Alexander The Great in The Quran - Philological Evidence - Al-Khidir

Al-Khidir

Surah Al-Kahf has also been linked to the Alexander romance through a second story. The Qur'an verses 18:60–82, which immediately precede the story of Dhul-Qarnayn, mention the story of Al-Khidir and a fish that miraculously comes to life. It has been theorized that the Qur'an's story was influenced by the story of the Water of Life (Fountain of Youth) mentioned in Eastern versions of the Alexander romance.

In Islamic traditions, Al-Khidir (literally "the Green One," an enigmatic figure in Islam) is the maternal cousin of Alexander or Dhul-Qarnayn. The Qur'an's story is about Moses and Al-Khidir, though the classical Islamic scholars showed some disagreement over whether or not 'Moses' in this story is Moses of the Israelites. In the Qur'an's story, this Moses goes with a servant ( identified as Joshua in Hadith) to the "junction of the two seas". A certain fish (which they presumably had been carrying with them) "in an amazing way" makes its way to the sea. When the servant tells Moses this, they retrace their steps. They then meet one of God's servants (traditionally called Al-Khidir, although not named in the Qur'an) who puts Moses to a test of patience in which Moses must travel with Al-Khidir but not ask any questions. Al-Khidir cracks a hole in a vessel endangering its passengers, then he murders a boy, and then rebuilding a wall each time causing Moses to break his silence. Al-Khidir explains how each of his lawless acts was for a greater good and Moses fails the test of patience. The Qur'anic story is remarkably similar to Jewish folklore concerning Elijah. In the Jewish tale, Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asks to join the prophet Elijah in his wanderings. Elijah grants the Rabbi's wish on the condition that he refrain from asking any questions about any of the prophet’s actions. He agrees and they begin their journey. Elijah carries out "lawless" acts, like Al-Khidir in the Qur'an, and similarly the Rabbi breaks his silence and demands an explanation.

The story in the Qur'an is summarized in a hadith of Sahih Al-Bukhari:

Allah revealed to him : 'At the junction of the two seas there is a slave of Ours who is more learned than you. ' Moses asked, 'O my Lord, how can I meet him?' Allah said, 'Take a fish and put it in a basket (and set out), and where you, will lose the fish, you will find him.' So Moses (took a fish and put it in a basket and) set out, along with his boy-servant Yusha' bin Nun, till they reached a rock (on which) they both lay their heads and slept. The fish moved vigorously in the basket and got out of it and fell into the sea and there it took its way through the sea (straight) as in a tunnel.

The idea that the sources of these verses are found in the Alexander romance was first proposed by Mark Lidzbarski and Karl Duroff in 1892. In 1913 Israel Friedlander wrote a book on the subject titled`"The Al-Khidir Legend and the Alexander Romance." Early Persian and Ethiopic Muslim legends concerning Alexander made a similar connection between Al-Khidir and Alexander (see figure).

One similarity between the Qur'an story and the Alexander romance concerns the fish that miraculously comes to life. This motif is found in the Syriac sermon by Jacob of Serugh, where Alexander travels in search of the Water of Life (Fountain of Youth). A shorter version of the story in also found in the Greek β-recension of the Alexander romance. In the Syriac legend, Alexander finds a wise man who tells Alexander to take a salted fish and wash it in the fountains in the Land of Darkness, and if the fish comes to life then he will have found the Water of Life:

The king said, "I have heard that therein is the fountain of life, And I desire greatly to go forth and see if, of a truth, it is . The old man said, ... "Command thy cook take with him a salt fish, and wherever he sees a fountain of water let him wash the fish; And if it be that it comes to life in his hands when he washes it, That is the fountain of the water of life which thou askest for, O King."

Another similarity between the Al-Khidir legends and the Alexander romance is the Water of Life. Though the Qur'an does not mention the Fountain of Youth, it is alluded to in the hadith literature. Al-Khidir in the hadith literature is described as being immortal, having taught every prophet before Muhammad, and having the appearance of a young adult but having a long, white beard, and he is even described as being present at Muhammad's funeral:

... whether Khidr was still alive, was a more contentious issue. In the twelfth century a Hanbali scholar denied the continued existence of Khidr. The majority of scholars, on the other hand, affirmed Khidr’s eternal life and have continued to do so into the twentieth century. New Arabic texts on Khidr have appeared during the last twenty years of the twentieth century, the majority of which have rejected the idea of his eternal life as ‘unislamic’ without enlisting new arguments for their viewpoint though.

The story of Al-Khidir, in the Qur'an, does not mention Dhul-Qarnayn, rather only a figure called "Moses" is referred to by name. This would seem to shed doubt on the idea that the story is about Dhul-Qarnayn, as it appears to be a story about Moses of the Israelites. However, the early Islamic literature raises questions about whether the Moses mentioned in the story of the fish is the Moses of the Israelites, or someone entirely different:

Narrated Sa'id: Ibn 'Abbas said, "Ask me (any question)" I said, "O Abu Abbas! ... There is a man at Kufa who is a story-teller called Nauf; who claims that he (Al-Khadir's companion) is not Moses of Bani Israel ... Ibn 'Abbas said, "(Nauf) the enemy of Allah told a lie."

The story, in the Alexander romance and in the Qur'an, is considered by scholars to have been influenced by the Epic of Gilgamesh (specifically Giglamesh's search for the Water of Life ). Gilgamesh reaches the water but, like Alexander, fails to become immortal. Like Alexander, Giglamesh also comes to the spot at which the sun rises from the Earth:

The sources of the Khidir-story go back to mythological motifs appearing in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, in the Alexander romance and in Jewish legends centered around the mythical figure of Elijah. The story as it is told by the Qur'an interweaves several narrative motifs: the test of patience, the quest for the spring of life, and so on. The identification of the servant of god with al-Khidir is attested to in traditions from the Prophet, which may be the reason why it is rarely contested by Muslim commentators. There is less exegetical unanimity about whether the Moses mentioned here is the Egyptian Moses or not.

A peculiar aspect of the story in the Qur'an is that Al-Khidir is found at a distant place called the "junction of the two seas." This is believed by secular scholars to be a reference to the end of the World, where the sun rises from the outer Ocean sea. The "junction of the two seas" is mentioned in several places in the Qur'an:

He is the one who has let free the two bodies of flowing water, one sweet and palatable, and the other salty and bitter. And He has made between them a barrier and a forbidding partition. (Qur'an 25:53)

This has been compared to the ancient Akkadian myth of the Abzu, the name for a fresh water underground sea that was given a religious quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the Abzu underground sea, while the Ocean that surrounded the world was a saltwater sea. This underground sea is called Tehom in the Hebrew Bible. For example, Genesis 49:25 says, "blessings of the heavens above, and Tehom lying beneath". Wensinck explains, "Thus it appears that the idea of there being a sea of sweet water under our earth, the ancient Tehom, which is the source of springs and rivers, is common to the Western Semites". The Abzu freshwater sea was also depicted as a deity in the Babylonian creation myth, the Enûma Elish, where he was a primal being made of fresh water and a lover to another primal deity, Tiamat, who was a creature of salt water. The Enuma Elish begins:

When above the heavens did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsu the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter, and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, she who bore them all; they were still mixing their waters, and no pasture land had yet been formed, nor even a reed marsh...

Similarly in Greek mythology, the world was surrounded by Oceanus, the world-ocean of classical antiquity. Oceanus was personified as the god Titan, whose consort was the aquatic sea goddess Tethys. It was also thought that rainfall was due a third ocean above the "canopy of the sky." A comprehensive understanding of the Earth's water cycle did not exist until a treatise titled De l'origine des fontaines ("On the origin of springs") was written by Pierre Perrault in 1674 AD.