Alexander the Great in the Quran called them the Caspian Gates. Twenty and two Kings did I shut up therein. These pseudepigraphic letters from Alexander to his mother Olympias and his tutor Aristotle, describing his marvellous adventures at the end of the World, date back to the original Greek recension α written in the 4th century in Alexandria. The letters are "the literary expression of a living popular tradition" that had been evolving for at least three centuries before the Quran was written. Several historical figures, both Muslim and Christian, searched for Alexander's Gate and several different identifications were made with actual walls. During the Middle
Alexander the Great in the Quran the Macedonian. He provides a vague justification, saying that the Dhul-Qarnayn mentioned in the Quran traveled to the east and the west achieving victories and so he must be Alexander: While a survey in the history we do not find anybody other than Macedonian Alexander, "therefore, the Dhul Qarnayn is the same Macedonian Alexander". Aristotelian Muslim philosophers, such as al-Kindi (801–873 AD), al-Farabi (872–950 AD), and Avicenna (980–1037 AD), enthusiastically embraced the concept of Dhul-Qarnayn being an ancient Greek king. They stylized Dhul-Qarnayn as a Greek philosopher king. Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328 AD) objected to the identification on the basis that