the Turks, nor did he construct the Barrier; he only made it as far as the lands of Persia.

Whoever imagines that Aristotle was the vizier of the Dhu l-Qarnayn mentioned in the Quran has fallen into a blatant error that shows he is unfamiliar with those nations’ religions and their historical periods.

When the religion of the Messiah, peace be upon him, emerged some three hundred years after Aristotle in the regions of Rome and Greece, the people there were upon pure monotheism until innovations appeared among them. They began to draw pictures on the walls, using these painted images as substitutes for the earlier idols.

The former peoples had prostrated to the sun, the moon, and the stars; these later communities, therefore, started to prostrate toward them—namely, toward the East, from which the sun, moon, and stars rise—and made this directional prostration a replacement for prostrating to the heavenly bodies themselves.

For this very reason the Seal of the Messengers—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—through whom Allah concluded prophethood and with whom He displayed a degree of perfect monotheism never before manifested, instructed that no one deliberately schedule his prayer for the moment of sunrise or sunset, because