The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 693
PT. 16 AL-KAHF Cyrus was Jehovah's "friend", His "anointed" and "shepherd" and "performed all His pleasure" (Jew. Enc. , vol. 4, p. 404 & Enc. Bib. , vol. 1, col. 980). Dhul-Qarnain's second characteristic according to the Quran is that he was a great conqueror and ruler of vast territories. About this the Bible says: Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he hath charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem. . . Whose hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates. . . I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places (Ezra 1:2; Isaiah 45:1-3). In this respect history also supports the Quran and the Bible. It represents Cyrus as a great conqueror and a very humane ruler who treated the nations he conquered most generously and in return received their most willing allegiance: I knew that there were some who willingly obeyed Cyrus, that were many days' journey, and others that were even some months' journey distant from him, some, too, who had never seen him and some who knew very well that they never should see him; and yet they readily submitted to his government; for he so far excelled CH. 18 all other kings, as well as those that had received their dominion from their fore-fathers, as those that had acquired it by their own efforts. . . More than this he was most humane. His shield is stained by no horrible deeds of blood, of frightful revenge and cruelty. . . He spared and made gifts to conquered enemies. . . because no wide stream of blood separated him from the vanquished, he found the only possible basis for his giant structure in the raising of the conquerors and the conquered to equal privileges. . . Who is there that approaches him? He is not only beloved by his own people as a father incomparable in every way. . . He was not the product and child of his age but its creator and father. (Historians' History of the World, under Cyrus). Dhul-Qarnain's third outstanding mark mentioned in the Quran is that he conquered and established a vast empire in the East as well as in the West. Now it is a well-known fact of history that Cyrus ruled over vast territories which extended to the waters of the Black Sea in the west and to the confines of Afghanistan, Samarkand and Bukhara in the East. About his conquests in the West it may briefly be stated that he had hardly become the ruler of Media and Persia when Croesus, the King of Lydia (Asia Minor), from his capital, Sardis, instigated the rulers of Babylon, Egypt and Sparta, and rose against him but within a few days suffered a crushing defeat and opened the way for Cyrus' conquests up to the banks of the Black Sea. Cyrus 1901