18 chapter one
the trade regulations but the nomads responded with violence, because
for them it was the only way to change the situation in a positive
direction. Th erefore, their violence was based on cold-blooded, politi-
cal consideration, and an economic strategy having well-calculated
fi nal goals and was not just a series of random attacks on Chinese
territories.^15
All those real fortifi cations were in a special synchrony with a sus-
tainable topos as early as the Classic period—the so-called Iron Wall
in the Caucasus Mountains erected by Alexander the Great against
the northern barbarians (known under the names of Gog and Magog,
and mentioned in Arab sources as Yâjûj and Mâjûj); the Arabs were
also familiar with this legend—according to them, the wall was erected
by Iskandar Dhu’l-Qarnayn (i.e. the “Two-horned” = Alexander the
Great) distinguishing thus ‘the world of order’ and civilization from
‘the world of chaos’, e.g. the steppe.^16 Th is way, the Macedonian ruler
was turned into a topos referring to the notion of ideal ruler-demiourgos
establishing and governing the oikoumene in accordance with defi ned
order principles. Th at the story of Alexander was known among Jews,
Christians, and Muslims, all three so-called Abrahamic religions, is an
indication of a meta-anthropology, in which aft er the fourth century
B.C. Alexander’s image retained some special and consistent features,
on which various cultures at various times canvassed their own inter-
pretations of the story.^17
Alexander’s space, which extended to the Indus River to the east,
marked by numerous cities named aft er him, in itself a symbol of
civilization, was always set against the other space, distinguishable by
marks of non-culture and non-civilization. Th is notion lived through
the centuries and it is not a surprise that Muslim scholars interpreted
the foreign character of the Turks within the general framework
of Alexander’s story, in that they associated the Turks with the
Gog and Magog, who had been allowed by God to enter the inhabited
(^15) Barfi eld 1994, 165–166.
(^16) For instance see, Ibn Hordadbeh 1986, 44–46, 129–130; Anderson 1932. Also see,
Stepanov 2002, 131–139 (the same in, Stepanov 2003, 14–27). 17
Shukurov 1999, 35. Th e literature on this problem is enormous. For instance
see, Aleksandr Velikii 2000, especially the unpublished version of the novel about
Alexander the Great (by A. Ya. Garkavi) and the stories about Alexander found in the
“Talmud” (by I. Orshanskii). Also see, Bertel’s 1948. For the use of the image of that
same ruler also see, Pfi ster 1956. Concerning the use of his paradigm among the Volga
and Danube Bulgars during the Middle Ages see, Stepanov 2002, 131–139.