KARACHI: This is with reference to Salman Rashid’s article “Interpreting Alexander” (November 3) Mr Rashid deserves a debt of gratitude from the thinking man in this neck of the woods for his penetrating analysis and for pointing out that unless we have been getting it all wrong since the third century BC, Alexander the Great could not have possibly been a Muslim. But then, some of our historians have often displayed a remarkable talent for falsifying history.
Amina Jilani made her foray into journalism a number of years ago with a letter in Dawn that pointed out that the great Deccan warrior, Tipu Sultan, did not ‘vanquish’ Arthur Wellesley the first Duke of Wellington in a battle, as one of our local historians had proudly claimed in a learned tome. Wellington actually went on to win a decisive battle against the Maratha Confederacy in the Battle of Assaya in 1803; and with the help of the Prussians, defeated the French at the Battle of Waterloo.
Lots of people in the Muslim world believe that they are descendants of the great Macedonian conqueror. In fact, a local historian once told me that anybody who has a tan, a hooked nose and was born north of Jhelum is a descendant of Alexander. This suggests that the women of the area in 356BC were remarkably fertile and that Alexander must have been the world’s greatest stud. Of course, by Alexander, the local chroniclers actually mean the Greek soldiers. In the 1941 movie, Sikander, we learned that Alexander was really a bloke named Prithviraj Kapoor, while Sohrab Modi played the Rajput king Porus. We also learned that the Greek soldiers had become home sick and kept chanting we want to go home in Urdu, of course. Apparently, they took their time.
Anwer Mooraj
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2012.
