The All-Encompassing Establishment of Dhū al-Qarnayn

The unrestricted wording of the sentence “Indeed We established him in the land, and gave him a means to everything” shows that his domain of rule was the whole earth and of a global kind. The word arḍ has three possible senses: local, regional and international. If there is no indication that “in the land” refers to a local or regional land, the unrestricted use of the word al-arḍ covers the whole earth. Sometimes an internal or external indication is a sign of local or regional rule; for example, the reign of Bilqīs over the land of Sabaʾ, about whom God the Glorified uses an expression similar to the one about Dhū al-Qarnayn, saying that she was provided with everything and had a great throne (a mighty seat of royalty): “And she has been given of everything, and she has a mighty throne”.(70) What is meant by “she has been given of everything” is that same local, or at times regional, domain – not an international one; otherwise, in Palestine and the like it was Prophet Solomon (a.s.) who held rule, not the Queen of Sabaʾ – just as al-arḍ in the verses “And thus We established Joseph in the land”(71) and “And to establish them in the land”(72) refers to the land of Egypt;(73) but what is meant by “in the land” in the sentence “Indeed We established him in the land”, given the indication of Dhū al-Qarnayn’s two journeys to the east and the west of the earth, is “in all the land”; that is, We established him over the whole earth of that day. The final part of the verse, “and gave him a means to everything”, also supports this possibility.

According to some narrations, four people brought the whole earth under their rule: two monotheists, Prophet Solomon and Dhū al-Qarnayn, and two unbelievers, named Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar.(74)

It is worth noting that rule over the earth in past eras differs greatly from dominion over it in the present age; therefore what is meant by the earth in the past does not include the far side of the oceans.