Alexander the Great’s conquest of the known world lasted only eleven years from 334 to 323 BCE, but the legacy of that almost unbelievable achievement—building an empire stretching from Greece to India before the age of thirty—continued to reverberate throughout the centuries.

In the Islamic sphere, the portrayal of Alexander took a surprising and unexpected turn. Alexander’s figure is already hinted at in the Qur’an in the description of the “two-horned one." However, the later tradition, especially the work of medieval Persian poets, gives us an Alexander driven not by conquest but by justice; having attained perfect philosophical wisdom, the Macedonian warrior became a monotheistic prophet. This lecture will discuss the changing figure of Alexander from ancient Greece to Medieval Iran.

Samuel Thrope is the Curator of the Islam and Middle East Collection at the National Library of Israel. Born and raised in Arlington, Massachusetts, Thrope earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at the Hebrew University. His latest book is a translation, with Domenico Agostini, of the Zoroastrian creation myth the Bundahishn.

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Alexander the Great’s conquest of the known world lasted only eleven years from 334 to 323 BCE, but the legacy of that almost unbelievable achievement—building an empire stretching from Greece to India before the age of thirty—continued to reverberate throughout the centuries.

In the Islamic sphere, the portrayal of Alexander took a surprising and unexpected turn. Alexander’s figure is already hinted at in the Qur’an in the description of the “two-horned one." However, the later tradition, especially the work of medieval Persian poets, gives us an Alexander driven not by conquest but by justice; having attained perfect philosophical wisdom, the Macedonian warrior became a monotheistic prophet. This lecture will discuss the changing figure of Alexander from ancient Greece to Medieval Iran.

Samuel Thrope is the Curator of the Islam and Middle East Collection at the National Library of Israel. Born and raised in Arlington, Massachusetts, Thrope earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at the Hebrew University. His latest book is a translation, with Domenico Agostini, of the Zoroastrian creation myth the Bundahishn.

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