In the Qur'an, Surah 18 (Surah Al-Kahf, Surah of the Cave), verses 92 - 99 tell how Dhu'l-Qarnayn ("Two Horns") found a people in a distant land who said they would pay tribute to him tribute if he could protect them from the ravages of Gog and Magog. He tells them he doesn't need their tribute, but he will set up a barrier to keep out Gog and Magog. He instructs them to bring lumps of iron that they are to pile up in a gap between two mountains. Then he tells them to work the bellows and to pour molten metal over the iron. Dhu'l Qarnayn tells the people that the barrier will keep out Gog and Magog until the day the trumpet is blown, signaling the end of the world.
It's generally understood that Dhu'l-Qarnayn, or "Two Horns" is Alexander the Great, and that the iron barrier was a legendary gate he set up in a pass in the Caucasus Mountains to keep out the Scythians and Sarmatians (often identified with Gog and Magog). Alexander the Great had an epiphany at a shrine in Egypt that he was the human incarnation of Zeus-Ammon, a combination the kings of the Greek and Egyptian pantheons into one deity. Hence, in his profile on coins, he is shown as having ram's horns. A whole corpus of legends grew up around the character of Alexander the Great, one of which was his iron gate. So pervasive was that myth that Josephus referred to it as being real in his Wars of the Jews (Wars 7:7:4).
Of course, since the gate never existed in the first place, it certainly couldn't last until the end of the world. In order to rationalize what is essentially an ancient version of an urban legend, Muslim apologists have speculated that Dhu'l-Qarnayn was actually Cyrus the Great, rather than Alexander the Great and have even identified the barrier as the Great Wall of China (even though Surah 18 specifies the barrier as one of iron blocking a mountain pass, rather than a stone wall stretching thousands of miles).
I don't believe we have any Muslims on this forum; but I would be interested to know, from anyone knowledgeable about Islam how most Muslim's view this story. Do they consider it not literally true, but only symbolic, or doe they have some special rationalization to explain why Alexander's iron barrier in the Caucasus doesn't exist?
It's generally understood that Dhu'l-Qarnayn, or "Two Horns" is Alexander the Great, and that the iron barrier was a legendary gate he set up in a pass in the Caucasus Mountains to keep out the Scythians and Sarmatians (often identified with Gog and Magog). Alexander the Great had an epiphany at a shrine in Egypt that he was the human incarnation of Zeus-Ammon, a combination the kings of the Greek and Egyptian pantheons into one deity. Hence, in his profile on coins, he is shown as having ram's horns. A whole corpus of legends grew up around the character of Alexander the Great, one of which was his iron gate. So pervasive was that myth that Josephus referred to it as being real in his Wars of the Jews (Wars 7:7:4).
Of course, since the gate never existed in the first place, it certainly couldn't last until the end of the world. In order to rationalize what is essentially an ancient version of an urban legend, Muslim apologists have speculated that Dhu'l-Qarnayn was actually Cyrus the Great, rather than Alexander the Great and have even identified the barrier as the Great Wall of China (even though Surah 18 specifies the barrier as one of iron blocking a mountain pass, rather than a stone wall stretching thousands of miles).
I don't believe we have any Muslims on this forum; but I would be interested to know, from anyone knowledgeable about Islam how most Muslim's view this story. Do they consider it not literally true, but only symbolic, or doe they have some special rationalization to explain why Alexander's iron barrier in the Caucasus doesn't exist?
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=264936&goto=newpost
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