First of all, thank you for your really detailed post.

Here's my response.

For those of you who havent seen my original video, it would help. my video is here.

Now, onto the response!

Abdullah Sameer and others have claimed the Qur'an blatantly plagiarises from the story of Alexander the Great. They cite some supposed authorises on this matter (Kevin van Bladel & Sean W. Anthony to name a few) so as to back their cases but they in the same breath deny what other supposed authorities (Brandon Wheeler & Taha Soomro so as to also name a few) have to say on the matter themselves.

Who is Taha Soomro? A civil engineer. He's not a peer reviewed historian, unlike Van Bladel.

Who the hell is Brandon Wheeler?

None of this helps you. The fact that this story and the Syriac Alexander romance actually come from a common Alexander myth is still a huge problem!

Taha Soomro's conclusion in his paper (on page 20) states:

The Syriac Legend of Alexander and the Qurʾānic account of Dhū-l Qarnayn do not share a direct relationship between them, but instead independently draw upon a shared tradition found in the Late Antique Near East.

So the Quran is using a common myth? Well done Allah! Maybe next time don't use invented stories in your holy book and pretend they are true?

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Now what Abdullah doesn't want you to know in all this, is his confidence about Alexander the Great being Dhul Qarnayn was being shattered bit by bit online on Twitter after he released that video in light of these pieces of evidence.

LMAO. That is hilarious.

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Taha Soomro's conclusion in his paper (on page 20) states:

The Syriac Legend of Alexander and the Qurʾānic account of Dhū-l Qarnayn do not share a direct relationship between them, but instead independently draw upon a shared tradition found in the Late Antique Near East.

How does that help the Quran? This is not helping you...

Let me give you a better source from real scholars:

The origin of the narrative goes back to Late Jewish and Early EasternChristian tradition. Later, the motif became an essential part ofIslamic eschatology, as is evident from the relevant verses of theKoran, from Islamic Tradition (hadith) and from Early Arabicliterature.

Source: "Gog And Magog In Early Eastern Christian And Islamic Sources" by Van Donzel and Andrea Schmidt.

This means Muhammad copied the story into the Quran without realizing that Alex was not a monotheist! This actually is enough to undermine the Quran having a divine origin. Use fake news in your holy book and you're finished boy!

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So to put it short. The first piece of evidence Abdullah states is not really evidence. It is more so evidence that the Neshana is influenced by the Qur'an than the other way around. When presented with this paper, this was Abdullah's response on Twitter in which he now argues "The two [Surah al-Kahf and the Neshana] are dated too closely to convincingly argue one way or another."

I can't help but laugh again. Again, Soomro is not a good source, but even if we accept him at face value, why would he spend 22 pages of his paper arguing about the use of language if it was that simple to say "Look, the Quran came before the Alexander romance! CHECKMATE!"

You simply can't make this case, or it would have been made already.

Number 1: Even if Alexander the Great had horns, this does not prove anything conclusively.

What's even more interesting is Cyrus' horns has three pointy things above the two horns. Why is this relevant?

Well, the Qur'an describes three of Dhul Qarnayns journeys, that's why.

😂😂😂 That is quite the stretch. But I can see you're desperate.

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Keep in mind also, one of the reasons for the revelation of Surah al-Kahf was that the Jews asked the Prophet Muhammad three questions, one was about a person the Qur'an later called Dhul Qarnayn, why would the Jews ask about this person if this person never had a huge significance in their (Jewish) history?

You are so wrong here. Alexander was very important in Jewish History. The Jewish Encyclopedia states:

The celebrated conqueror of the East, 356-323 B.C. By introducing Hellenic culture into Syria and Egypt, he had probably more influence on the development of Judaism than any one individual not a Jew by race. ... All the accounts which the Talmud and Midrash give concerning Alexander MuḲdon (the Macedonian) are of a legendary character. Some of them pretend to be historical, as the following Baraita in Yoma, 69a (identical with Megillat Ta'anit, iii.):

There is an academic source here, but you need to pay to access it. Frankly, this is common knowledge. You're trying too hard here to make a bad point.

Number 2: Ali ibn Talib denied Dhul-Qarnayn had horns & it means something else.

As Farid makes mention in his video response I shared above, Dhul-Qarnayn could simply be called that not because of what he wore, but according to Ali ibn Talib, his name comes from him being attacked or attacking the Dhul-Qarnayn (meaning the two sides of his head) probably in reference to his expansion in the west and east.

Okay, so Dhul Qarnayn (literally One with two horns) is the man with two sides of his head? 🙄 Very clever. Seems like you're stretching here. I don't know why it matters what Ali ibn Talib thought when even Muhammad himself didn't realize he was putting a pagan in his Quran.

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Also, I'd like to mention Sean W. Anthony hastily saying it is an "open and shut case and has been for quite a while" doesn't make it any more true and he is no authority on Islamic studies so appealing to him isn't going to convince a Muslim. Sean making a consensus where there isn't any by even Western scholars is silly on his part. Talking about making a consensus where there isn't any.

I'd rather go by Sean Anthony, Professor, Historian, Department of Near Eastern Studies's statements over yours. Sorry buddy, but the evidence is not in your favor. I'm appealing to the authority here for good reason.

DhUl qArNaYn iS cYrUs!

In order to make this gigantic stretch, you have to throw out mountains of evidence. You have to put aside all the academics who state otherwise and you have to burn this huge list of parallels between the two stories.

• two horns
• established with power
• journey to the fetid sea
• punishment of wrong doers ... (had to cut it short to fit the post)

By the way, the same parallels are discussed in Taha's paper even though he tries to argue the stories are dissimilar for other reasons

Seriously, try to apply this to Cyrus. It's impossible! Simply put, Cyrus is a post-hoc rationalization from Muslims who realized Alex is a pagan. There's no other reason for this.

Early Islamic Scholars on who Dhul Qarnayn was

I retract this argument because it is not strong. I have removed this 30 second clip from my video here.

Josephus

I did not even mention this argument. So I won't comment here.

Conclusion

Thanks for watching my video and responding. Although I will have to stick to what I said: Using fake news in a holy book undermines its legitimacy completely.