Talk:Theories about Cyrus the Great in the Quran

Moving

Please see the discussion at Talk:Alexander in the Qur'an (Theory), a similar and related case. Melchoir 07:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. —Nightstallion (?) 11:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I got rid of this part

Between Derbent and Dar'yal, however, there are no such mountains and the passes also are wide and passable. In ancient times savage hordes from the north invaded and ravaged southern lands through these passes and the Persian rulers who were fearful of them had to build a strong wall, 50 miles long, 29 feet high and 10 feet wide, for fortification purposes, ruins of which can still be seen.[3]

Because when you clikc on the link it says the wall was Sassanin in origin, and built in the fifth century AD.

Now really?

I have no idea why this article is here in the Wikipedia encyclopedia. It does not, it any way, conform to the standard of scholarship expected of articles in this encyclopaedia.

To begin with, I must insist on highlighting the stupidity of using Jewish sources as evidence to lend credence to any argumet about Cyrus the Great being mentioned in the Qur'an, or being Dhul Qarnain. I have never come across any Historians proporting to verify Cyrus' mention in the Qur'an, by using said Jewish sources almost exclusively, and paying lip service to the Qur'an and its contents, and mentioning 'Muslim scholars' in passing.

The article establishes its dubious premise of using these Jewish sources by narrating an incident (uncited) where the pagans of Mecca were induced by them to ask the Prophet Muhammad about Dhul Qarnain. From here on in, references from the Bible, and other historical situations abound. There is no attempt to explore the myriad verses of the Qur'an dealing with Dhul Qarnain, in conjunction with these sources. No attempt is made to even include the Qur'an, apart from the title. Using an instance of Jew instigated questioning (uncited) as an argument for using Jewish sources puts the substantial tracts of the article in doubt.

It has weasel words such as 'Muslim historians' in the sentence "and the Muslim historians have also accepted this", in an attempt to link Islam and Muslims to what is essentially a Jewish discourse. As such, 'Cyrus the Great in the Qur'an' is a misleading title.

Another telling feature is the absence of any references at ALL to any of these texts, relying on quotes (which are uncited) as evidences or proofs for the argument.

This article is useless conjecture; shoddy scholarship (or lack thereof), and absolutely stupid.

Badshahi. -- 05:28, 9 July 2006 124.180.207.128

Regardless of whether the theory is true, if many prominent modern Muslim apologists and defenders of the faith think that it's true, then that's enough to earn it a place in Wikipedia. In any case, the point about Ba`al Haqqeranayim in the Hebrew of Daniel 8:20 is absolutely correct... AnonMoos 19:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you. If "many prominent modern Muslim apologists" do promote this theory, as has been claimed, then WHAT ARE THE NAMES of these prominent Muslims? Where is the PROOF? Of course you are right about this "Cyrus the Great" theory being totally shoddy scholarship (we know exactly why apologists are so intent on clinging to any crazy theory as long as it doesn't mention Alexander the Great) ... The only bright side here is that this article is so vacuous and intellectually bankrupt that even the most unscrupulous Muslim apologists would have difficulty buying this argument. -- 99.242.17.45 (talk) 02:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Zoroastrianism was not monotheistic

It was dualistic (i.e. there were two deities).

Mbassan 04:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Zoroastrianism was/is Monotheistic

Dear people who are ignorant about the subject, please stop trying to change the facts.

The other "deity" (Ahriman) was never worshiped nor believed to be eternal. Ahura Mazda was the only supreme deity in the religion.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm http://www.buzzle.com/articles/zoroastrianism-the-foundation-of-monotheism.html http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm http://www.buzzle.com/articles/zoroastrianism-the-foundation-of-monotheism.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.175.85.156 (talk) 23:10, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The chinese and the russians, and The Remnants of the Walls

In the Textbook What Islam Is All About, Published by Noorart, Lesson 47, Page 219, section D, reads:

"The famous wall does exist and its ruins are located in northen central Asia. There are many different walls there, strung throughout the Caucasus Mountains, and any one of them could be the iron wall in question. One such wall, whose ruins lie in a valley about 150 miles southeast of the city of Bukhara, has long since lost much of its iron due to rust.
The seventh century Chinese traveler, Hiouen Tsiang, reports seeing this huge iron wall with a huge gate near a place called Derbend. In Arabic this walled valley was named Bab al Hadid, or, the Iron Door.
The Muslim Khalifa who ruled from 842-846, Wathiq, sent a team to Central Asia to report on this wall mentioned in the Qur'an. The explorers found it in a valley that was about 150 yards wide. It was supported by two huge jambs and was made of iron bricks welded together with lead. Two huge gates of iron were placed in the middle of the wall. This was reported to us by the famous Muslim geographer, Muqaddasi, who also wrote about it in the year 985.
One proophecy that Dhul Quarnain made is that the wall will only last for so long and then it will be gone_{Quran 18:96}. When the barrier is no longer there, the invaders from the other side will surge over the land and cause great destruction.
The wall is pretty much useless today, so who will soon come through that region and invade? Some scholars are of the opinion that the Russians and the Chinese are the Yajuj and Majuj (Gog and Magog). This cannot be proven, but it does make an interesting discussion."

Shouldn't the Chinese and Russians being the Gog and Magog theory be said? And the Place of the wall theory? --Obaidz96 (talk • contribs • count) 18:22, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

What really happened is that the great Muslim explorer Ibn Battuta traveled to China and confused the Great Wall of China with Dhul-Qarnayn's wall. This led to many racist Muslim theories about Chinese people being Gog and Magog (there is even a video on the Internet of a Muslim "scholar" claiming that Chinese people are the "people with no protection from the Sun (mentioned the Qur'an)" because they have "slanty eyes" from exposure to the sun). - 99.242.17.45 (talk)

Mentions of Alexander

The intro paragraph says "Traditionally, many believe that Dhul Qarnayn is modelled on Alexander The Great, through the intermediary of the Alexander Romance" .... I have changed this sentence so that it links to Alexander the Great in the Qur'an instead of Alexander Romance ... I think this is quite appropriate. Secondly, the point is that many classical MUSLIM scholars believed that Dhul-Qarnayn is Alexander (an undeniable and thoroughly documented fact) ... And those Muslim scholars had never HEARD of the so-called Alexander romance written by Pseudo-Callisthenes - there is no evidence that any classical Muslim scholars were aware of the Alexander romance literature (indeed that would have been highly unlikely). So I believe that the sentence that I have replaced is deliberately worded to evade the truth through the use of weasel words like "many believe" AND the sentence is COMPLETELY INCORRECT in claiming that there is anything "traditional" about modern critical comparisons of the Alexander romance literature with the Qur'an. -- 99.242.17.45 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:06, 7 October 2009 (UTC).

Should this article exist?

Theres another article on wikipedia called Alexander the Great in the Qur'an that calls him the real Dhul Qarnayn. Should such guesses by Quran commentators really merit an entire encyclopedia article? In my opinion it conflicts with WP:Notability, but i'm not sure. Someone65 (talk) 09:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

No citation

This article has no citation from hadith or any other Islamic approved resources and even, on the contrary, most of them are against this theory. This article is wholly a conjecture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emehri (talk • contribs) 15:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

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Sources must be given, and sources must be reliable and verifiable

The bulk of this article - maybe 90% - is unsourced. Not every statement on WIki needs to be sourced, but for a controversial idea such as this most statements do need sourcing. Sources must be reliable and verifiable. "Reliable" would rule out Muslim clerics - their style of scholarship isn't accepted - and sources in Arabic or Persian are not verifiable. I'll go through this and try to find sources that can be used, and I'll try not to remove anything important - what's needed is simply a description of the theory, not arguments for its "truth".PiCo (talk) 07:51, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Please remove the name of Alexander from the article of Cyrus the Great in the Quran

Please delete Alexander's name from Cyrus's article in the Qur'an because you wrote this article (he is more commonly known as Alexander) because Alexander was not a monotheist and was a homosexual who was rejected in religion so delete his name from Cyrus the Great's article in the Quran Reza235 (talk) 10:32, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Reza235, The assertion is supported by a citation to an apparently reliable source. If there are reliable sources contesting the connection we could discuss whether we need to rephrase this, but your own musings on Alexander's religious views and/or sexuality, are not a reason to change anything. GirthSummit _(blether) 10:38, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Girth Summit I have made a promise and cited sources indicating that Cyrus the Great is the same as Zul Qarn, so I urge you to revert to the previous edition that deleted Cyrus the Great from Zul Qarnain in English because the sources are credible, now that the sources Valid Please return the name of Cyrus to the English language page. Zulqarnain in connection with Cyrus the Great because you deleted the name of Cyrus the Great from Zulqarnain page because it had no credible source

Azad, Abul Kalam (1990). India's Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Ball, Warwick (2002). Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire. Routledge. ISBN 9781134823871.

Berberian, Manuel (2014). Earthquakes and Coseismic Surface Faulting on the Iranian Plateau. Elsevier. ISBN 978-0444632975.

Bietenholz, Peter G. (1994). Historia and fabula: myths and legends in historical thought from antiquity to the modern age. Brill. ISBN 978-9004100633.

Cook, David (2005). Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815630586.

Wasserstrom, Steven M. (2014). Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis Under Early Islam. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400864133.

Wheeler, Brannon M. (2013). Moses in the Qur'an and Islamic Exegesis. Routledge. ISBN 9781136128905.

Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai Al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an (Tafsir al-Mizan was translated into English by author and renowned Shia preacher Syed Saeed Akhtar Rizvi)

Authentic Persian Resources

پورپیران، عباس (دی ۱۳۸۴)، «نگرشی بر مقدمه کوروش کبیر (ذوالقرنین)»، مجله گزارش (۱۷۰)

یزدان‌پرست، حمید (۱۳۸۶)، ««ذوالقرنین» یا «کوروش» در متون مذهبی (۲)»، مجله گزارش (۲۴۳ و ۲۴۴)

ذوالقرنین یا کوروش در متون اسلامی، مجله دریای پارس

کوروش کبیر یا ذوالقرنین، ابوالکلام آزاد ترجمه و مقدمه: دکتر محمدابراهیم باستانی پاریزی، نشر کورش، تهران ۱۳۷۵

Authentic Arabic sources

کتاب شناخت: کوروش کبیر، نوشته نویسنده عرب صابر صالح زغلول کورش الأکبر «مؤسس الدولة الفارسیة وأبو إیران؛ حیاته و فتوحاته وهل هو ذوالقرنین»

الاسرائیلیات و الموضوعات فی کتب التفاسیر قدیما و حدیثا تألیف سید یوسف محمود ابو عزیز، ص: ۲۵۶ حدیث نبوی کوروس ملک فارس Reza235 (talk)

Reza235 I'm afraid I'm not sure what you are asking for here. Above you were removing the name of Alexander from this article, now you appear to be talking about adding the name Cyrus the Great to a different article? GirthSummit _(blether) 07:35, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Girth Summit Yes I would like to add the name of Cyrus the Great to Zul Qarnin but I do not intend to delete Alexander from this article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Reza235 (talk • contribs)

Looking at the citations you've provided, I'm starting to worry that you just went to the Bibliography section of this article and copied whatever citations you thought might sound impressive, without actually looking at them. For example, the only mention of Dhul-Qarnayn in Warwick Ball's Rome in the East says nothing whatsoever about Cyrus but instead identifies Dhul-Qarnayn with either a pre-Islamic Arab prince or Alexander the Great. Bietenholz's Historia and Fabula does not mention Dhul-Qarnayn when discussing Cyrus the Great. Same goes for Cook's Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature. Moses in the Qur'an and Islamic Exegesis by Wheeler et al only brings up the identification of Cyrus with Dhul-Qarnayn to dismiss it.

Citing a book is not some magic invocation that will get the edit in place. It is better to look for a book and summarize it and worse to come up with an idea and then look for sources to try to support it. Ian.thomson (talk) 08:39, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

This article is wp:or

No source about Cyrus itself. The majority (as I see) are only about Quranic verses, especially "Problems with the theory" section doesn't have anything to do with the source. Should be nominated for deletion. Beshogur (talk) 17:24, 2 July 2021 (UTC)