Documents of the Right Word

were beyond the blemish of any sort of disagreement among
themselves. They were in brotherly terms and in unity with one
another. Every one of them protected the Islamic countries
against polytheism and the malice of polytheists. After these four
Khalîfas, Muslims preserved their unity in matters concerning
belief. As times and situations changed, the Islamic scholars had
some differing inferences in matters pertaining to fast, hajj, zakât
and the other types of worships; yet no fault or deficiency or
decay or slackness took place in the principles of belief or in
loving Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ and his As-hâb or
in regarding them all as true Muslims. All the Islamic countries
retained this pure and clean quality until the emergence of Shâh
Ismâ’îl. Fortunately, owing to your common sense and the
guidance of your pure hearts, you have ceased from such
practices as swearing at the As-hâb-i-kirâm and being Shiites,
which were invented afterwards. You have embellished your
hearts with love of the four Khalîfas, who are the four main pillars
of the Islamic palace. I therefore promise to report these five
covenants of ours to the Islamic Pâdishâh, who is as high as
heavens, the Sultan of lands and seas, the servant of the
haramayn-i-sherîfayn (the two blessed cities, Mekka and
Medina), the earth’s second Zulqarnayn, [1] our brother, and the
Sultan of Byzantine Greek lands. Let us accomplish this concern
in a manner concordant with our wishes. May what we have
written here, with the help of Allâhu ta’âlâ, be realized very soon!
Now, in order to reinforce this auspicious endeavour, the Allâma-
[1] Alexander the Great. This name has nothing to do with Alexander,
the son of Philip and the king of Macedonia, or Alexander, the king of
the ancient Yemen. This Alexander, whose name is given as
Zulqarnayn in Qur’ân al-kerîm because he went to Western as well as
to Eastern countries, was either a Prophet or a Walî. He lived long
before the other two Alexanders. He was of Japhetic descent. Hidir
‘alaihis-salâm’ was one of the commanders in his army and was the son
of his maternal aunt. He saw and talked to hadrat Ibrâhîm, who asked
a blessing on him. He dominated the European and Asian continents.
Upon the request of the Mu’min (Believer) Turks living in the
Northeastern part of Asia, he built a great wall in order to protect
them against Ye’jûj and Me’jûj (Gog and Magog). Built between two
mountains, the wall, which has nothing to do with the famous Wall of
China, was six kilometres long, twenty-five metres wide, and one
hundred metres tall. Gog and Magog were left behind the wall, and
the Turks were thus saved. History books mostly mistake these three
Alexanders with one another.
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