2. Quran Says the Sun Sets in a Muddy Spring
1. Quran
"Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout." Quran 18:86
Quran 18:86 in Arabic word for word creates two independent problems:
- First, Dhul Qarnayn reached (balagha) a location: the setting place of the sun (maghriba l-shamsi).
- There, he found (wajada) the sun setting in a muddy spring (ʿaynin ḥami-atin). And he found (wajada) a community near it.
Quran 18:86 Word for Word Arabic
Tafsir al-Tabari: Companion Ibn Abbas and the Salaf Debate on Whether the Spring in Which the Sun Sets Is Muddy or Hot
Tafsir al-Tabari preserves the debate between Muhammad's Companion Ibn Abbas and the salaf over whether the spring where the sun sets is muddy or hot. Tabari says both readings are correct because the sun could set in a spring that is both hot and muddy.
Allah says: (Until, when Dhul-Qarnayn reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring.) The readers differed on how to read this. Some of the readers of Medina and Basra read it as (in a muddy spring), meaning that the sun sets in a spring that contains mud. While a group of the readers of Medina and the majority of the people of Kufa read it as, (in a warm spring) meaning that the sun sets in a spring of warm water. The people of commentary have differed on the meaning of this depending on the way they read the verse.
And in my (Tabari's) mind the correct opinion is to say that they are both popular readings in the land, and each one has a correctness about it and an understandable meaning, and neither contradicts the other, for it is possible that the sun sets in a hot spring that has mud and sludge, so a reader who uses "hot spring" is describing its temperature, and the reader who uses "muddy spring" is describing that it has mud and sludge. Both versions have been narrated to us.
Full Dhul Qarnayn Story (Quran 18:83-99)
The Dhul Qarnayn story begins: “They will ask thee of Dhu'l-Qarneyn.” In it, he traveled until he reached (balagha) the setting place of the sun and found (wajada) the sun setting in a muddy spring, and found (wajada) a community near it. Then he reached (balagha) the rising place of the sun where people had no shelter from it. Then he followed another path until he reached (balagha) a place between two mountains, where he found (wajada) a people asking for help against Gog and Magog. He built an iron and copper wall between the cliffs to seal them off until doomsday. Quran 18:83-99.
2. Hadith
Muhammad directly says in a hadith, considered authentic in chain, that the sun sets in a spring:
"I was sitting behind the Messenger of Allah who was riding a donkey while the sun was setting. He asked: Do you know where this sets? I replied: Allah and his Apostle know best. He said: It sets in a spring of warm water (Hamiyah)." Sunan Abu Dawud 4002
3. Pre-Islamic Poem
A poem in Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, attributed to the pre-Islamic king Tubba, describes this as well:
"He saw where the sun sinks from view"
"In a pool of mud and fetid slime" Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, p. 12
4. Syriac Alexander Legend
The Dhul Qarnayn story begins: “They will ask thee of Dhu'l-Qarneyn” Quran 18:83, showing the story was circulating at the time. Historians trace the Quranic character Dhul Qarnayn to a legend about Alexander the Great circulating around Muhammad's time, the Syriac Alexander Legend, which also says this:
"So the whole camp mounted, and Alexander and his troops went up between the fetid sea and the bright sea to the place where the sun enters the window of heaven; for the sun is the servant of the Lord, and neither by night nor by day does he cease from his travelling. The place of his rising is over the sea, and the people who dwell there, when he is about to rise, flee away and hide themselves in the sea, that they be not burnt by his rays; and he passes through the midst of the heavens to the place where he enters the window of heaven... And when the sun enters the window of heaven, he straightway bows down and makes obeisance before God his Creator; and he travels and descends the whole night through the heavens, until at length he finds himself where he rises." Budge, Syriac Alexander Legend, p. 148
Questions Raised by Quran 18:83-99 That Only the Syriac Alexander Legend Answers
1. Why Is Dhul Qarnayn Called "The Two-Horned One"?
Quran's Question:
Why is he called "Dhu'l-Qarneyn", meaning "The Two-Horned One"?
"They will ask thee of Dhu'l-Qarneyn. Say: I shall recite unto you a remembrance of him."Quran 18:83
Alexander Legend's Answer:
God gave Alexander horns on his head as weapons to destroy kingdoms.
"thou hast made me horns upon my head, wherewith I might thrust down the kingdoms of the world"Budge, Syriac Alexander Legend, p. 146
2. Why Do the People at the Sun's Rising Place Have No Shelter?
Quran's Question:
Why did the people that Dhul Qarnayn found at the rising place of the sun have no shelter from it?
"Till, when he reached the rising-place of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had appointed no shelter therefrom."Quran 18:90
Alexander Legend's Answer:
The sun's heat at its rising place is so intense that it splits rocks, forcing them to run and hide in caves.
"the people who dwell there, when he is about to rise, flee away and hide themselves in the sea, that they be not burnt by his rays ... as soon as they see the sun passing [over them], men and birds flee away from before him and hide in the caves, for rocks are rent [split] by his blazing heat and fall down"Budge, Syriac Alexander Legend, p. 148
3. Why Does Dhul Qarnayn Randomly Punish Wrongdoers at the Setting Place of the Sun?
Quran's Question:
After Dhul Qarnayn reaches the setting place of the sun, finds it setting in a muddy spring and also finds a people near it, why does Allah (for no apparent reason) give him the option to either punish the people or show them kindness? And why does Dhul Qarnayn choose to punish the wrongdoers among them?
"Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout. We said: O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness. He said: As for him who doeth wrong, we shall punish him"Quran 18:86-87
Alexander Legend's Answer:
Alexander used condemned criminals to confirm that the fetid sea at the edge of the world was deadly and unsafe to cross.
"Now Alexander thought within himself, 'If it be true as they say, that everyone who comes near the foetid sea dies, it is better that these who are guilty of death should die'"Budge, Syriac Alexander Legend, p. 148
Yale scholar Kevin van Bladel:
"When Alexander came to the people in the west, he tested the efficacy of the deadly, fetid waters with the lives of convicts. This passage helps to explain the option given, for no apparent reason, by God to Dhu l-Qarnayn in the Qur'an: either to punish the people or to do them a kindness. Dhu l-Qarnayn says he will punish only wrongdoers (man zalama), who are like the prisoners sentenced to death in the Syriac text, described there as evil-doers (abday-bishe)."van Bladel, p. 181
Academic Research
"Thus, quite strikingly, almost every element of this short Qur'anic tale finds a more explicit and detailed counterpart in the Syriac Alexander Legend." van Bladel, p. 181
"Could the Syriac text have its source in the Qur'an? If this were the case, then the Syriac text would have to be seen as a highly expanded version of the Qur'anic account... However, the Syriac text contains no references to the Arabic language the type of which one might expect to find if its purpose was to explain an Arabic text, and it is impossible to see why a Syriac apocalypse written around 630 would be drawing on an Arabic tradition some years before the Arab conquests, when the community at Mecca was far from well known outside Arabia. Moreover, the very specific political message of the Alexander Legend would not make any sense in this scenario. This possibility must therefore be discounted." van Bladel, p. 189
More Studies
"The Qurʾān’s accounts of the Companions of the Cave and the travels of Dhū ’l-Qarnayn strongly resonate with popular late antique Syriac Christian stories, namely, accounts of the so-called Sleepers of Ephesus and of Alexander the Great ... it is likely that oral versions of these narratives preceded their surviving written accounts and that the Qurʾān recalled aspects of these oral versions for its own purposes." Griffith, "The Narratives of Sūrat al-Kahf"
"The evidence presented here suggests that the Neṣḥānā [Syriac Alexander Legend] served as a key source of inspiration for the Qurʾānic portrayal of Dhū-l-Qarnayn, supporting his identification as an Alexander figure reinterpreted through the lens of Syriac literary and ideological traditions." Tesei, "And they ask you about Dhū-l-Qarnayn."
Both Syriac Alexander Legend and Hadiths: Sun Dips Then Bows Before God
Same motif across the Syriac Alexander Legend and the hadiths: the sun enters the sea/spring, then bows/prostrates before God.
I was with the Prophet ﷺ riding on a donkey, and it had a saddlecloth or a blanket on it. He said to me, "O Abu Dhar, do you know where this (the sun) sets?" I said, "Allah and His Messenger know best." He said, "Indeed, it sets in a hot spring and travels until it prostrates itself to its Lord beneath the Throne. When its time to rise comes, Allah gives it permission to rise, and it rises. And when it is time for it to set from where it rises, it is prevented and it utters: 'O Lord! My course is far, so give me permission.' So, Allah lets it rise from the place where it sets. That is the time when the soul's faith will not benefit it." Musnad Ahmed 21459 Sunan Abu Dawud 4002 Sahih Bukhari 3199
Read the Full Syriac Alexander Legend
Dhul Qarnayn passage in Quran 18:83-99 (only 17 verses).