Zulqarnain Meaning

ẔŪ ʾL-QARNAIN (ذو القرنين‎). Lit. “He of the two horns.” A celebrated personage mentioned in the 18th chapter of the Qurʾān, who is generally considered to be Alexander the Great, although Muslim writers hold him to have been contemporary with Abraham.

Al-Qast̤alānī, the commentator on al-Buk͟hārī, says: “Ẕū ʾl-qarnain was a king named Sakandar, whose wazīr, or chancellor, was K͟hiẓr [AL-KHIZR], and was contemporary with Abraham, the Friend of God, with whom he visited the Kaʿbah at Makkah. There is some difference of opinion as to his being a prophet, but all learned men are agreed that he was a man of faith and piety.”

Al-Baiẓāwī says: “He was Sakandar ar-Rūmī, King of Persia and Greece.”

Al-Kamālain say: “He was Sakandar ar-Rūmī, but was contemporary with Abraham, and not the Sakandar who lived about three hundred years before Christ, who was an infidel.”

Muḥammad, in his Qurʾān, whilst professing to give an inspired account of Ẕū ʾl-qarnain, supplies us with but a confused description, as follows:—

“They will ask thee of Ẕūʾl-qarnain. Say: I will recite to you an account of him. Verily We (God) established his power upon the earth, and We gave him a means to accomplish every end; so he followed his way, until when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it to set in a miry fount; and hard by he found a people. We (God) said, ‘O Ẕūʾl-qarnain! whether thou chastise or whether thou treat them generously’—‘As for him who is impious,’ he said, ‘we will chastise him;’ then shall he be taken back to his Lord, and He will chastise him with a grievous chastisement. But as to him who believeth, and doeth that which is right, he shall have a generous recompense, and We will lay on them our easy behests. Then followed he a route, until when he reached the rising of the sun, he found it to rise on a people to whom We had given no shelter from it. Thus it was. And We had a full knowledge of the forces that were with him. Then followed he a route, until he came between the two mountains, beneath which he found a people who scarce understood a language. They said, ‘O Ẕūʾl-qarnain! Verily Gog and Magog (i.e. the barbarous people of Eastern Asia) waste this land; shall we then pay thee tribute, so thou build a rampart between us and them?’ He said, ‘Better [718]than your tribute is the might wherewith my Lord hath strengthened me; but help me strenuously, and I will set a barrier between you and them. Bring me blocks of iron’—until when it filled the space between the mountain sides; ‘Blow,’ said he, ‘upon it’—until when he had set it on fire he said, ‘Bring me molten brass that I may pour upon it.’ And Gog and Magog were not able to scale it, neither were they able to dig through it. ‘This,’ said he, ‘is a mercy from my Lord.’ ” (Qurʾān, Sūrah xviii. 82–96.)

There are different opinions as to the reason of the surname, “two-horned.” Some think it was given him because he was King of the East and of the West, or because he had made expeditions to both those extreme parts of the earth; or else because he had two horns on his diadem, or two curls of hair, like horns, on his forehead. Perhaps there is some allusion to the he-goat of Daniel, although he is represented with but one horn. (Dan. viii. 5.)