93حَتّىٰ إِذا بَلَغَ بَينَ السَّدَّينِ وَجَدَ مِن دونِهِما قَومًا لا يَكادونَ يَفقَهونَ قَولًاMuhammad Asad[And he marched on] till, when he reached [a place] between the two mountain-barriers,1 he found beneath them a people who could scarcely understand a word [of his language].This is generally assumed to be the Caucasus. However, since neither the Qur'an nor any authentic Tradition says anything about the location of these "two mountain-barriers" or the people who lived there, we can safely dismiss all the speculations advanced by the commentators on this score as irrelevant, the more so as the story of Dhu l-Qarnayn aims at no more than the illustration of certain ethical principles in a parabolic manner.