Serkan Zorba

This article reexamines the identity of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur’anic narrative (Q18:83–102) through a comparative typological framework grounded in ancient Near Eastern and late antique religious traditions. While previous scholarship has primarily emphasized parallels with Alexander traditions, particularly the Syriac Alexander Legend (the Neṣḥānā), such studies have tended to foreground questions of narrative parallels and possible literary transmission. This study proposes an alternative comparative approach by comparing Islamic Dhul-Qarnayn with the Judeo-Christian and apocalyptic figure of Melchizedek on the basis of shared functional and typological features. Focusing on motifs of Abrahamic connection, righteous kingship, liminal status, authority to judge, world-ordering mandate, and eschatological agency, the analysis uncovers recurring similarities in the representation of both figures across these ancient religious traditions. Thus, methodologically, this study moves beyond surface-level literary parallelism and intertextuality, focusing instead on structurally coherent patterns as a fruitful analytical layer.

Applying the concepts of Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity and Turing’s uncomputability from the computability and algorithmic information theories to the irreducible and incomputable randomness of quantum mechanics, a novel argument for the existence of God is presented. Concepts of ‘transintelligence’ and ‘transcausality’ are introduced, and from them, it is posited that our universe must be epistemologically and ontologically an open universe. The proposed idea also proffers a new perspective on the nonlocal nature and the infamous wave-function-collapse problem of quantum mechanics.