The Qur’anic account of Dhul-Qarnayn is one of the narratives that has generated the greatest number of interpretations in the history of Islamic thought, yet no definitive conclusion has ever been reached regarding either his identity or his journeys. Who was Dhul-Qarnayn? Was he Alexander the Great, the Persian ruler Cyrus, one of the Himyarite kings, or some other figure whose historical identity has been completely lost? Where were “the place where the sun sets” and “the place where the sun rises”? Who were Gog and Magog? Where should the barrier built by Dhul-Qarnayn be sought today?
Most classical Qur’anic commentaries sought answers to these questions within the geography of the Earth. They interpreted Dhul-Qarnayn as a powerful ruler who led expeditions eastward and westward, understood his journeys as military campaigns or voyages of exploration, and viewed the barrier as an extraordinary defensive structure erected between two mountains.
İskender Türe’s book, Dhul-Qarnayn: The Man Whose Journey into Space Is Described in the Qur’an, first published in 2000, advanced an extraordinarily bold thesis that radically challenged all these assumptions:
Dhul-Qarnayn’s journeys did not take place on Earth, but in space.
According to Türe, verses 83–99 of Surah al-Kahf do not describe the journeys of a ruler from a bygone age to the eastern and western limits of the Earth. Rather, they recount the cosmic voyages of a man who, by means of an extraordinary vehicle placed at his disposal, traveled to other star systems. “The place where the sun sets” was a star system near a black hole; “the place where the sun rises” was another planet where night did not exist; and “the region between the two barriers” was an area between two nebulae. Gog and Magog, meanwhile, were not a historical people living on Earth, but intelligent beings inhabiting another planet who would attack the Earth near the end of time.
What distinguished the book was not merely the unconventional conclusion it reached. The author sought to arrive at that conclusion not by simply dismissing classical interpretations, but by examining dictionaries, Qur’anic commentaries, transmitted reports, and the Qur’an’s use of particular words in considerable detail. The work was therefore a far more serious and systematic attempt at interpretation than a simplistic “aliens in the Qur’an” narrative.
The Book’s Point of Departure: Not Who He Was, but Where He Went
Most studies of Dhul-Qarnayn have focused on his historical identity. He has variously been identified as Alexander of Macedon, Cyrus, Darius I, Naram-Sin, a ruler from Yemen, Fereydun, the Prophet Idris, or another figure who lived during the time of the Prophet Abraham.
According to İskender Türe, this search had obscured the central question of the narrative. The primary task was not to determine who Dhul-Qarnayn was, but to understand what he did and where he went in the Qur’anic account. Once the nature of those journeys was established, the possibilities concerning his identity would also change entirely.
Türe did not consider any of the proposed historical identifications conclusive. In his view, the Qur’an does not explicitly state whether Dhul-Qarnayn was a prophet, a saintly person, a ruler, or an ordinary human being. It was therefore impossible to speak with certainty on the matter. This is where one of the book’s most cautious features becomes apparent: Although the author vigorously defended his thesis that Dhul-Qarnayn traveled through space, he refrained from assigning him a definite historical identity.
The report that the Jews questioned the Prophet Muhammad about Dhul-Qarnayn in order to test him was also important to Türe’s analysis. Asking about the life of a ruler as widely known as Alexander the Great would hardly have constituted a sufficiently difficult test of prophethood. It would therefore make more sense if the question concerned a mysterious figure about whom only limited and specialized knowledge was available, rather than a ruler whose history was widely known.
The Single Word Supporting the Entire Theory: Sabab
The book’s central turning point is the following statement in verse 84 of Surah al-Kahf:
“We established him upon the Earth and gave him a sabab to everything.”
The following verses also state that Dhul-Qarnayn “followed a sabab.” In traditional interpretations, the word sabab in this context has been explained as a road, knowledge, a means, an opportunity, power, a stage on a journey, or an instrument through which a goal may be attained.
Türe, however, began with the word’s root meaning. Sabab could refer to a rope used to climb a date palm and, in a broader sense, to a means by which a person ascends. The author then examined other verses in which the same word appears. He focused particularly on verses 36–37 of Surah al-Mu’min, in which Pharaoh asks Haman to build him a lofty tower so that he might reach “the ways—or means—of the heavens,” and on the phrase “let them ascend through the means of the heavens” in verse 10 of Surah Sad.
From this, he reached the following conclusion: The sabab given to Dhul-Qarnayn was not an ordinary road or political power, but a vehicle that enabled him to ascend into the heavens and traverse immense distances.
The book’s entire cosmic interpretation rested on this philological choice. Once sabab was understood as a means of ascending into the heavens, there was no longer any need to search for the routes followed by Dhul-Qarnayn on a map of the Earth.
Türe also recalled that early sources contained reports suggesting that Dhul-Qarnayn had ascended into the heavens. He did not accept as historical fact the traditions stating that the clouds had been placed at his command, that the roads had been made easy for him, or that he had “tied his horse to the Pleiades.” He did, however, suggest that these reports might reflect an ancient memory associating Dhul-Qarnayn with the heavens. He argued that later scholars relegated such traditions to the background because they did not consider it possible for a human being to ascend into the sky.
Here, the author was making an important methodological claim: Classical exegetes turned to earthly geography not because they misunderstood the verses, but because the limits of the knowledge and technology of their age made it impossible for them to understand those verses in any other way.
Indeed, the Jewish questioning of the Prophet Muhammad about Dhul-Qarnayn may have had its roots in the Ezekiel tradition. In the Hebrew Bible, Ezekiel sees a celestial vehicle, described as “wheels within wheels,” possessing extraordinary powers of movement. Later chapters of the same book describe the end-times assault of Gog and Magog. The convergence of these two themes within the same prophetic text suggests that the question about Dhul-Qarnayn may also have been intended to test the mysterious connection between celestial journeys and Gog and Magog.
The First Journey: The Place Where the Sun Sets and the Black Hole
Dhul-Qarnayn’s first journey was toward “the place where the sun sets,” or maghrib al-shams. Traditional commentaries have understood this expression as referring to a coast at the westernmost edge of the world, the Atlantic Ocean, or a region where the sun appeared to sink into the sea.
Türe believed that this interpretation reduced the verse’s explicit statement to Dhul-Qarnayn’s subjective visual impression. The Qur’an does not say, “The sun appeared that way to him.” It says that Dhul-Qarnayn found the sun setting in a particular ayn. The author therefore refused to interpret the passage merely as an optical image observed on the horizon.
Türe also considered, in this context, the statement in verse 38 of Surah Ya-Sin that the sun “runs toward its appointed resting place.” Drawing on the astronomical knowledge that the Sun moves in a particular direction within the Milky Way, he sought “the place where the sun sets” in the direction of the solar apex, toward which our Solar System is moving.
According to his interpretation, Dhul-Qarnayn had not reached the physical endpoint of our own Sun. Rather, he had traveled to another star system moving in the direction of the solar apex and approaching the end of its existence. The “dark, muddy” or “hot spring” mentioned in the verse pointed, on a cosmic scale, to a black hole. This star, together with its surrounding planets, had been captured by the black hole’s gravity and was, metaphorically speaking, “setting” into it.
The author drew on the fact that the Arabic word ayn can mean not only a spring or fountain but also an “eye” and a “hole,” establishing a semantic relationship between a “black eye/hole” and a black hole. He associated the two variant readings, hami’ah and hamiyah, with a dark and a hot cosmic formation, respectively. Thus, the “dark, muddy” or “hot spring” became a Qur’anic depiction of a black hole from which light cannot escape and around which matter reaches extremely high temperatures.
Dhul-Qarnayn also encountered a people there. Based on the grammatical possibility that the pronoun could refer either to the “sun” or to the “spring,” Türe proposed that this community consisted of intelligent beings living on a planet near that star. Their planetary system, together with its star, was approaching the black hole.
“When he reached the place where the sun sets, he found it setting in a dark, muddy spring, and he found near it a people. We said, ‘O Dhul-Qarnayn! Either punish them or treat them kindly.’”
(Al-Kahf, 18:86)
One of the most striking aspects of Türe’s interpretation is that the divine address comes precisely at this moment:
“O Dhul-Qarnayn! Either punish them or treat them kindly.”
The classical interpretation assumes that Dhul-Qarnayn had conquered this land by force and established dominion over its inhabitants. He was therefore given a choice between punishing and forgiving them. Türe, however, points out that the verses contain no explicit statement that Dhul-Qarnayn fought this community, defeated it, or conquered its territory. If no battle is described, why was Dhul-Qarnayn given the authority to “punish” an entire people?
In the author’s view, the Qur’anic usage of the word “punishment” is crucial here. In the Qur’an, punishment does not refer exclusively to penalties inflicted by one human being upon another. As in the cases of the peoples of ‘Ad, Thamud, and Lot, it can also refer to the destruction of a society through a natural or cosmic catastrophe. Accordingly, the punishment mentioned in the verse did not mean that Dhul-Qarnayn would personally torture the people; rather, it meant that he could leave them to face the approaching cosmic disaster on their own.
Read in this way, the choice given to Dhul-Qarnayn becomes more intelligible. The people, along with their star and planet, were already being drawn toward the black hole. Dhul-Qarnayn would not create the catastrophe; it had already begun. The authority granted to him consisted of rescuing those he chose to save while leaving those who persisted in wrongdoing to face the impending destruction.
“To treat them kindly,” therefore, meant rescuing them from the approaching cosmic apocalypse—presumably by transporting them to another, safer location using the sabab at Dhul-Qarnayn’s disposal.
The Second Journey: The Place Where the Sun Rises and a Planet Without Night
The second journey was toward “the place where the sun rises,” or matli‘ al-shams. There, Dhul-Qarnayn encountered a people for whom, in the Qur’an’s words, no covering had been provided against the sun.
Classical commentaries relate that these people had no houses, clothing, or mountains to protect them from the sun; that they lived naked; or that they retreated into underground shelters when the sun rose. According to Türe, these interpretations filled a gap deliberately left open by the verse with historical and geographical descriptions.
The author associated the concept of a “covering” with the night, as it appears in other Qur’anic verses. Night is a natural covering that conceals the light of the sun and protects living beings from its effects. A people with “no covering against the sun,” therefore, could have lived on a planet where night did not exist.
From this point, he argued that the second journey took place in the direction opposite to the first, along the solar antapex. He speculated that in one of the binary star systems located in this direction, there could be a community living on a planet continuously exposed to daylight because of the planet’s rotation and the positions of its stars. The book cited the Alpha Centauri system as an example, while emphasizing that this was not a definitive identification but a possible illustration based on the astronomical knowledge available at the time.
In this interpretation, “east” and “west” cease to be geographical directions on Earth and instead become opposing directions in the Sun’s movement through the galaxy. The first journey was made toward the solar apex, and the second toward the solar antapex.
The Third Journey: Not Two Mountains, but Two Nebulae
On his third journey, Dhul-Qarnayn reached a region “between two barriers,” where he encountered another people who could scarcely understand what was being said. They complained of the corruption caused by Gog and Magog and asked Dhul-Qarnayn to construct an obstruction between themselves and their aggressors.
Classical commentaries interpreted the “two barriers” as two mountains and sought the location in the Caucasus, between the Caspian and Black seas, in Central Asia, or in the far northern reaches of the world. The Walls of Derbent, the Great Wall of China, and various other historical structures have been identified as the Barrier of Dhul-Qarnayn.
Türe argued that none of these proposed identifications corresponded to the structure described in the verses. The barrier in question was one that Gog and Magog could neither scale nor penetrate. Yet no historical wall exists on Earth that human beings have been entirely unable to climb over or pierce.
Here, the author proposed a different cosmic equivalent for the word sadd, or barrier: a nebula.
In verse 9 of Surah Ya-Sin, barriers are said to have been placed before and behind the unbelievers, preventing them from seeing. Türe concluded that a barrier did not necessarily have to mean a physical wall made of stone; it could also refer to a formation that obstructed vision, concealed, or separated. On a cosmic scale, he suggested, such an obstruction could take the form of nebulae composed of dense clouds of gas and dust.
The “region between the two barriers” thus became not a passage between two mountains, but an area of space between two nebulae. There, Dhul-Qarnayn encountered two intelligent communities living on two different planets: the people seeking his assistance and the aggressive Gog and Magog.
This interpretation completed the book’s central thesis. The first two journeys were made to other star systems, while the third took Dhul-Qarnayn to planets situated between two nebulae. In this way, the Qur’anic narrative of Dhul-Qarnayn became an account of cosmic history.
Not a Wall of Iron and Copper, but a Planetary Blockade
In the traditional imagination, the barrier constructed by Dhul-Qarnayn was an enormous wall formed by filling the space between two mountains with masses of iron, heating them with fire, and pouring molten copper over them.
Drawing on alternative meanings of some of the words in the text, Türe developed an entirely different engineering scenario. According to him, the expression commonly translated in the plural as “pieces of iron” could also be understood as a large mass or block of iron. The word qitr, meanwhile, could mean tar in addition to molten copper.
According to the author’s theory, Dhul-Qarnayn did not construct a wall of stone and metal. He heated a massive block of iron, poured tar over it, and used the iron as a catalyst to produce combustible gases such as hydrogen and methane. These gases formed layers in the upper atmosphere of the planet inhabited by Gog and Magog, whose gravitational pull was stronger.
The planet was thus surrounded by a layer of combustible gas that spacecraft could not traverse. Gog and Magog were consequently unable to leave their own world or reach the neighboring community. The Qur’anic statement that “they were unable to scale it, nor were they able to pierce it” was therefore explained as a reference to this planetary blockade.
What Dhul-Qarnayn did, in this scenario, was not so much to build a wall as to alter a planet’s atmosphere through engineering.
Gog and Magog: Aggressors Who Will Come from Another Planet
According to Türe, Gog and Magog were not Turks, Mongols, Scythians, or any other people known to history. They were technologically advanced and aggressive intelligent beings living on a planet between two nebulae.
The gaseous layer created by Dhul-Qarnayn temporarily prevented them from leaving their planet. The Qur’an, however, states through Dhul-Qarnayn that this obstruction would not last forever:
“When my Lord’s promise comes, He will level it to the ground.”
Türe interpreted this as meaning that the layers of gas surrounding the planet would dissipate as cosmic or atmospheric conditions changed. Once the barrier disappeared, Gog and Magog would be able to leave their planet and, in connection with verse 96 of Surah al-Anbiya, attack the Earth near the end of time.
The author took this idea still further. Considering together the traditions stating that the Antichrist would appear shortly before Gog and Magog and those describing Surah al-Kahf as a protection against the Antichrist, he raised the possibility that the Antichrist might also come from space.
At this point, the book expanded from a work of Qur’anic exegesis into an eschatological space scenario. Surah al-Kahf, in this reading, was preparing humanity for an extraterrestrial threat it might encounter in the future.
İskender Türe’s thesis, first advanced in 2000, that Dhul-Qarnayn’s journeys took place in space has neither been entirely forgotten nor remained confined to the pages of his book. One contemporary scholar who supports this approach is Dr. Ömer Atilla Ergi, who has studied Islamic theology, philosophy, and physics.
Contemporary Qur’anic scholarship should therefore not content itself with merely repeating the conclusions reached by classical exegetes. It should also reconsider the possible meanings of the verses in light of astronomical, cosmological, and physical knowledge unavailable in earlier centuries. For it is not the Qur’an that changes, but humanity’s knowledge and understanding of the universe.
İskender Türe was one of my closest friends. I knew him not only as the author of a bold and horizon-expanding work on Dhul-Qarnayn, but also as an exceptional human being who reflected on the Qur’an’s world of meaning with great intellectual rigor, conducted meticulous research, and defended his conclusions with courage.
Born in 1963 in Kaymaz, a village in the Sivrihisar district of Eskişehir, Türe graduated from Ankara University’s Faculty of Theology, completed his master’s degree, and served for many years as an administrator at the Ottoman Archives of the Turkish Prime Ministry. We lost him on May 20, 2019, when he was only 56 years old.
On this occasion, I remember my dear friend İskender Türe with mercy, longing, and profound affection.
