Cyrus the Great
Founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire
- Reign
- c. 559–530 BCE
- Empire
- Achaemenid Persia
- Conquests
- Media, Lydia (c. 547 BCE), Babylon (539 BCE)
- Record
- Cyrus Cylinder (British Museum)
- Tomb
- Pasargadae, Iran (UNESCO site)
- In the Bible
- Isaiah 44–45; Ezra 1
The Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BCE, let exiles return home, and is one candidate for the Quran's Dhul-Qarnayn.
What is Cyrus the Great known for?
Cyrus II, called the Great, founded the Achaemenid Persian Empire. He overthrew the Medes, conquered Lydia in Anatolia, and in 539 BCE took Babylon. The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay cylinder found at Babylon in 1879 and now in the British Museum, records his capture of the city and his restoration of temples and displaced peoples.
The Bible remembers him favorably. Isaiah 45 calls him the Lord's anointed, and Ezra 1 says he decreed that the Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. He died in about 530 BCE and was buried at Pasargadae in Iran.
On this site Cyrus appears in the debate over Dhul-Qarnayn, "the two-horned one" of Quran 18, who builds a barrier of iron and copper against Gog and Magog. Most scholars connect that figure with Alexander the Great through the Syriac Alexander Legend, but some modern Muslim scholars, notably Abul Kalam Azad, have argued for Cyrus instead.
Cyrus is one of the proposed identities for Dhul-Qarnayn, builder of the barrier against Gog and Magog.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeDhul-Qarnayn
- PassageDhul-Qarnayn's iron and copper wall (Surah 18:83–98)
- PersonAlexander the Great
Sources
- British Museum, 'The Cyrus Cylinder'Primary text
- Ezra 1 (KJV), Bible GatewayPrimary text
- Wikipedia, 'Cyrus the Great'Reference
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