In the name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficent
They will ask you about Thul-Qarnain. Say: "I will give you an account of him. We established his power on Earth, and gave him means to achieve anything.
(The Cave, "Al-Kahf," 18: 83-84)
These two short verses begin the final passage of the Surah, which is concerned mainly with Thul-Qarnain and his three journeys, to the east, west and the central areas, as well as his erection of a strong barrier to stop Gog and Magog getting through. The Surah tells us that after he had erected the barrier, Thul-Qarnain said: "This is a mercy from my Lord. Yet when the time appointed by my Lord shall come, He will make this (rampart) level with the ground. My Lord’s promise always comes true." The reference to the "true promise" is followed with the blowing of the trumpet and a scene of the resurrection before the Surah is concluded with three short sections, each of which starts with the command, "Say." These three sections sum up all the main topics of the Surah and follow its drift. They serve as the final strong beats of a flowing tune.
The story of Thul-Qarnain begins as follows: "They ask you about Thul Qarnain. Say: ‘I will give you an account of him. We established his power on Earth, and gave him means to achieve anything." Speaking about the reasons that led to the revelation of this Surah, Muhammad ibn Isshaq mentions a report attributed to Ibn Abbas, the Prophet’s cousin and companion. The report mentions that Quraish sent An-Nadhr ibn Al-Harith and Uqbah ibn Abu Muait to ask the Jewish rabbis in Madinah about Muhammad, outlining for them their terms of reference.
The Quraish elders told the two men to describe Muhammad in detail to the Jewish rabbis and to report to them truthfully what he advocated. "The Jews," said the Quraish elders, "are the people of early scriptures and they have a wealth of knowledge about prophets which is not available to us."
In Madinah the two Quraish men put their questions to the rabbis and solicited their honest opinion about Muhammad. The rabbis told them to ask Muhammad three questions. "If he gives you satisfactory answers, then he is a prophet and messenger of God. If he has no answer to give, then he is fabricating whatever he says. You may do what you like with him. Ask him about a group of young people who had a strange story in ancient times, and let him tell you what happened to them. Ask him also about a man who travelled all over the place and went to the far east and far west. The third question you should ask him is to tell you about the spirit."
An-Nadhr and Uqbah travelled back to Makkah and told their tribesmen that they brought the answer to their problem with Muhammad. When they told them of the advice of the Jewish rabbis, they went to the Prophet and put the three questions to him.
The Prophet told them that he would answer them the following day. Apparently he did not qualify the promise by saying, "God willing," as he should have done and as Muslims should always do. As a result nothing was revealed to him for 15 days, nor did the angel Gabriel meet him in this period.
The people of Makkah began to spread a fresh propaganda campaign, saying: "Muhammad has promised to give us an answer on the morrow, and now it has been 15 days since we asked him, without him giving us any reply to any of our questions."
The Prophet was very sad at this delay of revelations and he was much distressed by what the people of Makkah said about him. Then the angel Gabriel came down with the revelation of this Surah, The Cave, which tells him in its early verses not to grieve too much for his people if they refuse to listen to him. It then proceeds to answer the questions put to him, relating the stories of the young men and the traveller of old times. He also gave the Prophet the answer to the third question about the spirit, which occurs in Surah 17, The Night Journey.
Another report by Ibn Abbas tells of the reason for the revelation of the verse giving the reply to the question about the spirit. This mentions that the Jews themselves put the question to the Prophet: "Tell us about the spirit, and how the spirit inside the body can be tortured, when the spirit belongs to God?" As nothing about the spirit had been revealed to him, he could not answer them. Gabriel then came down to him with the verse stating: "Say: (knowledge of) the spirit belongs to my Lord. You have been given but scanty knowledge." (17: 85)
Since there are several reports about the immediate reason of the revelation of the Surah, we prefer to confine ourselves to the Qur’anic text, which provides us with true and accurate information. On the basis of this text we realize that a question was asked about Thul-Qarnain, but we do not know for certain who put that question. Knowing the questioner will not add anything about the import of the story. So, let us discuss the text as it is without reference to any additional report.
The Qur’anic text does not mention anything about the personality of Thul-Qarnain or where and when he lived. This is typical of Qur’anic stories. The intention is not to provide history accounts, but to learn the lessons that may be derived from the stories mentioned. In most cases, these lessons can be drawn without need to define time and place.
Documented history does not include anything about a king called Iskandar, or Alexander Thul-Qarnain. It is also certain that the person to whom the Qur’an refers by the name Thul-Qarnain is not the Greek king, Alexander, for he was a pagan worshipping idols, while the Qur’an speaks about someone who believed in God’s oneness and in resurrection and the life to come. In his book, Al-Aathar Al-Baqiyah ‘an al-Qoroon Al-Khaliyah, Al-Bairooni mentions that Thul-Qarnain, about whom the Qur’an gives us this account, was a king of Himyar in Yemen. This is based on the fact that his name begins with "Thu", which is typical of Himyari kings. His actual name was Abu Bakr ibn Afreeqish. He traveled at the head of his army along the southern Mediterranean coast, passing through Tunisia and Morocco and building the town of Afriqiya. Thus the whole continent was named after him. He was nicknamed Thul-Qarnain because he reached as far as the two furthest points in relation to the sun.
This view may be correct, but we have no means of verifying it. It is not possible to undertake a research based on documented history with the aim of establishing the real personality of Thul-Qarnain of whose history the Qur’an gives us a glimpse. The same applies to most historical accounts given in the Qur’an, such as those concerning the people of Noah, Hood, Thamood, etc. History itself is only a recent addition, compared to the length of human life on earth. Great events took place in the periods preceding what history reports, and these remain unknown to historians. Hence, we cannot refer to them for answers.
Had the Torah remained intact, without distortion or addition, it would have been a reliable source of information concerning some of these events. But the Torah has been mixed with legends that have, without doubt, no foundation. It has been infused with reports that have been, most certainly, added to the original text revealed by God. Hence, the Torah cannot be treated as a reliable source of the historical accounts it contains. Thus, the only source left for us is the Qur’an, since God has guaranteed its preservation in its original form and its protection against any distortion. It is indeed the only source for its history accounts.
Needless to say, it is wrong to try to evaluate the Qur’an with reference to history. There are two obvious reasons for that. The first is the fact that history is a recent creation which has missed countless events of the history of mankind. The Qur’an tells us some of these events which remain totally unknown to history and historians. Secondly, even though history may record some of these events, it remains the product of human beings. Thus, it suffers from the shortcomings of human actions, such as imperfection, mistakes, distortion, etc. In our own time, when means of communication and facilities of verification have become available in plenty, we find the same piece of news or the same incident reported in a variety of ways, each looking at it from a particular angle, and giving it a different interpretation.
It is out of such heaps of confusion that history accounts are made, regardless of what may be said about research and verification.
Hence, whatever is said about referring to history in order to evaluate the accounts given in the Qur’an cannot be admitted on the basis of scientific rules adopted by people, let alone by Islam which states clearly that the Qur’an is the final arbiter. Such reference to history cannot be advocated by a believer in the Qur’an or in scientific research. It is no more than useless polemics.