al-Kahf 18:83-98 — Dhū'l-Qarnayn

Wa yasʾalūnaka ʿan Dhi'l-Qarnayn qul sa-atlū ʿalaykum minhu dhikrā

"They ask you about Dhū'l-Qarnayn. Say: I shall recite to you a remembrance of him."

Who Dhū'l-Qarnayn was is not reported in the Qurʾān. It is transmitted that in the classical and the modern sources he has been matched with various historical figures; none of these is certain knowledge, and no preference is adopted among them in this commentary.

What the verse gives is a dhikr — a report that is recounted. And the sūra itself states what is to be drawn from the story (98): hādhā raḥmatun min rabbī.

"When he reached the place where the sun sets, he found it setting in a muddy spring."

The verb must be recorded: wajadahā — "he found it …".

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the verb itself: the sentence does not report where the sun sets; it recounts what Dhū'l-Qarnayn saw. The verb is bound to the position of the observer. And the same verb is used in the next scene as well: wajadahā taṭluʿu ʿalā qawmin (90).

I write this plainly, per the method (Method): no ruling about the physical position of the sun can be derived from this verse — neither an accusation of the form "the Qurʾān says the sun sets in mud", nor the gleaning of some pointer to modern astronomy from it. Both are making the text say what it does not say.

حَمِئَة — root ح-م-أ: black mud. A variant reading is transmitted: there is also the reading ḥāmiya (burning, hot), and it changes the sense. I record both readings and do not impose a preference.

And two options are left to him. His answer is worth recording (87-88): to punish the one who does wrong, and for the one who believes and does righteous deeds jazāʾan'l-ḥusnā.

I record this as an observation: the one to whom authority is given uses it by making a distinction. And in al-Ḥajj at 22/41 (alladhīna in makkannāhum fi'l-arḍ) the condition of power was treated; the same line is given here by way of a story.

Per the method (Method): the knowledge the Qurʾān gives about Yaʾjūj and Maʾjūj is limited — they are mentioned here and in al-Anbiyāʾ 21/96. What is transmitted about their identity, their place and their time is not certain knowledge; no speculation is entered into in this commentary.

"'What my Lord has established me in is better. Help me with your strength and I shall set a solid barrier between you and them.'"

Two things are worth recording:

First: payment is refused (a kharjan had been offered, 94). And the ground is the sufficiency of what has been given to him.

Second: help is asked for — fa-aʿīnūnī bi-quwwa. That is, the work is not done alone.

I record this as my own reading: the story gives, in one and the same sentence, both that a man of means took no payment and did not work alone.

And the process of construction is recounted in detail (96): blocks of iron, the working of the bellows, molten copper. The softening of iron was treated in Sabaʾ at 34/10-11; I rely on that treatment.

فَمَا ٱسْطَٰعُوٓا۟ أَن يَظْهَرُوهُ وَمَا ٱسْتَطَٰعُوا۟ لَهُۥ نَقْبًا (97) — two verbs are worth recording: isṭāʿū (to climb over it) and istaṭāʿū (to bore through it). Two different patterns from the same root: one lightened, the other full.

The lexicographers relate this difference to the degree of difficulty of the tasks: climbing over is easier, boring through is harder — and the longer verb was used for the harder one. I transmit this explanation in the form the lexicographers give it.

And the story ends by stating the transience of the work that was done.

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the eighth verse of the sūra: wa innā la-jāʿilūna mā ʿalayhā ṣaʿīdan juruzā. Even the most solid structure in the sūra is placed under the same ruling — and the one who says so is the very man who built it.