Theories about Alexander the Great in the Quran

The story of Dhu al-Qarnayn (in Arabic ذو القرنين, literally "The Two-Horned One"; also transliterated as Zul-Qarnain or Zulqarnain) is mentioned in Surah al-Kahf of the Quran.^[1] It has long been recognised in modern scholarship that the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn has strong similarities with the Syriac Legend of Alexander the Great.^[2] According to this legend, Alexander travelled to the ends of the world then built a wall in the Caucasus Mountains to keep Gog and Magog out of civilized lands (the latter element is found several centuries earlier in the works of Flavius Josephus).

Several argue that the form of this narrative in the Syriac Alexander Legend (known as the Neṣḥānā) dates to between 629 and 636 CE and so is not the source for the Quranic narrative,^[3] based on the view held by many Western^[4] and Muslim^[5][6] scholars that Surah 18 belongs to the second Meccan Period (615–619).^[7] The Syriac Legend of Alexander has however received a range of dates by different scholars, from a latest date of 630^[8] (close to Muhammad's death) to an earlier version inferred to have existed in the 6th century CE.^[9] Sidney Griffith argues that the simple storyline found in the Syriac Alexander Legend (and the slightly later metrical homily or Alexander poem) "would most likely have been current orally well before the composition of either of the Syriac texts in writing" and it is possible that it was this orally circulating version of the account which was recollected in the Islamic milieu.^[10] Many modern researchers of the Quran identify Dhu al-Qarnayn as Alexander the Great.^[10]