[Sūrah xxxi. 12]: “Associating (with God) is a mighty wrong (z̤ulmun ʿaz̤īmun).”
[Sūrah ii. 54]: “It was themselves they were wronging (kānū anfusa-hum yaz̤limūna).”
Z̤ULMAH (ظلمة), pl. z̤ulamāt. “Darkness.” A term used in theology for (1) Ignorance, (2) Belief in a plurality of gods, (3) Transgressions, (4) Afflictions.
Qurʾān, [Sūrah xxiv. 40]: “Or like darkness (ka-z̤ulumātin) on a deep sea, there covers it a wave above which is a wave, above which is a cloud,—darkness one above another,—when one puts out his hand he can scarcely see it; for he to whom God has given no light, he has no light.”
ẔŪ ʾL-QAʿDAH (ذو القعدة). Lit. The “Master of Truce.” The eleventh month of the Muḥammadan year, so called because it was the month in which the ancient Arabs abstained from warfare. [[MONTHS].]
ẔŪ ʾL-QARNAIN (ذو القرنين). Lit. “He of the two horns.” A celebrated personage mentioned in the 18th chapter of the Qurʾān, who is generally considered to be Alexander the Great, although Muslim writers hold him to have been contemporary with Abraham.
Al-Qast̤alānī, the commentator on al-Buk͟hārī, says: “Ẕū ʾl-qarnain was a king named Sakandar, whose wazīr, or chancellor, was K͟hiẓr [[AL-KHIZR]], and was contemporary with Abraham, the Friend of God, with whom he visited the Kaʿbah at Makkah. There is some difference of opinion as to his being a prophet, but all learned men are agreed that he was a man of faith and piety.”
Al-Baiẓāwī says: “He was Sakandar ar-Rūmī, King of Persia and Greece.”
Al-Kamālain say: “He was Sakandar ar-Rūmī, but was contemporary with Abraham, and not the Sakandar who lived about three hundred years before Christ, who was an infidel.”
Muḥammad, in his Qurʾān, whilst professing to give an inspired account of Ẕū ʾl-qarnain, supplies us with but a confused description, as follows:—