Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Thi Al Qarnain (ذي القرنين)

In soorat al Kahf (18) Ayah 86 in the Quran God talks about Thi Al-Qarnin a personality which some say is a man from the past while others say he could be someone in the future. The identity of this man is not my concern here, I wish to discuss the meaning of the ayah 86 and ayah 90. Whereby God talks about the East and West. I am curious as to how to interpret these two ayaat. Hoping that someone out there can shed some light. Of course I have access to the traditional interpretations of those ayaat. Not really satisfied with that I have read.

If anyone can shed some light on this I would appreciate it. There is mention of reaching the sunset. Of course we know that there is no real sunset and that it is but the way the sun disappears due to the rotation of the earth around itself. What I hope to understand is can we say that there is an absolute Sunset / West ? If so where is it? Of course we know that there is longitude line where by Humans agree splits the east from the west. I am not sure what the technical term for is "International dateline" ? Anyway, it obviously won't be an absolute anything.

Any ideas?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd try not to literally interpret it. Instead I’d look at it with more abstraction. What I get is “choice”!
Opposite directions mean opposite paths.
This to me sounds like different choices that result in different outcomes...
Things exist by the existence of their opposite. There will be no right if there were no wrong...
Left and right...
East and west...
Night and day...
Right and wrong...
Etc.

Faisal said...

Thanks for your comments. I must disagree however, because of specific mention of the Sun and Sunset or Sun and Sunrise.