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Surah 18. Al-Kahf, Ayah 86

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حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا بَلَغَ مَغْرِبَ ٱلشَّمْسِ وَجَدَهَا تَغْرُبُ فِى عَيْنٍ حَمِئَةٍ وَوَجَدَ عِندَهَا قَوْمًا ۗ قُلْنَا يَـٰذَا ٱلْقَرْنَيْنِ إِمَّآ أَن تُعَذِّبَ وَإِمَّآ أَن تَتَّخِذَ فِيهِمْ حُسْنًا
H att a i tha balagha maghriba a l shshamsi wajadah a taghrubu fee AAaynin h amiatin wawajada AAindah a qawman quln a y a tha alqarnayni imm a an tuAAa thth iba waimm a an tattakhi th a feehim h usn a n
[And he marched westwards] till, when he came to the setting of the sun,84 it appeared to him that it was setting in a dark, turbid sea;85 and nearby he found a people [given to every kind of wrongdoing]. We said: "O thou Two-Horned One! Thou mayest either cause [them] to suffer or treat them with kindness!"86
  - Mohammad Asad

I.e., the westernmost point of his expedition (Razl).

Or: "abundance of water" - which, according to many philologists (cf. Taj al-'Arus), is one of the meanings of 'ayn (primarily denoting a "spring"). As for my rendering of the phrase "he found it (wajadaha) setting...", etc., as "it appeared to him that it was setting", see Razi and Ibn Kathir, both of whom point out that we have here a metaphor based on the common optical illusion of the sun's "disappearing into the sea"; and Razi explains this, correctly, by the fact that the earth is spherical. (It is interesting to note that, according to him, this explanation was already advanced in the - now lost - Qur'an-commentary of Abu 'Ali al-Jubba'i, the famous Mu'tazili scholar who died in 303 H., which corresponds to 915 or 916 of the Christian era.)

This divine permission to choose between two possible courses of action is not only a metonymic statement of the freedom of will accorded by God to man, but establishes also the important legal principle of istihsan (social or moral preference) open to a ruler or government in deciding as to what might be conducive to the greatest good (maslahah) of the community as a whole: and this is the first "lesson" of the parable of Dhu'l-Qarnayn.

till he reached the end of the land and the start of an ocean, where the Sun was setting, he noted that it was setting in a mucky spring and found by it a people. We said: "O Zul-Qarnain! You have the option to either punish them or to show them kindness".
  - Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam Malik
until he reached the setting 'point' of the sun, which appeared to him to be setting in a spring of murky water, where he found some people. We said, 'O Ⱬul-Qarnain! Either punish them or treat them kindly.'
  - Mustafa Khattab
Till, when he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout: We said: O Dhul-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness.
  - Marmaduke Pickthall
Until when he reached the setting of the sun He found it set in a spring of murky water: near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-qarnain! (thou hast authority) either to punish them or to treat them with kindness." 2430 2431
  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

He had great power and a great opportunity. He got authority over a turbulent and unruly people. Was he going to be severe with them and chastise them, or was he going to seek peace at any price, i.e., to wink at violence and injustice so long as it did not affect his power? He chose the better course, as described in the next verse. To protect the weak and the innocent, he punished the guilty and the headstrong, but he remembered always that the true Punishment would come in the Hereafter-the true and final justice before the throne of Allah.

This is the first of the three episodes here mentioned, his expedition to the west. "Reaching the setting of the sun" does not mean the extreme west, for there is no such thing. West and East are relative terms. It means a western expedition terminated by a "spring of murky water." This has puzzled Commentators, and they have understood this to mean the dark, tempestuous sea. If Zul-qarnain is Alexander the Great, the reference is easily understood to be to Lychnitis (now Ochrida), west of Macedonia. It is fed entirely by underground springs in a limestone region, where the water is never very clear.

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