Ashab al-Kahf: The Seven Sleeping Saints

The Holy Qur’an, in 18^th Surah Al-Kahf, narrates the story of a few young believers, who fled from a tyrant polytheist king, hid inside a cave, and kept sleeping there for a number of years. After sleeping for centuries, they woke up and came to know that they slept for three centuries.

Qur’anic Narrative:

The Holy Qur’an narrates the story as follows:

“Don’t you think that the people of the Cave and the Raqeem were one of Our wondrous signs? When those youths sought refuge in the Cave and said: “Our Lord! Grant us mercy from Yourself and provide for us rectitude in our affairs.” We lulled them to sleep in that cave for a number of years and then roused them so that We might see which of the two parties could best tell the length of their stay. We narrate to you their true story. They were a party of young men who had faith in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance; and strengthened their hearts when they stood up and proclaimed: “Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth. We shall call upon no other god beside Him; (for if we did so), we shall be uttering a blasphemy.” (Then they conferred among themselves and said): “These men, our own people, have taken others as gods beside Him: why do they not bring any clear evidence that they indeed are gods? Who can be more unjust than he who foists a lie on Allah? And now that you have dissociated yourselves from them and from whatever they worship beside Allah, go and seek refuge in the
Cave. Your Lord will extend His mercy to you and will provide for you the means for the disposal of your affairs.” Had you seen them in the Cave it would have appeared to you that when the sun rose, it moved away from their Cave to the right; and when it set, it turned away from them to the left, while they remained in a spacious hollow in the Cave. This is one of the Signs of Allah. Whomsoever Allah guides, he alone is led aright; and whomsoever Allah lets go
astray, you will find for him no guardian to direct him. On seeing them you would fancy them to be awake though they were asleep, and We caused them to turn their sides to their right and to their left, and their dog sat stretching out its forelegs on the threshold of the Cave. Had you looked upon them you would have certainly fled away from them, their sight filling you with terror? Likewise, We roused them in a miraculous way that they might question one another. One of them asked: “How long did you remain (in this state)?” The others said: “We remained so for a day or part of a day.” Then they said: “Your Lord knows better how long we remained in this state. Now send one of you to the city with this coin of yours and let him see who has the best food, and let him buy some provisions from there. Let him be cautious and not inform anyone of our whereabouts. For if they should come upon us, they will stone us to death or force us to revert to their faith whereafter we shall never prosper.” Thus did We make their case known to the people of the city so that they might know that Allah’s promise is true and that there is absolutely no doubt that the Hour will come to pass. But instead of giving thought to this, they disputed with one another concerning the People of the Cave, some saying: “Build a wall over them. Their Lord alone knows best about them.” But those who prevailed over their affairs said: “We shall build a place of worship over them.” Some will say concerning them: “They were three and their dog, the fourth”; and some will say: “They were five, and their dog, the sixth” — all this being merely guesswork; and still others will say: “They were seven, and
their dog, the eighth.” Say: “My Lord knows their number best. Only a few know their correct number. So do not dispute concerning their number, but stick to what is evident, and do not question anyone about them.” [1]

The Holy Qur’an explicitly declares it a story of a miracle. A miracle is a Divine Decree, out of question, beyond a reasonable doubt. This Qur’anic narrative is brief and objective. Mufassirin, scholars of the Qur’an, elaborated this narrative subjectively. So, we will discuss the story in detail in this paper to address the historicity, geography, perspective, and outcomes.

Who were the Companions of Cave?

The Companions of Cave, as translated by the title of Ashab al-Kahf were true followers of Tawhid (monotheism). Several theories have been proposed regarding their origin. But, the most reliable theory that is supported by archaeological evidence, was proposed by Abdullah Ibni Abbas (May Allah shower His blessings upon him) as it has been recorded by Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabri on behalf of Muhammad ibn Sa’ad. [2]

Abdullah ibn Abbas (May Allah shower His blessings upon him)
said about the word Ar-Raqeem that appeared in the aforementioned
narrative from Surah Al-Kahf (Ayat 9):

الرقيم: واد بين عُسْفان وأيَلة دون فلسطين، وهو
قريب من أيَلة

Ar-Raqeem is the name of a valley located between Usfan and
Aylah, near Palestine, that is closer to Aylah.

Ayla was a famous city of ancient Syria (Ash-Sham) and has been well recorded
in history. Arab historians have mentioned Aylah in their historical
accounts related to the Byzantine Empire. Ayla has also been mentioned as a city in a few
authentic Hadiths (Jami at-Tirmidhi: H#2445). The famous Muslim geographer Yaqut al-Hemawi gave a detailed account of Aylah in his compendium Mo’ajam
al-Buldan, which is considered an outstanding encyclopedia of ancient
cities. Yaqut al-Hemawi observes:

Ayla is a city located on the Mediterranean coast, near Ash-Sham (Assyria).[3]

Wikipedia observes:

Elath (Hebrew: אֵילַת‎, Modern: Elat, Tiberian: ʼÊláṯ; Latin: Aila; Ancient Greek: Ελά,^[1] Ἀηλά,^[1] Αἴλανα,^[2] Αἰλανίτης,^[3] Αἰλανή,^[4] Ἐλάνα,^[4] Αἴλανον,^[4] Αἰλάς,^[4] Αἰλάθ,^[4] Αἰλών,^[4] Ἡλάθ,^[4] Αϊλά), or Eloth,^[5] was an ancient city mentioned in several places in the Hebrew Bible^[6] on the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba. It was in the same vicinity as Ezion-Geber.

The name survived into the Roman period as Aela, adopted into Byzantine Greek as Aila and into Arabic as Aylah (the Arab settlement was built outside the ruins of the ancient city), later becoming Aqabat Aylah (“Aylah Ascent”), eventually shortened down to Aqaba.[4]

The modern name of the same city is Eilat (in present day Israel/Plestine).

Ar-Raqeem and Aylah were part of the Eastern Roman Empire, which is also known
as the Byzantine Empire. Both of these localities were
situated in the region that was called Petra by the Romans. Fortunately, the famous
Jewish historian Josephus Flavius recorded in his exceptional work Antiquities of the Jews , that the original name of Petra was Raqmu which referred to the King Rekem.[5]

The editors of the work Men on the Rocks: The
Formation of Nabataean Petra observes:

Should we take the strange “so-called Petra” as an indication that the Greeks had knowledge about the Arab name of Petra, Raqmu, but decided to continue with the traditional Greek name? Li-kan is believed to be a translation of Raqmu in a Chinese source dating between 138-122 BC (Graf 1996:207-210). The Nabataean inscription of the Nefesh of Petraios son of Threptos, dated to the late 1^st century BC, gives the old name Raqmu. [6]

Raqmu, the original name of Petra, is a somewhat distorted dialect of the original dialect of Raqem. George Albert Cooke, the editor of an article on Petra compiled in the 1911 version of Encyclopedia
Britannica explicitly mentioned the name Rekem.

Eusebius and Jerome (Onom. sacr. 286, 71 145, 9, 228, 55. 287, 94), apparently on the authority of Josephus (Ant. iv. 7, 1; 4, 7), assert that Rekem was the native name. [7]

The same editor of Encyclopedia Britannica describes the location and significance of Petra as follows:

PETRA (ἡ Πέτρα= the rock), a ruined site, 30° 19′ N . and 35° 31′ E., lying in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Wadi el-‛Arāba, the great valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of ‛Akăba. The descriptions of Strabo (xvi. p. 779), Pliny (N.H. vi. 32), and other writers leave no doubt as to the identity of this site with the famous capital of the Nabataeans (q.v.) and the center of their caravan trade. Walled in by towering rocks and watered by a perennial stream, Petra not only possessed the advantages of a fortress but controlled the main commercial routes that passed through it to Gaza in the west, to Bostra and Damascus in the north, to Elath
and Leucè Comè on the Red Sea, and across the desert to the Persian Gulf. [8]

According to the editor, Elath (Aylah) was a neighboring city of Petra. Look how beautifully, the statement Abdullah ibn Abbas (May Allah shower His blessing upon him) has been confirmed. Now it has been proven through pure Islamic literature, and the historical and archaeological records that Ar-Raqeem was the original name of Petra.

Western scholarship agrees that the Nabataeans were originally Arab people who inhabited Petra (Ar-Raqeem). The Qur’anic name Ar-Raqeem indicates that it is Arabic in nature, which confirms the Arabian origin of Nabataeans. Moreover, Nabataeans’ inscriptions record that most of the gods worshipped in Petra, were the same as were worshipped in Makkah according to the Qur’an.

George Albert Cooke notes:

The chief god of Petra was Dhū-sharā (Δονσάρης), i.e. the lord or owner of Sharā,^[9] he was worshipped under the form of a black rectangular stone, a sort of Petraean Ka’aba (Suidas Lex’. s v. Θεός Αρης, and cf. Epiphan. above). Associated with Dhū-sharā was Allāt, the chief goddess of the ancient Arabs.[9]

W.W. Hallo, the editor of The Context of Scripture (2003), quoted a number of Nabataean inscriptions, found carved in 38 tombs, located in Madain Salih (Saudi Arabia). One of these Nabataean inscriptions mentions Nabataean gods and goddesses (idols) including Dhu-Shara, Allat, Manat, and Habal as follows:

And may [the supreme god] Dushara and his throne and [the goddess] Allat of Amnad and [the goddess] Manotu and her Qaysha curse anyone who sells this tomb or who buys it or gives it in pledge or makes a gift of it or removes from it body or limb or who buries in it anyone other than
Kamkam and her daughter and their descendants.

And whoever does not act according to what is written above, shall be liable to Dushara and Hubalu and to Manotu in the sum of five shamads and to the exorcist priest for a fine of a thousand Aretite sela’s, except that whoever produces in his hand a document from the hand of Kamkam or Kulaybat, her daughter, regarding this tomb, this document will be valid.[10]

We know that these were the idols that were worshipped by people of Hejaz. So the striking resemblance between, language, names, and deities leads us to conclude that Nabataean were the Arabs who shared the same linage with Arabs of central Arabia.

So all these facts confirm the Arabian origin of Nabataeans. According to Josephus Flavius, Nabataeans were descendants of Nabit ibn Ismael, the grandson of Prophet Ibrahim )May Allah shower His blessings upon him).

Nabajoth is specifically mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus, who identified the Nabataeans of his time with Ishmael’s eldest son. He claimed that the Nabataeans lived through the whole country extending from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, and referred to this area as ‘Nabatene,’ or the area that the Nabataeans ranged in. Josephus goes on to say that it was the Nabataeans who conferred their names on the Arabian nations. (Jewish Antiquities I.22,1) Josephus lived and wrote during the time that the Nabataeans were in existence, and supposedly, he obtained his information directly from the Nabataeans themselves. These Nabataeans spoke and wrote an early form of Arabic and thus they were often referred to as ‘Arabs’ by Greek and Roman historians.[11]

A well know Indian Muslim scholar Sayed Sulayman Nadwi, in his famous work Ardh al-Qur’an (The Land of Qur’an), also claimed that Anbat or Nabataeans were descendants of Ismael (May Allah shower His blessings upon him). [12]
Dr. Jawad Ali also included them in Arabs. [13]
There is no need to mention that Nabajoth is a distorted dialect of Nabit ibn Ismael.

So it is not a farfetched idea that Ashab al-Kahf belonged to the region Ar-Raqeem (Petra) and they were descendants of Nabit ibn Ismael. Their original language was Arabic, however, its dialect was greatly affected by the Aramaic language, which has been a language of northern parts of the Arabian Peninsula, especially Petra.

Persecution

The Qur’an clearly describes that the reason behind the
persecution of Ashab al-Kahf was their strong and unshakable belief in the oneness of Almighty God, both in His Essence and attributes. They were staunch
supporters of monotheism and refused to practice idol worshipping. When we
investigate the history of the world, particularly northern Arabia, we find
the Roman king Decius the tyrant, who persecuted the true believers in the oneness
of God Almighty. The Christian scholars claim that the seven sleepers were
Christians. While we believe that they were true followers of Jesus Christ.

Most of Muslim historians, including Imam Ibn al-Athir (d. 630 H) listed the story of Ashab al-Kahf after the story of Eisa (Jesus ) the Christ (May Allah shower His blessings upon him). Imam Ibn al-Athir begins the story with these words:

Ashab al-Kahf belonged to the days of King Dikyos, that is also dubbed as Diqyanos and they lived in the Roman city Efsus (Ephesus). [14]

Imam Muhammad ibn Ishaq explicitly claimed that Ashab al-Kahf were followers of Eisa (Peace be on him), as Ibni al-Athir quoted him.[15]

The Editors of Encylopedia Britannica observe:

Before Decius’s reign, and persecution of the Christians in the empire had been sporadic
and local, but about the beginning of January 250, he issued an edict ordering all
citizens to perform a religious sacrifice in the presence of commissioners. A
large number of Christians defied the government, for which the bishops of
Rome, Jerusalem, and Antioch lost their lives and many others were arrested. [16]

Wikipedia introduces Decius in these words:

Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius (c. 201 AD – June 251 AD), sometimes translated as Trajan Decius or Decius, was the emperor of the Roman Empire from 249 to 251. A distinguished politician during the reign of Philip the Arab, Decius was proclaimed emperor
by his troops after putting down a rebellion in Moesia. In 249, he defeated and killed Philip
near Verona and was recognized as emperor by the Senate afterward. During his reign, he
attempted to strengthen the Roman state and its religion, leading to the Decian persecution,
where a number of prominent Christians (including Pope Fabian) were put to death. In the last
year of his reign, Decius co-ruled with his son Herennius Etruscus, until they were both killed by the Goths in the Battle of Abritus.[17]

The Cave of the Seven Sleepers

Several sites have been attributed as Cave of Seven
Sleepers in Turkey and Jordan. However, reports mentioned by Abdullah bin Abbas
(May Allah be pleased with him) supports the site of Amman (Jordan).

Ashab al-Kahf: The Seven Sleeping Saints

Madain Project reminds:

Cave
of Ashab Kahf (اصحاب الکهف‎)
or the Cave of the Seven Sleepers (كهف السبعة النائمين)
in Jordan is a partly natural and partly man-made burial cave dating back to
the Byzantine era, believed to be the cave of Ashab Kahf mentioned in Quran.
The cave is also known as the Kahf of Raqeem (كهف
الرقيم) mentioned in Quran’s chapter 18 (Sura al-Kahaf).[18]

Interestingly,
the entrance of the cave faces south, which conforms with the Qur’anic narrative:

Had you
seen them in the Cave it would have appeared to you that when the sun rose, it
moved away from their Cave to the right; and when it set, it turned away from
them to the left, while they remained in a spacious hollow in the Cave.

This narrative indicates that the sunlight does not fall
on the entrance of the cave directly, neither at the time of sunrise nor
sunset. It means the cave mentioned above faces southward or northward. So this
narrative also supports that the cave identified as Seven Sleepers’ cave in
Jordan is the strongest candidate.

Allah knows the best.

[1] Al-Kahf:9-22

[2] https://quran.ksu.edu.sa/tafseer/tabary/sura18-aya9.html#tabary

[3] https://shamela.ws/book/23735/287

[4] Elath – Wikipedia

[5] https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=bpWGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA14&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

[6] https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=bpWGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA14&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

[7] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Petra

[8] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Petra

[9] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Petra

[10]
W.W. Hallo, The Context of Scripture, p.845

https://archive.org/details/the-context-of-scripture/page/n845/mode/2up?q=allat