cyrus masroori, alexander the great iran utopia

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Cyrus Masroori

Utopian Studies, Volume 24, Number 1, 2013, pp. 52-65 (Article)

DOI: 10.1353/utp.2013.0006

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Utopian Studies, Vol. , No. ,

Copyright © . The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

Alexander in the City of the Excellent: A Persian

Tradition of Utopia

Cyrus Masroori

Persian, one of the most potent languages when it comes to imagery and fiction, offers

a utopian tradition in which Alexander of Macedonia is presented as the hero of

the story. Identifying Alexander with a Quranic figure and associating him with an

Islamic sage, this tradition circumvented the negative conception associated with

Alexander as a destroyer of the Persian Empire. This article reviews various accounts

of Alexander’s discovery of a utopia, describes his redemption from being a usurper,

and lodges these accounts within the broader discourse of their time.

In the western tradition utopia is often associated with Sir Thomas More’s

description of an ideal city. This association has resulted in a number of

consequences. For instance, until recently, the pre-More utopian texts have

been to a large extent neglected. Also, overshadowed by modern European

adventure fictions, non-western utopian writings have received relatively little

attention. This article briefly reviews various Persian utopian traditions, fol-

lowed by a more detailed examination of one of them, the Alexandrian genre.

It will show that some of the accounts presented by More were anticipated by


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: Alexander in the City of the Excellent

Persian utopian authors. The article also shows that the Alexandrian utopia,

like many of its European counterparts, presents an innovative and revolu-

tionary departure from the mainstream norms of political thought of its time.

The Four Traditions of Utopian Discourse in Medieval Iran

One may divide utopian texts into prescriptive and descriptive. Prescriptive

utopian texts provide blueprints for the creation of ideal cities. Plato’s Republic

and Laws are among the earliest examples of prescriptive utopian texts in the

West. Descriptive utopian texts, meanwhile, are accounts of imaginary cities.

This has been the dominant genre of western utopian writing since More,

although Plato’s account of Atlantis is a much earlier example. While there

are many examples of prescriptive utopian writings in medieval Persian politi-

cal discourse, instances of descriptive accounts are surprisingly rare.

This rarity is certainly not due to a lack of imagination. Medieval Persian

literature is rich with fictitious voyage accounts. However, most of these

accounts are about traveling to real places. More important, the emphasis

of these stories is on heroic personalities and not ideal cities.

At times whenthese accounts describe imaginary cities, they do not describe ideal institu-

tional arrangements worthy of imitation but, rather, elaborate on the heroic

deeds of the main actor(s). Such a neglect of institutional imagination was in

line with the widely accepted view that the most important prerequisite for a

preferred polity was the moral excellence of the ruler.

In Persian political theory of the time absolute monarchy was almost

universally accepted, not just as the best regime but as the only legitimate

one. The prescriptive texts described at length the responsibilities and moral

obligations of the prince. They also provided advice on how to arrange the

bureaucracy of the court and the formal duties of the courtiers. When there

was a need to provide an example of ideal monarchy, authors often referred to

pre-Islamic Persian kings such as Khosrow Anushiravan (r. –) or Islamic

rulers such as the Omayyad caliph Omar ibn abd al-Aziz (r. –). To con-

clude, whether it was the excellence of the king or that of the voyager, the

focus of Persian political theory remained the individual’s moral character.

Given this background, one can identify four medieval Persian traditions

in utopian discourse: the philosophical tradition connected to al-Farabi, the

ethical tradition of “Mirrors for Princes,” the theosophical tradition of Persian

Sufis, and the Alexandrian tradition. I proceed with a brief examination of the


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Utopian Studies 24.1

first three traditions before giving a more detailed account of the Alexandrian

tradition.

The Philosophical Tradition

Greek philosophy of the Socratic tradition reached the Middle East prior to

the rise of Islam. It is possible that Plato’s writings had reached Iran before

the Muslim invasion as well. In either case, by the tenth century principles

of Plato’s prescriptive utopia were adopted by al-Farabi (ca. –), whose

Arabic book Ara’ Ahl al-Madina al-Fadila (known in English as On the PerfectState or Virtuous City) attempted to reconcile Plato’s principles of an ideal city

with the doctrines of Islam. In this attempt, al-Farabi presented the concept

of the prophet-king as an alternative to Plato’s philosopher-king. Al-Farabi’s

work was very familiar to scholars who knew both Persian and Arabic. As

we shall see shortly, the Alexandrian tradition adopts al-Farabi’s innovation,

presenting the Quranic figure Zulqarnain, widely believed to be the same as

Alexander of Macedon, as the model prophet-king.

The Ethical Tradition

Adopting a more inclusive definition of prescriptive utopian writing, one

can identify the origin of another Persian utopian tradition in Kalila va

Dimna. Written initially in Sanskrit sometime around the third century ..,

it was translated into Pahlavi (the language of pre-Islam Iran) by the sixth

century and later to Arabic (ca. ) and Persian (ca. ). The book was

also translated into Greek, Latin, and Hebrew during the Middle Ages. A

series of animal fables, this text provides advice for a good life and the effec-

tive management of an ideal polity. Kalila va Dimna was widely read, and

it influenced the Mirrors for Princes genre, the prevailing type of prescrip-

tive utopian writing in the medieval Persian-speaking world. Among the

well-known examples of the mirrors are Siyasatnameh (Book of politics) by

Abu Ali al-Hassan al-Tusi Nizam al-Mulk (–), Qabusnameh (Book of

Qabus) by Abu al-Hasan Qabus ibn Vushmgir (d. ), and Nasihat al-Moluk

(Advice to princes) by Abu Hamed Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali

(–). Many of these Persian Mirrors for Princes also include references

to Plato. However, with the possible exception of a few such as Ghazali and


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Nasir al-Din Tusi, the authors of these texts knew little if anything about

Plato’s utopian texts.

The Theosophical Tradition

In studying the Persian utopian traditions, one must also pay special atten-

tion to a short essay, Fi Haqiqat al-Ishq (About truth of love) by Shihab al-Din

Suhravardi, widely known as Sheikh al-Ishraq (–). It is important to

keep in mind that Fi Haqiqat al-Ishq is not a political treatise but, rather, a

theosophical text.

It is the first Persian text where the concept of nakoja-abad,literally meaning “no place,” is used in reference to a location. Suhravardi

was familiar with Greek philosophy, but there is no evidence that he knew the

Greek language or that the Persian political and philosophical discourses of

the time were exposed to the definitions of the Greek ou and topos.

Fi Haqiqat al-Ishq, a thirty-page essay written in a highly symbolic lan-

guage, begins by stating: “Be aware that God’s first creation was a radiant

jewel, which he called wisdom. . . . He gave this jewel three qualities: the

knowledge of God, the knowledge of itself, and the knowledge of that whose being is in not-being.” According to Suhravardi, the third quality of wisdom

is sorrow (huzn). When Sorrow is asked about its place of birth, it replies,

“I am from the district of No Place [Nakoja-abad], city of the Pure [shahr-e

Pakan].” The concurrence of these four concepts, “that whose being is in not-

being,” “sorrow,” “the district of No Place,” and “city of the Pure,” must not

be ignored. Clearly, Suhravardi anticipates More’s use of utopia in conjunc-

tion with the ideal. But he also recognizes an existential tension in the utopian

imagination that was not noticed by More: Utopia is not primarily a hopeful

celebration of the ideal but, rather, a sorrowful recalling that the very being

of the ideal is in its absence.

The Alexandrian Tradition

The Alexandrian tradition presents the Persian discourse closest to the west-

ern descriptive utopia. I refer to this tradition as Alexandrian because here

Alexander of Macedon is the hero and the “discoverer” of the ideal city.

An important characteristic of these utopian accounts is their displacement

of the centrality of a morally righteous ruler by that of morally virtuous


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citizens. The message here is that to achieve the ideal city, it would not be

sufficient to have a qualified ruler. Instead, there must be a general population

that has reached the necessary level of moral excellence. In fact, such a popu-

lation would not even need a ruler at all. In the following I examine various

texts in the Alexandrian tradition in more detail.

Why Alexander?

The reader may initially be surprised by the choice of the hero in the above

tradition. Alexander’s invasion of Iran involved destruction and bloodshed.

In addition, it certainly had an impact on the collective psyche of those who,

in one way or another, identified with the Persian Empire and celebrated its

glories. However, Alexander’s unprecedented military success was intrigu-

ing, and some associated those accomplishments with Alexander’s moral

excellence. There is little doubt that the historical Alexander did not possess

the moral qualities assigned to him by these medieval Muslim authors, who

reconstructed his image in accordance with the qualities of a prophet-king.

There were a number of reasons for receiving Alexander as a hero inmedieval Iran. First, as mentioned earlier, many authors identified Alexander

as the Quranic figure Zulqarnain. In the Quran, Zulqarnain is portrayed as

a just king who stood against oppression and attained the status of a quasi-

prophet. He traveled and conquered vast lands of “the East and the West”

and protected people from oppressors. Zulqarnain was a believer in Allah.

Although Alexander lived almost a thousand years before Islam, we must

remember that Muslims consider all adherents to the Abrahamic religions as

believers in Allah.

Epic Persian poet Abulqasim Ferdowsi Tusi portrayed Alexander as a

Christian. In his Iskandarnameh (Book of Alexander; probably written some-

time between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries), Abd al-Kafi al-Barakat

points to this historical inaccuracy, but he also frequently reminds the reader

that Alexander was guided and protected by God. Ilias Muhammad Nizami

Ganjavi (–) explicitly relates Alexander’s success to his adherence to

and advocacy of the “sacred religion.” He calls Alexander a prophet who,

defending the “true religion,” persecuted Zoroastrians and destroyed their

temples, which the historical Alexander did not do. Amir Khosrow Dehlavi,

a Persian-language poet in India, makes similar claims about Alexander

some eighty years later. Nizami and al-Barakat even claim that Alexander


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traveled to Mecca on a pilgrimage to the Ka’ba, which Muslims consider the

holiest place on Earth. According to al-Barakat, during this purported visit

Alexander, who knew about the coming of Muhammad, tried to identify the

Prophet’s ancestors.

Portraying Alexander as a champion of justice and a liberator of the

oppressed, Nizami describes his Persian opponent Darius III (ca. – ..)

as a tyrant. Such strong denunciation of Darius in favor of Alexander is strik-

ing. As Kamel Ahmadnizhad points out, while the Persian emperor is pre-

sented as arrogant and oppressive, Alexander is described as just, patient, and

wise. Throughout the above-mentioned texts, authors return to this dichot-

omy of the just king and the tyrant, where Alexander is identified with the

former and his various enemies, with the latter.

Second, the Persian-speaking world was also aware of Alexander’s asso-

ciation with Aristotle and indeed exaggerated that association dramatically.

Nizami suggests that Alexander was also in communication with Plato,

Socrates, and a number of other Greek philosophers who had died before

Alexander’s rise to power, as well as others who were born after Alexander’s

death. In addition, some Persian authors considered Alexander himself a phi-

losopher. Nizami goes even further and claims that the worldwide fame thatGreek philosophy enjoyed was due to Alexander’s love of knowledge and his

efforts to promote learning. Thus, medieval Persian authors reconstructed

Alexander as a triumphant monarch who benefited from both divine grace

and the advice of the greatest sages and philosophers, particularly Aristotle.

Third, Alexander’s military success was received with great amaze-

ment among Muslims. Even the Islamic empire did not reach the zenith of

Alexander’s success. Their astonishment was further augmented by the fact

that Alexander achieved his success in a very short period of time. Histories

frequently exaggerated his conquests, extending them to places where the

real Alexander had never visited (such as Tibet and China). It was suggested

that the Macedonian prince personally engaged in battles against the most

powerful of his enemies and defeated them with little effort. Thus, Muslim

authors readily concluded that only a virtuous and divine person could

achieve so much success so rapidly.

Historical confusions and intentional exaggerations aside, these authors’

primary purpose in describing Alexander’s life was not historiography. In

fact, Nizami suggests that a historically inaccurate statement, as long as it

serves a good cause and is accepted by the audience, is superior to an accu-

rate statement that appears false or unbelievable. Alexander’s great military


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success had attracted the interest of the monarchs of the time. By converting

Alexander to a man of God and justice, Nizami and others associate the

Macedonian prince’s military success with piety and equity. Thus if a king

desires Alexander’s achievements, he should not simply seek military strength

but, rather, must adopt his standards of ethical conduct. In these presenta-

tions of Alexander as the ideal king, it is not surprising that at the end of his

virtuous life he discovers the ideal city.

Fourth, Ferdowsi claimed that Alexander’s father was a Persian king.

The claim was repeated and even expounded by some later authors such as

al-Barakat. This “Persianization” of the Macedonian prince helped Iranians to

accept Alexander as a legitimate figure. Persians were not alone in claiming

Alexander as one of their own. In Romance of Alexander the Great , an account

probably first written as early as the third century .. and widely read during

the Middle Ages, the author claimed that Alexander’s father was an Egyptian

king. Nizami, however, rejected the Persian origin of Alexander and, instead

of Persianizing, Muslimized him.

The Alexandrian Utopia

The earliest account of a utopia in Persian is the legend of Gang Dezh,

accounted by Ferdowsi, who was probably familiar with the Romance of

Alexander . The city, built by a mythical Persian prince, Siyavash, is described

as being isolated by the sea and the desert. It is also protected by a moun-

tain range circling around it, which allows only a few men to defend the city

against an army of “a hundred thousand.” The city enjoys moderate weather,

always resembling the spring. There is no disease in Gang Dezh, and every-

one is always happy. The influence of Gang Dezh on the Alexandrian utopia

is easy to see.

However, the earliest account of the Alexandrian utopia is a commentary

on the Quran called Kashf al-Asrar va ‘Uddat al-Abrar (Unveiling of the secrets

and the promise to the pious; ca. ) by Abulfazl Rashid al-Din al-Maybudi.

It is interesting that in a commentary on the Quran, the ideal city existed

prior to Islam. As we shall see, the superiority of this utopia over Medina,

the city directly ruled by Muhammad, is evident. In al-Maybudi’s account

the discoverer of the ideal city is Zulqarnain. As pointed out earlier, identify-

ing Alexander with Zulqarnain was common at the time. In this account,

Zulqarnain goes from city to city and invites people to worship the true God,


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until he arrives at a city where communism is practiced: Wealth is equally

distributed, and there is no government. People live long lives and are kind

to each other. There are no locks on the houses’ doors, and in front of each

house, a grave has been dug.

The astonished Zulqarnain asks the citizens about the graves, and he is

told that they are to remind the citizens of death. They further explain that

since everyone in the city is honest and God-fearing, they do not need any

locks on their doors; and since in their nature there is no desire for oppression

and conflict, they do not need sheriffs, judges, or princes. They also explain

that they try to live a life of justice and honesty and seek only God’s support

and guidance, not that of “voices and Astrology.” They describe how they

have followed their fathers’ practice of helping the deprived, forgiving trans-

gressors, returning evil with kindness, and doing their prayers in a timely

manner.

Rawz al-Jennan va Ruh al-Jannan fi Tafsir al-Quran (Garden of Paradise

and the Spirit of God in interpretation of the Quran) by Hussein ibn-e Ali al-

Khaza’i al-Nishaburi (Razi) provides another example of an Alexandrian uto-

pia. This famous commentary on the Quran was written sometime between

and by a Shi’i theologician. The author’s religious affiliation shouldnot be overlooked. The Shi’a believe in an ideal society, but only under the

rule of the legitimate imam, who must be a descendant of Ali, Prophet

Muhammad’s son-in-law. The need for this imam, who is the sole spiritual

and temporal ruler of the community, is particularly explicated in terms of

establishing justice. If a just community existed without the imam—as the

account of Alexander’s/Zulqarnain’s travels suggests—then the requirement

of a legitimate imam becomes superfluous. In fact, neither in Kashf al-Asrar

nor in Rawz al-Jennan is there any mention of religious institutions or leader-

ship in the ideal city, although citizens are morally righteous and worship the

true God.

Overall, the utopian stories of the above two commentaries on the

Quran are similar. Al-Nishaburi explicitly suggests that the Quranic figure

Zulqarnain and Alexander of Macedonia are the same. In al-Nishaburi’s

account, when the citizens of utopia are asked why they do not have a gov-

ernor, they respond: “Because we do not commit crimes, and therefore

do not need someone to correct us.” They also state that they do not have

princes because they “are not arrogant.” Citizens of al-Nishaburi’s utopia

do not become overtly joyous or sad. When asked why they do not laugh,

they respond: “Because we are fearful of sin, and busy asking for God’s


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forgiveness.” They also explain that they do not become sad because they

expect misfortune. Once again, what eventually uphold righteousness are

death and the fear of God’s wrath.

In Muhammad ibn Mahmud Hamedani’s Aja‘yeb al Makhluqat va Ghra‘yeb

al-Mowjudat (Strange creatures and rare beings; written sometime between

and ), Zulqarnain and Alexander are used interchangeably. Alexander

finds a city in North Africa (Maghreb) where all houses are “equal,” with

graves dug by their entrances. In another text, al-Barakat’s Iskandarnameh,

there is no mention of Zulqarnain, and Alexander is the discoverer of the uto-

pia. In this account more light is shed on the communism of the ideal city: All

property has been equally divided among all citizens, and if a citizen loses his

goods, his neighbors give him part of theirs. Here, the connection between

private property and government is pointed out more explicitly: the city needs

no king or judges because no one has more wealth than others. The citizens

of this city are also God-fearing and practice righteousness. However, unlike

in previous accounts, these citizens have Khezr, a prophet who has taught

them the true religion. According to Muslims, Khezr is a prophet associ-

ated with both Moses and Zulqarnain. In some medieval Persian accounts of

Alexander, he met Khezr, and together they sought the Fountain of Life, butonly Khezr was able to drink from the fountain, thus becoming immortal.

By the thirteenth century, Alexandrian utopia entered Persian poetry.

Sometime around , Ilyas Ibn-e Yusuf Nizami Ganjavi wrote a poem

describing Alexander’s life. This biography is in two parts. The first part,

Sharafnameh (Book of honor), is dedicated to Alexander’s conquests, while

the second part, Iqbalnameh (Book of fortune), describes his travels as a phi-

losopher and a prophet. It is at the end of these travels that Alexander discov-

ers the “City of the Virtuous.”

Astonished by the excellence of the city’s residents, Alexander asks:

If this is virtue, what is that we have?

If these are human beings, who are we?

He then concludes that if he had seen these people earlier, he would not have

needed to travel around the world in search of virtue. Shortly after visiting

the ideal city and on his way back to Greece, Alexander dies unexpectedly. It

is rather ironic that the ideal prince only at the end of his life arrives at the

ideal city and then is moved to acknowledge the superiority of its excellence

over those ruled by him.


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There is little doubt that Nizami was influenced by the accounts of

Alexandrian utopias written before his. Once again, we are told about a city

without a government, where wealth is equally distributed. There are no

locks on peoples’ houses, nor are there shepherds with the cattle. People live

righteous lives and practice moderation. They help each other in times of

need and practice compassion toward the weak.

Meanwhile there are also some important differences between Nizami’s

“City of the Virtuous” and the Alexandrian utopias written earlier. In Nizami’s

utopia, there is an explicit emphasis on the dominance of God’s will and pre-

destination in human affairs, which is absent in the utopian accounts before

his. Citizens of Nizami’s utopia remind Alexander on several occasions that

they do not resist God’s will but, instead, welcome what He has planned for

them. Such acceptance, they point out, is a key to their fortune.

Another main difference is that Nizami’s city is protected by supernatu-

ral powers. As Alexander and his bodyguards enter the outskirts of the city,

one of his men reaches for a fruit, but he is struck dead before picking it.

Another soldier grabs a sheep, but he meets the same destiny. Observing this,

Alexander orders his men to avoid touching what is not theirs. Upon arriv-

ing at the city and talking to its citizens, he learns that they enjoy divine pro-tection, which safeguards them from transgressions by humans and attacks

by wild animals.

Given that the Alexandrian utopian city is landlocked, and therefore

much more exposed to external threats than a faraway island, such divine pro-

tection is of great importance to the city’s survival. Supernatural powers and

magic play a significant part in Persian fictions of medieval and early mod-

ern times. There are also examples of them in European utopian writings.

Denis Veiras, for example, gave detailed accounts of supernatural powers and

magic in Sevarambia. However, in the case of Sevarambia, such powers are

primarily used to regulate the citizens’ behavior. In Nizami’s utopia the only

mentioned applications of supernatural powers are against transgressing

noncitizens and wild animals. Meanwhile, if a citizen commits a wrongdo-

ing, he or she is simply driven out of the city.

An important difference between Nizami’s account of utopia and the

Alexandrian utopias before and after his is the character of the citizens. As

mentioned earlier, in other Alexandrian utopias citizens dug graves by their

houses to remind them of death. The implication is that such a reminder is

needed to keep citizens virtuous. In Nizami’s account, however, there is no

mention of graves. Here, human nature is capable of adopting a virtuous


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life without being constantly terrorized by the inevitable coming of death,

afterlife, and God’s judgment.

Persian poets continued to write about Alexander’s adventures after

Nizami. As late as the fifteenth century, Abd al-Rahman Jami’s (–)

account of Alexander’s life included a description of his visit to the ideal

city. While there is no doubt that Jami’s Khiradnameh-i Iskandari (Alexander’s

book of wisdom; written sometime between and ) was inspired by

Nizami, his description of the ideal city is closer to that of al-Maybudi, since

there are again graves dug in front of each house. In Jami’s utopia there is also

no political or religious institution. The need for political authority is associ-

ated with oppression, which has no place in the city. Although equality of

wealth among citizens is not explicitly mentioned here, it is pointed out that

no one is rich in the city. As in the other examples of the ideal city presented

here, the citizens explain that they learned their way of life from their parents,

an emphasis on the value of customs and traditions.

Conclusion

The Alexandrian tradition is the main Persian genre of the descriptive uto-

pia. It suggests that economic inequalities are at the heart of social problems.

Among pious individuals who enjoy equality in wealth, there is no need for

either political or religious institutions. Righteous life could become a tradi-

tion, although to check human impulses, it is useful to remind people of death.

It is important to remember that in all of the above examples the ideal

city existed prior to the Prophet Muhammad. In fact, there are fundamen-

tal differences between Muhammad’s Medina and these utopian societies.

One important difference is that the former was a class society while the lat-

ter were communistic. Islam has always explicitly sanctioned private prop-

erty and differences in wealth, and not even Muhammad and the closest of

his associates practiced communism. Further, in contrast to the ideal cities

described above, Muhammad’s Medina had a government. Finally, unlike

the utopian societies presented here, unlawful and immoral behavior took

place in Medina and all other Muslim cities during Muhammad and after him.

Therefore, one may conclude that the Alexandrian utopia was superior to the

cities managed under Islamic rule.

Further, the absence of reference to religious leaders and institutions

(with the exception of Iskandarnameh) could lead to the conclusion that


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piety and excellence in personal and social life do not require the presence of

religious institutions or authorities. If the ideal life could be achieved without

religious institutions and authority, and the ideal society could have existed

prior to Muhammad, what would be the purpose of Islam? It is unlikely that

the texts here have a Straussian hidden agenda of refuting Islam. It is also

hard to imagine that all of these authors failed to see the logical conclusion

of their stories, which questions the superiority of Islamic society over all oth-

ers. So, what could be the purpose of these utopian accounts?

The message of these stories may be that piety is achievable outside

the framework of any particular religion. A society of pious citizens liber-

ates itself from greed and egoism and voluntarily practices communism.

Consequently, such a society does not need government. This society, where

there is no poverty or conflict, will be the greatest human accomplishment.

Further, the Alexandrian utopia departs from the prince-oriented moral excel-

lence that almost exclusively dominated Persian political thought of the time

and instead suggests that a good society needs morally educated citizens. The

presentation of such revolutionary propositions should not surprise us since

“utopians want to go further and do more than reformers.” While reformers

of the time sought the education of the ruler, these utopians recommendedthe education of the masses. While reformers concerned themselves with

increasing the ruler’s power and expanding his dominion, the Alexandrian

utopians advocated pacifism and compassion.

Notes

I would like to thank John Christian Laursen for his valuable comments. I am also thank-ful for the helpful comments and suggestions by the editors and the anonymous referees

of Utopian Studies.

. By Persian in this article I refer to the language of the authors and not their ethnicity.

. Examples of such imaginary cities include Plato’s Atlantis, Thomas More’s Utopia,

and Tommaso Campanella’s City of the Sun. Obviously these utopian texts also have a

prescriptive dimension. However, for a variety of reasons, among them the fear of accu-

sations of heresy, they do not explicitly present proposals for changing the status quo.

. The most important of these accounts is that of Samak ‘Ayyar/Samak the Gallant,

written around the thirteenth century by Faramarz ibn ‘Abdollah al-Kateb al-Arrajani; seehis Samak ‘Ayyar (Tehran: Sokhan, ).

. Abdulhussein Zarrinkub, Donbaleh Jostvaju dar Tasavof Iran [Sequence to the search

for Sufism in Iran] (Tehran: Amir Kabir, ), –.

. Abu Nasr al-Farabi, On the Perfect State (Chicago: Kazi, ).


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. For a brief account of Suhravardi’s life, see J. A. Boyle, ed., The Cambridge History of

Iran: The Saljuq and Mongol Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), –.

. Shahab al-Din Suhravardi, Fi Haqiqat al-Ishq (Tehran: Muwla, ), .

. Various accounts regarding Alexander’s legendary life, including his fictional travels,can be traced back to a work of literature referred to as the Alexander Romance. This work

probably started taking shape not long after Alexander’s death and was popular through-

out the medieval era, influencing Persian and Arab authors who wrote about Alexander.

For more on the Alexander Romance tradition, see Richard Stoneman, Alexander the Great:

A Life in Legend (New Haven: Yale University Press, ); Dick Davis, Panthea’s Children:

Hellenistic Novels and Medieval Persian Romance (New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press, );

Richard Stoneman, trans., The Greek Alexander Romance (New York: Penguin, ); and

Immanuel Ben Jacob Bonfelis, The Book of the Gests of Alexander of Macedon: A Medieval

Hebrew Version of the Alexander Romance (Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, ).. Literally meaning “One with two horns” in Arabic.

. For a review of various arguments regarding Zulqarnain’s identity, see Sayyid

Hasan Safavi, Iskandar va Adabiyat-e Iran va Shakhsiyat-e Mazhabi-e Iskandar [Alexander

and Persian literature and the religious character of Alexander] (Tehran: Amir Kabir,

), –; Kamil Ahmadnizhad, Tahlil-e Asar Nezami Ganjavi [An analysis of Nizami

Ganjavi’s writings] (Tehran: Elmi, ), –.

. Obviously Alexander was not an adherent to any Abrahamic religion. For a related

account, see Branon Wheeler, “Moses or Alexander?” Journal of Near Eastern Studies

(): –.. Ahmadnizhad, Tahlil-e, ; Safavi, Iskandar , –. For a broader study of this

topic, see Dick Davis, Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi’s “Shahnameh” (Fayetteville:

University of Arkansas Press, ).

. Abd al-Kafi al-Barakat, Iskandarnameh [Book of Alexander] (Tehran: Cheshmeh,

), .

. Illias Muhammad Nizami Ganjavi, Kulliyat-e Nizami Ganjavi [The works of Nizami

Ganjavi], vol. (Tehran: Nigah, ), .

. Ibid., .

. Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, A‘ineh-e Iskandari [Mirror of Alexander] (Moscow: Danesh,), –.

. Al-Barakat, Iskandarnameh, .

. Ahmadnizhad, Tahlil-e, –. Rather surprisingly, Ferdowsi, whose Shahnameh is

often assessed as a “patriotic” account of the history of Iran, portrays Alexander as a just

king. For example, see Abulqasim Ferdowsi, Shahnameh (Tehran: Behzad, ), .

. Thus, Nizami and al-Barakat claim that Aristotle was Alexander’s minister.

. Nizami, Kulliyat , . In identifying Alexander as a philosopher Nizami is not alone.

In Sandbadnameh, for instance, Alexander is presented as a philosopher of the same

caliber as Plato and Aristotle (Muhammad ibn-e Ali Zuheiri Samarqandi, Sandbadnameh [Book of Sandbad] [Tehran: Miras Maktub, ], ).

. It is important to recall that Aristotle was often celebrated among a number of

medieval Muslim philosophers as the greatest philosopher and carried the title of “the

First Teacher.”


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. Nizami, Kulliyat , .

. One may ask why Alexander and not a Muslim figure was selected as the ideal king.

Speculation about this question is beyond the scope of this article.

. Pseudo-Callisthenes, The Romance of Alexander the Great , trans. Albert MugrdichWolohojian (New York: Columbia University, ).

. By Persian here I refer to Dari Persian, which appeared after the invasion of Iran by

Muslims.

. For a relevant discussion, see Davis, Panthea’s Children.

. Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, –.

. Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (–) also briefly describes a city where

graves have been dug by each house’s door. Here the citizens are vegetarian and live a

life of poverty. The city has a king, who advises Zulqarnain to rule with justice (Abu

Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, Nasihat al-Moluk [Advice to the princes][Tehran: Majlis, ], –). Although this account by Ghazali could have inspired the

Alexandrian utopian authors after him, as we shall see shortly, there are some fundamen-

tal differences between Ghazali’s story and those narrated later.

. Hussein ibn-e Ali al-Khaza’i al-Nishaburi, Rawz al-Jennan va Ruh al-Jannan fi Tafsir

al-Quran, vol. (Mashhad: Astan-e Qods, ), .

. Ibid.,

. Ibid., .

. Muhammad ibn Mahmud Hamadani, Aja‘yeb al Makhluqat va Ghra‘yeb al-Mowjudat

(‘Ajayeb Nameh) (Tehran: Markaz, ), –. . Al-Barakat, Iskandarnameh, .

. For a Persian account, see Abdulhussein Zarrinkub, Pirganjeh dar Jostujuy Nakoja

abad [The sage of Ganjeh in search of utopia] (Tehran: Sokhan, ).

. Nizami, Kulliyat , .

. Ibid., –.

. Ibid., .

. See Denis Veiras, The History of the Sevarambians, ed. John C. Laursen and Cyrus

Masroori (Albany: State University of New York Press, ).

. Nizami, Kulliyat , .. Abd al-Rahman Jami, Masnavi-e Haft Owrang [The Masnavi of Seven Thrones]

(Tehran: Ahura, ), –.

. For more on this, see Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, ).

. John Christian Laursen, “Riforma e utopia,” in Illuminismo. Un vademecum, ed.

Gianni Paganini and Edoardo Tortarolo (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, ), .

cyrus masroori, alexander the great iran utopia

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