Alexander the Great in the Quran rhetorical type depending on the Cleitarchus tradition, and with this he amalgamated a collection of imaginary letters derived from an "Epistolary Romance of Alexander" written in the first century B.C. He also included two long letters from Alexander to his mother Olympias and his tutor Aristotle describing his marvellous adventures in India and at the end of the World. These are the literary expression of a living popular tradition and as such are the most remarkable and interesting part of the work. The Greek variants of the "Alexander romance" continued to evolve until, in the 4th century, the Greek legend
Alexander the Great have survived. The earliest of these is Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), followed by Quintus Curtius Rufus (mid-to-late 1st century AD), Arrian (1st to 2nd century AD), the biographer Plutarch (1st to 2nd century AD), and finally Justin, whose work dated as late as the 4th century. Of these, Arrian is generally considered the most reliable, given that he used Ptolemy and Aristobulus as his sources, closely followed by Diodorus. Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (), was a king ("basileus") of the