Subtleties and Allusions

1) The Law of Causality

God the Glorified gave Dhū al-Qarnayn a means to everything: “and gave him a means to everything”; and he for his part put that means to use: “So he followed a course”; “Then he followed a course”.(86) The expression “means” (sabab) is an endorsement of the law of causality, as Imam Ṣādiq (a.s.) said: “God refuses to make things run except through means”;(87) that is, the affairs of the world rest on the order of cause and effect – in other words, of means and what is brought about by means. Means are of two kinds:

a) ordinary and known means, such as ordinary human actions – for example, treating a patient with medicine;

b) extraordinary and unknown means, which break the norm and are called the miracle particular to the prophets (a.s.) and the karāmah particular to the friends of God (a.s.); for example, a sick person being cured by the recitation of al-Ḥamd or by prayer.

The Qur’an’s saying several times that Dhū al-Qarnayn acted in accordance with means concerns that same universal principle of causality.

2) The View of Some Commentators on the Prophethood of Dhū al-Qarnayn

There is no clear proof from the Qur’an that Dhū al-Qarnayn received revelation directly from God the Glorified, although some commentators believe that he was a prophet, because the apparent meaning of “We said: O Dhū al-Qarnayn” is that We spoke to him without intermediary – not through the tongue of one of the prophets (a.s.), since that is contrary to the apparent meaning of the verse; so he was a divine prophet.(88) However – as was indicated in the commentary on the verse – this argument is not complete, and proving that “We said” was without intermediary is not easy; in the sentence “And We said after him to the Children of Israel: Dwell in the land”,(89) the expression “We said” also occurs, yet the address is through an intermediary, not direct. Someone may not be a prophet and yet receive inspirations, like the mother of Moses (a.s.): “And We inspired the mother of Moses”.(90) Of course, the tone of “And We inspired the mother of Moses” differs from the tone of “We said: O Dhū al-Qarnayn”; so a mere command to do something that was perhaps in accordance with the sharīʿah of the prophet of that era will not prove the prophethood of the one addressed by such speech. It may be that the story of Dhū al-Qarnayn is like that of Ṭālūt, whom a prophet appointed commander of war by God’s leave: the elders of the Children of Israel asked their prophet to appoint a king over them so that they might fight in the way of God: “When they said to a prophet of theirs: Raise up for us a king, that we may fight in the way of God”;(91) and their prophet told them that God had raised up Ṭālūt as king for them: “Their prophet said to them: Indeed God has raised up Ṭālūt as king for you”,(92) which suggests that Ṭālūt was not a prophet. So perhaps in Dhū al-Qarnayn’s time, too, there was a prophet who gave him orders, or from whom Dhū al-Qarnayn learned his religious rulings. In any case, the prophethood of Dhū al-Qarnayn cannot be established from his story in the Qur’an.

Yes! If a reliable narration were to indicate the prophethood of Dhū al-Qarnayn, it would not conflict with the verse. Of course, applying the effects of prophethood to the actions and sayings of a particular person both requires great costs and would bring many consequences.