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Alexander and Al-Khidhr Were Born in The Same Day
They say that his father was the greatest astrologist on earth and none saw the stars as much as he did and God gave him a long age, so one night he said to his wife: I've been killed by staying awake so let me sleep for some time and you look into the sky and if you saw that a star rising for that place, and he pointed his finger to that place, so awake me then to have love with you and bear a child that will live until the end of time, and her sister was listening at the same time as well to his talk, and then the father of Alexander slept and his wife's sister started to watch the sky waiting for the star and when the star showed up she told her husband the story and he made love with her and she bore Al-Khidhr, the maternal cousin Alexander, and when the father of Alexander woke up and saw that the star was in a constellation that is different from the one he was watching he said to his wife: why didn't you awake me? She answered: by God, I was shy, then he said to her: didn't you know that I am watching this for forty years, you've made me miss my life for nothing, but there will be a star rising after him in a while so when I make love to you, you will bear a child that will own the horns of the sun, and after a while the star showed up and he made love to her and she bore Alexander, so Alexander and his maternal cousin Al-Khidhr were born in one night.
We say: it is mentioned before that the reason for Al-Khidhr to be staying alive until the end of time is for his drinking from the spring of life, and Al-Khidhr was at the time of Moses (PUH) with no doubt for the interpretations of the holy phrases suggest so, and Al-Khidhr was at the front of the army of Alexander, so the claims about Alexander being in the time after Jesus the son of Mary (PUH) give a contradiction and so we reject the idea that he appeared after the time of Jesus, and so Alexander is Ðul-Qarnain and he existed before Moses and at the time of Moses, and so we don't reject the idea that he and Al-Khidhr were born in one night and they both are cousins, but we shall say: making love to one's wife when a star shows up is not a reason for the pregnancy to take a place or the child would be a male, and all of this case is believed to be possible only by God's will and by His inspiration to some prophet or messanger and the coincedence is not impossible anyway, and this case is left up covered to the people that care about it the most like many of the others, and only God knows.
It is mentioned that God did not send prophets as kings except for four after Noah (PUH) and the first of them was Ðul-Qarnain and his name was `Ayyâsh, with David, Solomon and Joseph, and for `Ayyâsh, he ruled between the east and west, and for David, he ruled the lands of Shem to the lands of Istakhr (Issachar) (meaning Isfahan or Khurâsân) and so was the kingdom of Solomon (PUH), and for Joseph, he ruled Egypt and its deserts and did not expand, and in some tales they say that God raised Ðul-Qarnain up to the sky of earth and made him see all of the earth and its mountains, plains and valleys and so he saw whatever there was from east to west, and God provided him with reasons so he knew right from wrong and provided him with pieces of the sky over his horns (sides of the head) that had lightning and darkness and then got him down to earth and sent him from east to west, then God said to him: I've made the lands ruled by you and made the creations humiliated before you, so go on for what I commanded you, and then he went along to the west and whenever he passes over a village he would roar in it like an angry lion and send from his horns darkness with lightning and storms that destroys everyone that opposes him, and when he reached the setting-place of the sun he ruled all over the east and west..etc and it is mentioned before and it is repeated for some additions.
The benefit that is to be taken from this tale and the one before is that he was a prophet and a messanger and for this everything mentioned before must be interpreted differently for there are lot of tales that gives the opposite meaning, and another benefit is taken from the tales which is that Ðul-Qarnain was before the time of Abraham and after Noah, and this explanation calms the heart for many reasons, one of which is his meeting with Abraham at the time of pilgrimage as mentioned before, and there were a big gap between the time of Noah and Abraham, and the history after the time of Abraham is almost checked to the time of Jesus, and since then it was checked until our time, and if he was after the time of Abraham then who wouldn't be so mysterious like that, and about being born after the time of Jesus is something that cannot be believed in, so it must be interpreted accordingly if that was possible or leaving this matter alone or to the people that care about it the most, and the probability of expanding his kingdom or his resurrection or staying alive before the time of Abraham until the time after Jesus is something that opposes the idea of ruling the world with its faithful men and disbelievers for the kingdom of those took place before the time of Jesus and after Noah, and so the kingdom of Ðul-Qarnain took place after Noah until the time of Abraham, and about him being Alexander and he is the founder of Alexandria, this is something possible but in the time appointed before, and only God knows.
They mentioned lot of things more than what was mentioned before about the conditions of Ðul-Qarnain but there is no much benefits to be taken from them, but we point some of them, that when Ðul-Qarnain wandered in the darkness, Al-Khidhr was in front of his (Al-Khidhr's) army that counted as two thousand men, and Ðul-Qarnain had four thousand, and the total is six thousand of those who walked with him through the darkness, and the rest of his armies camped at the edge of the darkness waiting for him to get back after accomplishing what he wants, and when Al-Khidhr wanders with his army, Ðul-Qarnain would camp and vice versa, and while Al-Khidhr was wandering he fell in a valley and kept on marching through, and in his marching he found the spring of life and drank from it, with some details they mentioned, but Ðul-Qarnain did not find it, and Ðul-Qarnain gave him (Al-Khidhr) a red bead that lights up at night like a torch, so whenever is lost of those who were with him he would throw it on the ground and it screams so that the lost man would be able to get back to the group, and then they passed through the darkness in forty days, then they reached the light that was not like the light of the sun nor the moon, and then Ðul-Qarnain kept on marching through the light to the end until he reached a land with red sand and pearls as stones with a great palace that has a length of a league almost, and along its length there was a robe of iron with a bird hanging from it like a swallow, so then that black swallow talked and asked Ðul-Qarnain about a type of life's ornaments and Ðul-Qarnain answered with yes, so then the bird got larger and covered one third of the robe, and then it asked him about another type of the life's ornaments and he answered with yes, and the bird got larger to two thirds, and then he asked him for the third time, and so the bird got larger and filled the gap between the walls of the palace, and his questions were about building with gypsum and bricks, and about the abundance of entertainments, and about the false testimony, and in every time Ðul-Qarnain answered and the bird gets larger, Ðul-Qarnain gets so scared, and then he asked him about another three matters, and everytime Ðul-Qarnain answers, the bird gets smaller by one third until he got back to his original shape, and he had asked him: did people forget about saying "No other god save but God (Allah)"? Did people leave praying? Did people forget about the wash after pollution (semen), and in everytime the answer was "no" and for every answer the bird got smaller and smaller, and during all of that Ðul-Qarnain was so scared but he had patience and waited to see the result at the end, then the bird ordered him to climb the stairs to the roof and so he did with fear and then he reached a roof the expands with the eye sight and found a young man with a white face and wearing white clothes while he was looking to the sky and like waiting for a command and putting his finger on his mouth, so when he felt the arrival of Ðul-Qarnain and saw him he said to him: who is this? He answered: I am Ðul-Qarnain, then he said: the world before you was not enough to make you come to me here? Then he contunued: I am the owner of the trumpet and waiting for the commandment of my Lord, then he threw a stone to him and said: take this and get back, if it was hungry you shall be hungry too, and if it got satisfied you will be satisfied too, then Ðul-Qarnain got back to his men and marched back through the darkness and got back in safe with Al-Khidhr, then he told them about the palace and the bird and the man over the roof and the stone and what the man on the roof said to him and Ðul-Qarnain did not think about he meaning of what that man said, but Al-Khidhr (PUH) knew the purpose of all of that and told him (Ðul-Qarnain) about it, and the truth was what Al-Khidhr knew, and he took the stone and balanced it with another one, but the stone was heavier, and they added more stones against it until they reached one thousand stones against that one only, but the stone was always heavier and they did not know any reason for this and why the stone was given to him (Ðul-Qarnain), but Al-Khidhr knew the reason and so he balanced the stone against another one like it with some grains of sand, and the balance became equal and he knew the wisdom of this and the secret, and the interpretation of Al-Khidhr (PUH) for this stone is something so great, which made tears of Ðul-Qarnain fall down and made him see the kingdom and life so cheap.
In brief about its meaning, that the child of Adam is ambitious that never satisfied with anything he can reach except for the sand, meaning the grave, or either God guides him, and the best that one can do is to lose faith in life and advance towards the after-life with meditation, and for this when they were in their way back through the darkness they heard some noise under the hooves of their horses and they told him (Ðul-Qarnain) about that so he said: take some of it, the one who will take will regret and the one who will not take will regret as well, and so some took of what was there and some did not, and when they went out of the darkness they found that it was green emerald, and so the ones who took and did not take both did regret (?), and it is attributed to the prophet (PUH) that he said: God have mercy upon my brother Ðul-Qarnain, if he did find emerald in his way he would extract it and never leave it for his desire for life, but when he got back he left it all for he saw life so cheap.
They say also that once he saw an old faithful man so he invited him to be with him and said to him: come with me to console myself with you and get help from you for some of my matters, so he answered: yes I would if you guaranteed for me four things: riches never end, a health with no sickness, and a youth without oldness, and a life with no death, so then Ðul-Qarnain said: what creature is able to do all of that? The old man said then: then I am with the One who can do all of that and owns them as well as He owns you. Then he passed over a scholar that said to him: tell me about two things that since God created them still exist, and about two running things, and about two different things, and about two things that hate each other, so Ðul-Qarnain said to him: the two existing things are heaven and earth, and the two running things are the sun and moon, and the two different things are day and night, and the two things that hate each other are life and death, so then the scholar said: you are a scholar now, so go on. Then he passed over an old man that flips the skulls between his hands and said to Ðul-Qarnain: I want to distinguish between the rich and the poor but I couldn't, then said Ðul-Qarnain: you meant me by this and no one else. While he was wandering again he met the Wise Nation of Moses' people that order with justice, and when he saw them he said to them: O folks, tell me about your tidings for I wandered all over the earth and knew the peoples from east to west and knew its lands and seas but I did not find someone like you, so why do you keep the graves of your dead people in front of the doors of your houses? They answered: to remember the death and never let it out of our hearts, he said: why your houses have no doors? They answered: we have no thieves, no one of doubts and no one is to be charged (accused) and we have only the faithful, he said then: why you have no rulers? They answered: we don't wrong each other, he said then: why you don't have judges? They answered: we never fight with each other, he said then: why you have no kings? They answered: we don't reproduce, he said then: why don't you show pride? They answered: for we have passion for each other, he said then: why don't you fight with each other? They answered: for our hearts are tied together.
You've passed over before about the matter of the origin and ancestry of Ðul-Qarnain and we explained it at the beginning, and there is one more thing, that they said he is Eskandar ben Faylaqus (Alexander the son of Philip, or Failakus) the greek, and they take a clue for this from quran which mentioned that the man named Ðul-Qarnain owned the east and west, and it is mentioned, with fame, in history books that the one who owned that much is no one but Alexander, and when his father died he raised upon the throne and defeated the Roman kings [maybe the author means here the Greek kings as well] and he gathered them after being several tribes, and then he defeated the kings of the west until he reached the green sea, then he got back to Egypt and built Alexandria after his name, then he went to the lands of Shem and defeated the children of Israel and kept going on to Iraq and defeated the people there, and then went to Dârâ ben Dârâ the persian king [I think Dârâ is meant to be the name of Darius] and defeated him many times [this describtion coincide with Darius III] until he killed him and got his throne and persian were all under his command, and then he went along to India and China and invaded the far nations and then he got back to Khurâsân and built many cities there, and went after that to Iraq. Since quran mentioned that Ðul-Qarnain owned the earth, and since in history it is proved that the one that could do all of that is only Alexander the son of Philip (Alexander the Great) the greek (Macedonian), then both things coincide and match and the time period does not change the reality, and no one could have such describtions except of Solomon ben David (PUT) and this is mentioned before.
They mentioned also other tales that have no use to mention here and waste the precious time with them, and yes, it is attributed from the prophet (PUH) and his Household (PUT) that they said that he was a faithful man that God made him rule the earth and gave him the wisdom and made people be afraid of him, so we shall believe in him and mention his name with every good thing although we do not know who he is and it is enough for us the quran mentioned him, and God takes care of His faithful servants, and may prays be upon Muhammad and his purified Household, and thanks be for God.
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