?–815 AD). It appears, however, that the treatise was actually composed originally in Arabic.
  In another example of Arabic wisdom literature relating to Alexander, Ibn al-Nadim (?–997 AD) refers to a work on divination titled The Drawing of Lots by Dhul-Qarnain and to a second work on divination by arrows titled The gift of Alexander, but only the titles of these works have survived.
  Notably, the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mu'tasim (794–842 AD) had ordered the translation of the Thesaurus Alexandri, a work on elixirs and amulets, from Greek and Latin into Arabic. The Greek work Thesaurus Alexandri was attributed to Hermes (the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology) and similarly contained supposed letters from Aristotle addressed to Alexander.
  A more direct Arabic translation of the Alexander romance, called Sirat Al-Iskandar, was discovered in Constantinople, at the Hagia Sophia, and is dated to the 13th century. This version includes the letter from Alexander to his mother about his travels in India and at the end of the World. It also includes features which occur exclusively in the Syriac version. The Arabic legend also retains certain pagan elements of the story, which are sometimes modified to suit the Islamic message:
  It is quite remarkable that some characteristics belonging to a pre-Islamic 'pagan' entourage, have survived in the text ... For example, Alexander orders an offering of sacrificial animals at the temple of Hercules. In the Arabic letter the name of the deity has been replaced by Allah ... Another passage in the account of the palace of Shoshan or Sus, gives a description of the large 
caption: Manuscript of the 9th-century Arabic work Secretum Secretorum ("Secret of Secrets"), an encyclopedic treatise on a wide range of topics including physiognomy, astrology, alchemy, magic, and medicine. This work includes a series of supposed letters from Aristotle, addressed to Alexander. The Arabic manuscript was translated into Latin in the 12th century and was influential in Europe during the High Middle Ages
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