A'lam ketahui olehmu, kepada zaman dahulukala, dan pada masa yang telah lalu, kata yang empunya ceritera, bahawa Raja Iskandar, anak Raja Darab, Rom bangsanya, Makaduniah nama negerinya, Zul-Karnain gelarannya; sekali persetua baginda berjalan hendak melihat matahari terbit, maka baginda sampai pada suatu bi'at, negeri Hindi. Maka ada seorang raja di tanah Hindi, terlalu besar kerajaannya, seTerigah negeri Hindi itu dalam tangannya; namanya Raja Kida Hindi. Setelah ia mendengar Raja Iskandar datang, maka Raja Kida Hindi pun menyuruhkan Perdana Menteri menghimpunkan segala rakyat dan raja-raja yang takluk kepadanya. Setelah sudah kampung semuanya, maka dikeluarinyalah oleh Raja Kida Hindi akan Raja Iskandar; maka setelah bertemulah segala rakyat antara kedua pihak itu, lalu berperanglah, terlalu ramai seperti yang dalam Hikayat Iskandar itu. Maka alahlah Raja Kida Hindi itu oleh Raja Iskandar, ditangkap baginda denganhidupnya Raja Kida Hindi itu; maka disuruhlah oleh Raja Iskandar membawa iman, maka Raja Kida Hindi pun membawa imanlah dan jadi Islam, dalam agama Nabi Ibrahlm Khalilu 'llah 'alaihi s-salam.
It happened once upon a time that Raja Iskandar [King Alexander], son of Raja Darab of Rum, of the state of Makadunia [Macedonia?], whose title was ‘The Two-Horned One’; wished to see the rising of the sun. Thus, he travelled to the land of Hind [India]. Now, there was also a raja in the land of Hind, his kingdom was huge, for he held nearly the whole of Hind in his hands, and his name was Raja Kida Hindi, and was very powerful. When he heard of the approach of Raja Iskandar, he ordered his Prime Minister to gather all the people and kings who were his subjects and marched out to meet him. The armies engaged and a fine battle ensued, as is recorded fully in the Hikayat Iskandar [Story of Alexander]. Raja Kida Hindi was defeated and taken prisoner. Raja Iskandar spoke to him of his faith, and Raja Kida Hindi then embraced Islam, the true faith according to the law of the Prophet Ibrahim, peace be upon him.
Thus begins the Sejarah Melayu (or at least the version I have access to, as several manuscripts of varying length and condition have been found), the Malay Annals, which purport to tell the history of the Malacca Sultanate. This paragraph tells of the meeting that started it all, between Raja Iskandar and Raja Kida Hindi. Subsequently, the Sejarah Melayu describes how Iskandar marries Kida Hindi’s daughter. Children from that marriage have children of their own, and the bloodline is traced for many generations until the founding of the Malaccan Sultanate by one of Iskandar’s descendants.
The purpose of the opening chapters of the Sejarah Melayu seems to have been to trace the bloodline of the Malaccan Sultans to a heroic figure - Alexander of Macedonia, also known to us as Alexander the Great. However, the description given in the paragraph quoted doesn’t square with the Alexander we know. His father is not Philip of Macedon but Darab of Rum. His title is not ‘The Great’ but 'The Two-Horned One'. And he’s not a Pagan who pushes his own divinity on those he conquers, instead, he’s a Muslim. So who is this guy, why is he such a big deal and how did the Malay World come to know of his exploits?
To answer that, we need to go back to 323 BC, the year of Alexander’s death. Very quickly, legends featuring him started to spring up. These legends are collectively known as the Alexander Romance. Much like the King Arthur or Robin Hood stories, there was no definitive version of the Alexander Romance. Instead, it’s just an umbrella term for all stories featuring Alexander.
The stories of the Alexander Romance spread across many cultures. There were Greek stories, French stories, English stories, Jewish stories and more. Each culture had its own set of stories, some of which overlapped, some of which were unique. This is way out of my area so I can’t begin to say how or when or why they spread, or which version influenced which other version (although from what little I know this is absolutely fascinating and I hope someone can elaborate!). What I can say is that, relevant to our story, at some time during the 7th century Alexander made it into the Quran under the name Dhul-Qarnayn or Dhu Al-Qarnayn, ‘The Two-Horned One’, which is the first recorded instance of that particular title being applied to him.
The story of Dhul-Qarnayn is told in Surah 18, from 18:83 - 101. Here, Muhammad’s tribe sends two men to the Jews to see if they can confirm that Muhammad is a true prophet of God. The rabbis tell them that if Muhammad can tell them three things, then he is indeed a true prophet. One of the things he is supposed to tell them is the story of a man who has travelled to the east and west of the earth, and this is later related by Muhammad as the story of Dhul-Qarnayn. This story bears uncanny resemblance to some of the stories of the Syriac version of the Alexander Romance.
There are two theories as to how Alexander became ‘The Two-Horned One’. One is that the two horns are a reference to the eastern and western edges of the earth which Alexander visited. The other is that, even in his lifetime, Alexander was depicted with the ram’s horns of Ammon to signify his claim to have descended from the Egyptian god Ammon. You can see an example of Alexander with horns here.
Moving to Southeast Asia, we believe that stories of the Alexander Romance spread from Persia and the rest of the Muslim World in the Middle East to Southeast Asia, probably through Muslim traders. We think this because Alexander is known in the Malay World in Southeast Asia as Iskandar Zulkarnain - Iskandar is the Arabic form of Alexander, and Zulkarnain is the Malay form of Dhul-Qarnayn. And it’s not just the story in the Quran that made its way to Southeast Asia. There were many more stories about Alexander in circulation in the Middle East before, during and after the Quran was written, constantly evolving, and a great number of them made it to Southeast Asia.
Iskandar Zulkarnain was seen as a great hero in the Malay World who was particularly associated with Islam and conquest. Iskandar was a popular name among Malay Muslim royalty, for example, Iskandar Shah, the 3rd Sultan of Malacca and the first to convert to Islam; and Iskandar Muda (Young Alexander), the 12th Sultan of Aceh who is remembered for his great military successes; not to mention several other somewhat less illustrious Iskandars, like the 13th Sultan of Aceh who failed to achieve his predecessor’s glory. Iskandar Zulkarnain is still a popular Malay name, indeed, there’s a famous Malaysian badminton player born in 1991 named just that.
It is also likely that the stories of Iskandar Zulkarnain were believed, because numerous Malay Sultanates made great effort to trace their lineage to him. Included in this number are Malacca and Kedah on the Malay Peninsula, Aceh and Pagaruyung (which may not even have been Muslim at the time) in Sumatra, and Banjar in Kalimantan. Indeed, in 1760, when the Sultan of Johor allowed the polity of Negeri Sembilan to appoint a Sultan of its own, Negeri Sembilan’s leaders opted to travel to Pagaruyung. There, they requested that the Raja of Pagaruyung, who was purportedly descended from Iskandar Zulkarnain, give them a leader of his blood so that they, too, could have a Sultan descended from Iskandar Zulkarnain (he gave them his son).
So what were these stories of Iskandar Zulkarnain? Most of the Malay royal chronicles like the Sejarah Melayu don’t give many details as the focus is not on Iskandar Zulkarnain himself, but more on his descendants and bloodline. However, if we look at the paragraph extracted from the Sejarah Melayu above, there is a reference to another document called the Hikayat Iskandar (Story of Alexander).
Several manuscripts entitled Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain (Story of Alexander the Two-Horned) have been discovered. You can view a copy that has been written in Jawi (an Arabic script for writing Malay) here.
The oldest copy dates to the early 18th century but some form of the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain must have been around before that, since the earliest copy of the Sejarah Melayu that has been found dates to May 1612, and the Sejarah Melayu is thought to have been compiled even earlier than that, perhaps in the mid 16th century, with some of its stories having been composed as far back as the 15th century. Since the Sejarah Melayu referenced the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, presumably it was reasonably well-known at the time of its composition.
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