Travels with Alexander the Great

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Alexander as “superhuman protector of civilization”

Alexander, known as Dhu al-Qarnayn (the two-horned one) in the Qur’ān, building an Iron Wall
with the help of jinn (demons), to keep the barbarian Gog and Magog from civilised peoples
(16th century Persian miniature).

"With God’s help he was to build a barrier that should shut off the apocalyptic nations until the time fixed by God Himself.
Only at God’s signal could they get loose and ravage the earth before they would be finally destroyed."

Blogger Klingschor writes:

Ancient legends pertaining to Gog and Magog (as related in the Bible) and ancient ahistorical stories pertaining to Alexander the Great’s iron barrier in the Caucasus (as noted by Pliny the Elder) became interwoven into a single myth (according to Flavius Josephus): Alexander the Great built a giant barrier of iron in the Caucasus to imprison Gog and Magog. The Hun Invasions in the 4th Century CE inspired the narrative further, wherein it was said that Gog and Magog will be imprisoned behind Alexander’s barrier until Judgement Day.

This story was further elaborated in the Alexander Romance (first compiled by Pseudo-Callisthenes in the 3rd  Century CE and further redacted many times in many different languages over the following centuries), and by the 7th Century CE (the time of the formative years of Islām) it attained the following form (as culminated in the Syriac Alexander Legend): Alexander the Great was a God-Fearing Monotheist who travelled to the ends of the earth and encountered foetid water at one and people living in fear of the rising sun at the other; in Central Asia between two mountain-barriers he built a gigantic wall of iron and brass to imprison the evil nations of Gog and Magog that will last until Judgement Day, whereupon Gog and Magog will break free and wreak havoc upon the world.

Furthermore, Alexander the Great was always depicted with ram’s horns in Antiquity and was known throughout the ancient world by the epithet of the ‘Two-Horned One’ – the Syriac Alexander Legend even describes him with literal horns.
This ahistorical narrative of Alexander the Great (well known throughout the ancient Middle East and even the Arabian Peninsula) was subsequently incorporated into the Qur’ān, where Dhū al-Qarnayn (the Two-Horned One) travels to the ends of the earth (encountering a murky body of water and people beset by the rising sun, respectively) before building a giant wall of iron and brass between two barriers to imprison Gog and Magog until Judgement Day.

Read complete article here:

http://klingschor.blogspot.com/2011/08/alexander-great-dhu-al-qarnayn-quran.html

Postscript

The name Alexander is derived from the Greek "Αλέξανδρος" (Aléxandros), meaning "defending men" or "protector of men", a compound of the verb "ἀλέξω" (alexō), "to ward off, to avert, to defend" and the noun "ἀνδρός" (andros), genitive of "ἀνήρ" (anēr), "man".

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Alexander (Iskandar) building the brazen wall against the people of Gog and Magog.
Painted on paper. Probably from a Khamseh of Nizami manuscript.

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The building of Alexander's Gates from an early Arabic manuscript.

The kingdoms of Gog and Magog appear in many early maps of Asia and the World produced between about 1200 to 1750.
But who exactly were Gog and Magog and where did this terrifying empire have its lands?

Learn more here:

http://www.geographicus.com/blog/rare-and-antique-maps/gog-and-magog-in-antique-maps/

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http://themalaysianreader.com/tag/muhammad-alexander/

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Marco Polo and Muslim explorers
search for Alexander's Gate

Marco Polo

Several historical figures, both Muslim and Christian, searched for Alexander's Gate and several different identifications were made with actual walls. During the Middle Ages, the Gates of Alexander story was included in travel literature such as the Travels of Marco Polo (1254–1324 AD) and the Travels of Sir John Mandeville. The Alexander romance identified the Gates of Alexander, variously, with the Pass of Dariel, the Pass of Derbent, the Great Wall of Gorgan and even the Great Wall of China. In the legend's original form, Alexander's Gates are located at the Pass of Dariel. In later versions of the Christian legends, dated to around the time of Emperor Heraclius (575-641 AD), the Gates are instead located in Derbent, a city situated on a narrow strip of land between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus mountains, where an ancient Sassanid fortification was mistakenly identified with the wall built by Alexander.

In the Travels of Marco Polo, the wall in Derbent is identified with the Gates of Alexander. The Gates of Alexander are most commonly identified with the Caspian Gates of Derbent whose thirty north-looking towers used to stretch for forty kilometers between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains, effectively blocking the passage across the Caucasus. Later historians would regard these legends as false:

The gate itself had wandered from the Caspian Gates to the pass of Dariel, from the pass of Dariel to the pass of Derbend [Derbent], as well as to the far north; nay, it had travelled even as far as remote eastern or north-eastern Asia, gathering in strength and increasing in size as it went, and actually carrying the mountains of Caspia with it. Then, as the full light of modern day come on, the Alexander Romance ceased to be regarded as history, and with it Alexander's Gate passed into the realm of fairyland.

In the Muslim world, several expeditions were undertaken to try to find and study Alexanders's wall, specifically the Caspian Gates of Derbent. An early expedition to Derbent was ordered by the Caliph Umar (586–644 AD) himself, during the Arab conquest of Armenia where they heard about Alexander's Wall in Derbent from the conquered Christian Armenians. Two hundred years later, the Abbasid Caliph Al-Wathiq dispatched an expedition to study the wall of Dhul-Qarnain in Derbent, Russia which reached the Caspian. From there they arrived at Derbent and saw the wall [of Dhul-Qarnayn.

Not all Muslim travelers and scholars, however, associated Dhul-Qarnayn's wall with the Caspian Gates of Derbent. For example, the Muslim explorer Ibn Battuta (1304–1369 AD) traveled to China on order of the Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq and he comments in his travel log that "Between it [the city of Zaitun in Fujian] and the rampart of Yajuj and Majuj [Gog and Magog] is sixty days' travel." The translator of the travel log notes that Ibn Battuta confused the Great Wall of China with that supposedly built by Dhul-Qarnayn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great_in_the_Quran#Alexander.27s_Wall

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The Great Wall of Gorgan (also known as Alexander’s Wall or the Red Snake) was one of the structures thought in medieval times to be Alexander’s defense against the barbaric forces of Gog and Magog. The wall is a series of ancient defensive fortifications located near Gorgan in the Golestān Province of northeastern Iran, at the southeastern part of the Caspian Sea.

The wall is located at a geographic narrowing between the Caspian Sea and the mountains of northeastern Iran, one of several Caspian Gates at the eastern part of a region known in antiquity as Hyrcania, on the nomadic route from the northern steppes to the Iranian heartland. It is believed to have protected the Sassanian Empire to the south from the peoples to the north It is 195 kilometres long and 6 to 10 metres wide, and features over 30 fortresses spaced at intervals of between 10 and 50 kilometres. It is surpassed only by the Great Wall of China as the longest defensive wall in existence.

It is possible - but not proven - that during the Persian period, a wall was built to defend Hyrcania against the nomads of the Central Asian steppe and that the wall that exists today replaced a Persian defense work.

More information here:

http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/The_Red_Snake_The_Great_Wall_of_Gorgan.htm
http://www.world-archaeology.com/features/great-wall-of-gorgan-revealing-one-of-the-worlds-greatest-frontier-walls/

Ride along the Red Snake with Michael Wood as he retraces the footsteps of Alexander.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dogb-tUAuc

http://www.britishmuseum.org/channel/events/2011/audio_lukonin_lecture_2011.aspx

http://medlem.spray.se/davidgorgan/History.html

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When I was Alexander

Argentine writer, essayist, poet Jorges Luis Borges recalls the subject of a poem “The Clipped Stater”  dedicated to T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) by Robert Graves as the latter lay dying in Majorca.

“Alexander did not die in Babylon at the age of thirty-two. After a battle he became lost and for many nights makes his way through the wilderness. Finally he descries the campfires of a bivouac. Yellow, slant-eyed men take him in, succor him, and finally enlist him in their army. Faithful to his lot as a soldier, he serves in long campaigns across deserts which form part of a geography unknown to him. A day arrives in which the troop is paid off. He recognises his own profile on a silver coin and says to himself: This is from the medal I had struck to celebrate the victory of Arbela when I was Alexander of Macedon.

This fable deserves to be very ancient.”

(From “Robert Graves at Deya”, The New York Review of Books, August 15, 1985)

http://sopapia.livejournal.com/19002.html

http://open.salon.com/blog/kimhunterg/2010/09/15/robert_graves_alexander_borges_paraphrased

NOTE:

Coin debasement is the act of decreasing the amount of precious metal in a coin, while continuing to circulate it at face value. This was frequently done by governments in order to inflate the amount of currency in circulation; typically, some of the precious metal was replaced by a cheaper metal when the coin was minted. But when done by an individual, precious metal was physically removed from the coin; which could then be passed on at the original face value, leaving the debaser with a profit. Coin debasement was effected by several methods, including clipping (shaving metal from the coin's circumference) and sweating (shaking the coins in a bag and collecting the dust worn off).

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Meet the Lacedaemonians

Alexander sends the spoils of victory to Athens after his victory at Granicus
excluding the Spartans from the victory announcement.

Alexander had a fractious relationship with the Spartans (known as Lacedaemonians) who had never fully recovered from the losses suffered at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC and the subsequent helot revolts. Nonetheless, Sparta was able to continue as a regional power and neither Philip II nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to conquer Sparta itself.

During Alexander's campaigns in the east, the Spartan king, Agis III sent a force to Crete in 333 BC with the aim of securing the island for Sparta. Agis next took command of allied Greek forces against Macedon, gaining early successes, before laying siege to Megalopolis in 331 BC. A large Macedonian army under general Antipater marched to its relief and defeated the Spartan-led force in a pitched battle. More than 5,300 Spartans including Agis and their allies were killed in battle, and 3,500 of Antipater's troops. Alexander was merciful, and he only forced the Spartans to join the League of Corinth, which they had previously refused to join.

Even during its decline, Sparta never forgot its claims of being the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic wit. An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying "If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta", the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply: "If."

Shortly after his victory at Granicus (334 B.C.), Alexander the Great sent the spoils to Athens, with this inscription:

"Alexander son of Philip, and the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians, from the barbarians that inhabit Asia."

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Alexander son of Philip, and the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians

Constantine P. Cavafy (1931)

We can very well imagine
that they were utterly indifferent in Sparta
to this inscription. "Except the Lacedaemonians",
but naturally. The Spartans were not
to be led and ordered about
as precious servants. Besides
a panhellenic campaign without
a Spartan king as a leader
would not have appeared very important.
O, of course "except the Lacedaemonians."

This too is a stand. Understandable.

Thus, except the Lacedaemonians at Granicus;
and then at Issus; and in the final
battle, where the formidable army was swept away
that the Persians had massed at Arbela:
which had set out from Arbela for victory, and was swept away.

And out of the remarkable panhellenic campaign,
victorious, brilliant,
celebrated, glorious
as no other had ever been glorified,
the incomparable: we emerged;
a great new Greek world.

We; the Alexandrians, the Antiocheans,
the Seleucians, and the numerous
rest of the Greeks of Egypt and Syria,
and of Media, and Persia, and the many others.
With our extensive territories,
with the varied action of thoughtful adaptations.
And the Common Greek Language
we carried to the heart of Bactria, to the Indians.

As if we were to talk of Lacedaemonians now!

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