Historical Deviation: Iskandar Zulqarnain Vs Alexander the Conqueror

In many occasion, we heard about Iskandar Zulqarnain story which according some people was a same person with Alexander the Conqueror, son of Philip XI the King of Macedonia; the king who’s believes with many gods in his religion. So, why this person became a famous Iskandar Zulqarnain who’s his story written in Alqur’an?

The great Iskandar Zulqarnain is truly different with Alexander the Conqueror. From Alqur’an, we knew if Zulqarnain is a great leader and trust in One God. The Zulqarnain story inside Alqur’an written in Alkahf 83-99 which the meaning of some of them are:

“Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water; near it he found a people: We said: ”O Zulqarnain! (thou hast authority), either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness”. (86).

Until, when he reached (a tract) between two mountains, he found, beneath them, a people who scarcely understood a word”. (93).

“Bring me blocks of iron”. At length, when he had filled up the space between the two step mountain-sides, He said: “Blow (with your bellows)” then, when he had made it (red) as fire, he said: “Bring me that I may pour over it, molten lead”. (96).

“Thus were they (Ya’juj and Ma’juj) made powerless to scale it or to dig through it”. (97).

Many historian and archeologists also found many proofs of ancient great wall older than Chinese great wall, which also much older than Alexander the Conqueror’s era.

The differentiation between Iskandar Zulqarnain and Alexander the Conqueror are:

(I) Alexander is: (1) he believes with many gods, (2) he is homosexual, (3) colonialist occupy another land with murder and war (come, destroy, and steal the resources), (4) didn’t build great wall to separate and protecting the borderline.

(II) Zulqarnain is: (1) he believes with one God, (2) he get revelation, (3) make conquest and deal with people didn’t steal the resources, (4) build the great wall to protecting borderline from bad habit people’s attack from outside.

That’s why we should differentiate these two personalities. Zulqarnain is different from Alexander.

By the way, because of many aspects, there are still many versions about Zulqarnain in Islam. Some experts said if he was Kuros or Cyrus, the Persian King cr. 300 years before Alexander era, or another King who’s older than that. If we follow this analyze we will get the roll story: when this Persian King make a trip and explores the land, he build great wall to protects the borderline form un-civilized people’s attack from outside the borderline which their hobbies are killing and attacking another country (perhaps Macedonia and their family counties). When he makes the wall rounded from west to east, he left some people outside the wall who’s later called as Turk people (Turk mean left behind). This wall collapsed and destroyed by Alexander from Macedonia.

The second version was take a guess that Zulqarnain is one of Pharaoh’s sons who’s went out from Egypt moving away as the followers of Moses after he and his family accept Moses teaching. They moves out from Egypt make a journey and stay in china land (of course this part story is long and have many detail), but in the end, he was asked by Chinese to build wall to protect them from another country’s attack (perhaps Mongolian). From the ruins, experts’ belief if the construction was closely looks like same with Egypt base construction and also comparable with Alqur’an explanation. This also makes assumption and probability why papyrus (paper) develops and spread in china even with different method from Egypt process. This wall through many lands from west to east, leafing Turk at outside the wall, and Mongolian pointed and interpreted as Ya’juj and Ma’juj, this wall also as the plot and model for the latest great wall which still exist in this time.

So, all Muslim must left behind Alexander as Zulqarnain version, which absolutely wrong. Choose the best most proof able in Islamic version. Those two version (King of Persia and Pharaoh’s son) have some similarities: (1) the point figure prays and believes in One God, (2) use crown or nickname which expresses their authorities in two world (east and west, or sea and land); two horn (in Arabic = Zulqarnain), (3) great king and noble deed person, (4) both of them build wall to protect their border land from bad habits people’s attack.

Wallahu a’lam.

Articlesource: http://muslim.multiply.com/journal/item/1334/Historical_Deviation_Iskandar_Zulqarnain_Vs_Alexander_the_Conqueror