Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance: Difference between revisions

===Sun Enters the Window of Heaven and Rises on People with No Cover===

After leaving the muddy spring where the sun sets, The Qur'an tells us that Dhul-Qarnayn travels to the east where the sun rises. The author then conveys an odd and cryptic detail that the people living there have "no covering protection against the sun"; however, it gives no further explanation as to what that means. Again, the Syriac legend not only has an expanded, parallel account but it helps clarify the Qur'anic story. The reader is told that Alexander goes up to where the sun "enters the window of heaven" (i.e. sets above the flat earth). Next, it explains that where the sun rises, the people there must seek cover because the sun is much closer to the ground and its rays burn the people and animals there. Van Bladel interprets the last line in the quote below such that "he straightway bows down" refers to Alexander, who himself then travels to the place where the sun rises,<ref name="VanBladel"/> though other scholars have criticised this interpretation of the Syriac text, insisting that it refers to the sun's journey only.

So the whole camp mounted, and Alexander and his troops went up between the fetid sea and the bright sea '''to the place where the sun enters the window of heaven'''; for the sun is the servant of the Lord, and neither by night nor by day does he cease from his travelling. The place of his rising is over the sea, and the people who dwell there, when he is about to rise, flee away and hide themselves in the sea, that they be not burnt by his rays; and he passes through the midst of the heavens to the place where he enters the window of heaven; and wherever he passes there are terrible mountains, and those who dwell there have caves hollowed out in the rocks, and '''as soon as they see the sun passing [over them], men and birds flee away from before him and hide in the caves''', for rocks are rent by his blazing heat and fall down, and whether they be men or beasts, as soon as the stones touch them they are consumed. And when the sun enters the window of heaven, he straightway bows down and makes obeisance before God his Greater; and he travels and descends the whole night through the heavens, until at length he finds himself where he rises. <ref name="Budge"/>}}

==Older Elements in the Story==

The parallels between the Syriac Legend and the Qur'an detailed above are very striking. There are in fact elements to the story pre-dating both the Qur'an and Syriac legend by many centuries, including folklore found in earlier Christian and Jewish writings. Parallels to the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh and the Biblical story of Gog and Magog can be clearly identified in the story as well. Both van Bladel<ref name="VanBladel"/> and Tommaso Tesei mention some of these in their work on the topic.<ref name="Tesei2013" />

Tesei notes that Czeglédy has argued convincingly that a 6th century ex-eventu prophecy recorded by John of Ephesus (d. 586 CE) about the invasion of the Sabir Huns in 514-15 CE was incorporated into the Syriac legend as its first, ex-eventu prophecy of invasion by Gog and Magog (distinct from the second ex-eventu prophecy about the Khazars around 627 CE, which extends into a failed prognostication by the author, crucial to its final dating).<ref name="Tesei2013" /> It is, then, possible that this is another element that could have formed part of a common source shared by the Syriac legend and Qur'anic story. However, Tesei notes that evidence is lacking to link at that earlier time the prophecy with the tales of Gog and Magog behind Alexander's wall, which were also in circulation in the 6th century, nor yet with the other elements forming the shared sequence between the Syriac and Qur'anic stories.

==Dating the Syriac Legend==

Representing the old prevailing view, Gerrit J. Reinink, a Near East philogist and scholar writing in the 1990s/early 2000s, influencially dated the legend to 629-630 CE as a piece of pro-Byzantine propaganda, its purpose probably being to win the separated Syrian Monophysite Christians back to a union with the church at Constantinople. In his view, it was composed by a Mesopotamian Christian probably in Amida or Edessa, shortly after 628 CE following the victory of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius over the Sasanian king Khusrau Parvez.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://books.google.com/books?id=PtxOXRlPMA0C|title= Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources|publisher= BRILL|author= Ed. Emeri J. van Donzel, Andrea Barbara Schmidt|page= 18|date= 2010|archiveurl= |deadurl=no}}</ref> Reinink's view and the general topic of the Syriac Legend's relationship with the Quran saw a revival thanks to Kevin van Bladel's 2007 paper, which too was influential for the next decade.<ref name="VanBladel"/>

Van Bladel agreed with Reinink's dating, and argued that the Syriac Legend was a direct source for the Quranic account.<ref name="VanBladel"/> In his early work on the topic, Tommaso Tesei concurred with van Bladel's thesis, though allowed for the possibility that they shared a common source.<ref name="Tesei2013">Tommaso Tesei (2013) [https://www.academia.edu/10863446/  The Prophecy of Dhu-l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83-102) and the Origins of the Qurʾānic Corpus] Miscellanea arabica 2013–2014: 273-90</ref> He argued that, while the final part of the legend concerns Alexander's battles with the Persian king and is an allegory of the bloody conflict between Byzantines and Sasanids with a propaganda purpose to glorify Heraclius (important in dating its final redaction), it is clear that in the rest of the story, there are indeed multiple streams of earlier elements (see sections above), which it shares with the Qur'an. Crucially, these appear in the same order in both versions. Tesei argued that while this sequencing could go back to a common source, he found it more plausible that the Syriac legend originated the particular composition, agreeing with van Bladel's argument that Alexander's journeys are intended to form the shape of a cross, and adding his own hypothesis that the story originally involved a failed attempt to reach paradise, removed in order to better glorify Heraclius (note that Tesei later revised some of his earlier views and now dates the Syriac Legend to the 6th century; see the next subsection below).

Stephen Shoemaker has discussed the arguments of Reinink, van Bladel and Tesei's early writings on the topic, but argues that "it would appear that in its current form the Legend almost certainly updates an older version of the Legend that was composed in the early sixth century". In his view the hypothetical earlier version would incorporate the main elements of the story up to the first ex-eventu prophecy of the 514-515 CE Sabir Hun invasion mentioned above, which was circulating in the sixth century. Shoemaker states that "a clear majority" of scholars take this view, though (writing in 2018) Renink's view that the Legend represents a new composition of the 7th century "presently enjoys relative acceptance". Shoemaker notes that unlike Reinink, van Bladel at least attempts to explain the presence of the first prophecy, which holds no importance to the narrative (van Bladel suggests that it served as a verification for 7th century listeners to trust the later prophecies), though like Tesei, he is unconvinced in light of Czeglédy's findings mentioned above. For this and reasons of timing, he finds it most likely that the Quran depends on a 6th rather than 7th century version of the Legend.<ref>Stephen J. Shoemaker, [https://www.google.de/books/edition/The_Apocalypse_of_Empire/w9FwDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA79&printsec=frontcover The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam], University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018, pp. 79-86</ref>

===Strong shift towards a 6th century dating===

====Tommaso Tesei's revised analysis====

 

Firstly, the author of the Neṣḥānā has detailed geographical knowledge of the regions of Roman Armenia and its political matters in the 6th century, including the raiding of the area by the Sabir Huns at that time (Alexander's first prophecy, about the year 826 AG / 515 CE).<ref>Ibid. pp. 17-20</ref> Tesei argues that the 2nd prophecy about the year 940 AG / 629 CE must be missing some words, as grammatically, it doesn't make sense, and in any plausible reconstruction cannot be about glorifying Heraclius (it was, after all, his Kok Turkic allies who invaded), but rather is an interpolation representing the redactor's hopes that these Huns (who invaded in 629 CE) and the Persians will destroy each other. He further argues that the 826 AG / 515 CE prophecy immediately preceding it makes most sense if composed in a 6th century setting in which there were repeated Sabir Hun invasions, since the text mentions a flaw in Alexander's wall - it is secured to the ground with bolts that have gaps large enough for tunnelling footsoldiers to pass through. This feature, Tesei argues, undermines van Bladel's belief that the entire text was the work of a single author around 629-630 CE, occasioned by Heraclius' victory over the Sassinids. Van Bladel has argued that the fulfilled 515 CE prophecy was included merely to lend credence to the 2nd genuine prognostication. As Tesei points out, invasions due to Alexander's flawed defensive wall a century earlier and which played no role in the eschatological drama would be a highly dysfunctional choice to lend credence to Alexander's 2nd prophecy.<ref>Ibid. pp. 30-40</ref>

A major indication of a 6th century context for the Neṣḥānā is Alexander's negotiation with Tubarlaq, King of the Persians after defeating him. Alexander extracts peace terms including tribute, and having done so, then agrees to military and financial cooperation in defending the Caucasus passes against Hunnic invasion. Tesei argues that this reflects popular concerns, apparent in various 6th century Byzantine writers who sought to assuage them, regarding the deals their own side had made with the Sassanids, as well as the latter's unreasonable demands about sharing security costs. These writers, and their own side's negotiators, had been anxious that peace payments to the Persians should not be perceived as tribute. The Byzantines had also resisted any linking of such payments to demands to share the financial or military cost of defending the Caucasus passes. In the Neṣḥānā, Alexander's cooperative agreement reflects the kind of non extortive, mutual assistance pacts these writers claimed had supposedly occurred in the past between the two empires. It ceased to be a hot topic and was never raised again with the Fifty Year Peace deal of 562 CE in which the Sassanid demands were dropped as they agreed to secure the Caucasus themselves and the Byzantines to never invade.<ref>Ibid. pp. 52, 57-59</ref>

Yet another specifically mid 6th century context in the Neṣḥānā is identified by Tesei in the otherwise puzzlingly detailed role of the Egyptian blacksmiths. Details of the story serve to justify Byzantine rule over Lazica, close to the Caucasian passes: Both were said to be of Egyptian origin and became vassals to the Neṣḥānā's Alexander/the Byzantine empire without paying tribute but only customs duties. The Neṣḥānā's blacksmiths provide 7,000 men to help Alexander, the same number that Justinian sent to aid the Lazis in their 547 CE anti-Persian uprising. The Lazis were also seen as useful non-Persian allies to defend the Caucusus from the Huns. These mid 6th century political concerns are given a historic parallel in the Neṣḥānā's story of Alexander.<ref>Ibid. 59-67</ref>

The rest of Tesei's book argues that various aspects of the Alexander-Tubarlaq story in the Neṣḥānā do not fit an early 7th century Heraclius context, but rather reflect the writer's criticisms of Justinian's agreements with the Sassanids, while also mocking the latter through the character of Tubarlaq. The story also served to counter specific propaganda from the Syriac Christian leadership, particularly Mar Aba, who interpreted sacred history in ways favourable to their Sassanid rulers. Ultimately, the Neṣḥānā's prophecies aim to raise hopes among Syriac Christians that universal rule will transfer to the Romans in the eschatological grand scheme of things.

====Muriel Debie's analysis====

The "they" in question is often identified as Jews, or sometimes generally as the [[People of the Book|People of the Book]], living near Mecca who use the question as a test of Muhammad's prophet-hood. Academic scholars in contrast tend to notice that the stories which appear in surah al-Kahf have a Christian background.