Alexander too had passed this way, and in Central Asia the magic of his name still lingers in the mountain valleys where men swear they are descended from his soldiers. In Iraq, however, he was forgotten. When I heard old men round the fire telling legendary tales of courage and generosity, it was never of two-horned Alexander that they spoke, nor of Caliphs who had ruled in splendour in Baghdad, but of tattered herdsmen in the deserts of Arabia.
W. Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs (1964), 97
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