Global InformationQissat Dhulqarnayn information
The Qiṣṣat Dhī ʾl-Qarnayn (Qissat Dhulqarnayn, "Story of Dhulqarnayn") is a Hispano-Arabic legend of Alexander the Great preserved in two fourteenth-century manuscripts in Madrid and likely dates as a ninth-century Arabic translation of the Syriac Alexander Legend produced in Al-Andalus. In this respect, it is similar to the Hadīth Dhī ʾl-Qarnayn and is an example of the literary genre of Qisas al-Anbiya (Stories of the Prophets). It is to be distinguished from another text also known as the Qissat Dhulqarnayn found in the book of prophets by al-Tha'labi (d. 1036)[1][2] as well as the Qiṣṣat al-Iskandar, a text dating to the late eighth or early ninth century representing the earliest translation of the Alexander Romance into Arabic.[3] The Qissat depicts the travels of Alexander whom it identifies with the figure named Dhu al-Qarnayn ("The Two Horned One") in Surah al-Kahf of the Quran, referred to as Dhulqarnayn in the text (in Arabic-language Alexander traditions, Alexander was variously called "Dhu l-Qarnayn", "al-Iskandar Dhūl-qarnayn", or sometimes just "Dhūlqarnayn"[4]). The Qissat depicts Alexander (Dhulqarnayn) as a faithful believer and as a proto-Muslim who spreads monotheism through his conquests.[5] It combines elements of pre-Islamic Alexander legends in addition to novel traditions developed in the oral Arab-Islamic tradition. Using the Islamic citation method of isnad, the text prefaces each narrative episode with a chain of transmitters that root in one of Muhammad's companions. Its primary transmitters are given as Ka'b al-Ahbar, Ibn 'Abbas, Muqatil ibn Sulayman, 'Abd al-Malik al-Mashuni, and 'Abd al-Malik b. Zayd. An English translation of the Qissat Dhulqarnayn was first produced by David Zuwiyya in 2001.[6]
- ^ Dabiri, Ghazzal (2023-11-08), "Modelling Prophets: Alexander the Great as a Proto-Sufi Saint-King in Thaʿlabi's Lives of the Prophets", Narrative, Imagination and Concepts of Fiction in Late Antique Hagiography, Brill, pp. 253–282, doi:10.1163/9789004685758_013, ISBN 978-90-04-68575-8, retrieved 2024-03-13
- ^ Chism, Christine (2016). "Facing The Land Of Darkness: Alexander, Islam, And The Quest For The Secrets Of God". In Stock, Markus (ed.). Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages: transcultural perspectives. Toronto Buffalo London: University of Toronto Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-4426-4466-3.
- ^ Gaullier-Bougassas, Catherine; Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina (2022). "Alexander the Great in Medieval Literature". Literature: A World History, Volumes 1-4. Wiley. pp. 534–535.
- ^ C.W. Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina (2016). "A Hero Without Borders: 2 Alexander the Great in the Syriac and Arabic Tradition". In Cupane, Carolina; Krönung, Bettina (eds.). Fictional storytelling in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Brill's companions to the Byzantine world. Leiden Boston: Brill. p. 202. ISBN 978-90-04-28999-4.
- ^ Rubanovich, Julia (2022). "Telling a Different Story: Redeployment of the Narrative Alexander Tradition in a Medieval Persian Dāstān". Iranian Studies. 55 (4): 844. doi:10.1017/irn.2022.2. ISSN 0021-0862.
- ^ Zuwiyya, Zachary D., ed. (2001). Islamic legends concerning Alexander the Great: taken from two medieval Arabic manuscripts in Madrid. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press. ISBN 978-1-58684-132-4.