Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance: Difference between revisions

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 When Alexander the Great died on June 10, 323 BC, legends about his life arised soon after. The first collections of the so-called Alexander Romance were written in Greek can be dated to the 3<sup>rd</sup> century. Later versions were written in many languages including Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Serbian, Slavonic, Romanian, Hungarian, German, English, Italian, and French. Farther east, a late Mongol version is also extant.
-Within an early 7<sup>th</sup> century version of the Alexander Romance, we have the famous Christian Legend about Alexander. It has been known since 1890 thanks to Theodore Nöldeke that there is a very close similarity between the account in the Qur’an of Dhu’l Qarnayn and this Alexander Legend. It was written in Syriac, probably around 630 AD, but incorporates older traditions such as that of the iron gate built by Alexander dating to at least the time of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the 1<sup>st</sup> century AD<ref>Van Bladel, Kevin, “The Alexander legend in the Qur‘an 18:83-102″, In The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context, Ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds, p.181, New York: Routledge, 2007(See Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book VII, Chapter VII, Verse 4)</ref> and journeys to the rising and setting place of the sun from the Epic of Gilgamesh.<ref>Van Bladel 2007 op. cit. p.176 & p.197, note 6
+Within an early 7<sup>th</sup> century version of the Alexander Romance, we have the famous Syriac legend about Alexander. It has been known since 1890 thanks to Theodore Nöldeke that there is a very close similarity between the account in the Qur’an of Dhu’l Qarnayn and this Alexander Legend. It was written in Syriac, probably around 630 AD, but incorporates older traditions such as that of the iron gate built by Alexander dating to at least the time of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the 1<sup>st</sup> century AD<ref>Van Bladel, Kevin, “The Alexander legend in the Qur‘an 18:83-102″, In The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context, Ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds, p.181, New York: Routledge, 2007(See Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book VII, Chapter VII, Verse 4)</ref> and journeys to the rising and setting place of the sun from the Epic of Gilgamesh.<ref>Van Bladel 2007 op. cit. p.176 & p.197, note 6
 See  [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab9.htm The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet IX] - ancienttexts.org