The Secret of the Name Dhū al-Qarnayn

Various explanations have been given for the naming of Dhū al-Qarnayn:

1) He traversed the qarn of the East and the West and brought east and west under his rule.(7)

2) He lived a long life, close to two qarns.

3) His crown bore two things resembling a qarn (horn), or two feathers, which were a sign of bravery and courage.(8)

4) He had long hair(9), so Dhū al-Qarnayn means someone with two locks of hair on the two sides of his head.

5) He was karīm al-ṭarafayn, that is, of a noble family on both his father’s and his mother’s side.(10)

6) He possessed both outward and inward knowledge.

7) He entered into light and darkness.

8) He was king of Persia and Rome.(11)

9) He was so all-encompassingly brave that it was as if he gored his peers with a horn, just as Ardashīr Bahman was called ṭawīl al-yadayn (Ardashīr Long-Hand).

After mentioning this explanation, Ālūsī, in identifying who he was, mentions the initial possibility that he was Farīdūn, grandson of Jamshīd, the fifth of the Pīshdādī kings, a just sultan obedient to God; that according to Abū Zayd Balkhī’s Ṣuwar al-Aqālīm he was supported by revelation; and that the histories report he became master of the earth and divided it among his three sons, Īraj, Muslim and Tūr… , writing a law for each and naming the three laws siyāsat, a word Arabized from sī yāsā, meaning “three laws”… . He then rejects it.(12) It must be said that the word siyāsat derives from sāsa yasūsu; in the Ziyārat Jāmiʿah the holy persons of the Ahl al-Bayt (a.s.) are called sāsat al-ʿibād(13); and other languages use their own particular words for it.

It should be said that knowing these explanations brings no benefit, and not knowing them does no harm, though some of them carry historical points and the like.