The sura al-kahf (“The Cave”)1 is altogether dedicated to the question which epistemological quality eschatological knowledge has: Is it possible, for instance, in the sense of an apocalyptic speculation, to make statements about when the end times will begin and the world will dissolve? How does our profane knowledge relate to the overall context of events from the perspective of the hereafter? What does it mean for one’s attitude to life when one has recognized the eschatological reckoning as telos of one’s own existence? The narratives of the dormice, Alexander, etc., presented in Sura al-kahf, take up narrative materials that were already partly in the context of these questions and are now brought into play from a Qur’anic as well as decidedly eschatological perspective. In the process, the entire sura proves to be an inventory of eschatological parables.

1. The sura al-kahf begins, just like the late medieval suras Q 17, 25, and 67, with a doxological praise that is immediately linked to a reference to the revelation of Scripture to the servant Muhammad. Crucial for the narrative thrust of the entire sura is the statement that the revealed scripture contains nothing “crooked” (ʿiwaǧan). Rather, it is a straight guide (qayyiman) by means of which the herald exhorts to eschatological accountability (v. 2) and monotheism (v. 4). It is precisely this eschatological knowledge (ʿilm) that is lacking not only in the deniers of the herald, but also in their ancestors (v. 5). In principle, the antithetical metaphor of the path, which geometrically differs between the straight and the odd/curved path, has been part of the Qur’an’s fixed proclamation at least since the prominent introduction of the fātiḥa as congregational prayer.2 For the request for divine guidance to the straight path (ṣirāṭ mustaqīm) is a central component of congregational prayer. In contrast, the unbelievers refuse divine guidance, which leads to their proverbial label in late Meccan that they desire the crooked path in a non-linear way: “those who have strayed from the path of God (sabīl)”.
2. For the Qur’an precisely guides to insight and the right path (rušd) (cf. Q 72:1-2). The introduction of the narration of the aṣḥāb al-kahf with the rhetorical question of its miraculous (ʿaǧaban) content is thus intended to sensitize the reader to the fact that one can either deliberately misunderstand it and thus obstruct guidance, or that the narration itself is an example of orthodox knowledge and exhorts one to the same. Purely in terms of content, the framework of the narrative is rendered as follows: A group of young men seek refuge in a cave and ask God for His merciful attention (v. 10). Answering their prayer, God allows them to fall asleep (literally, “seal their ears”) for several years, only to awaken them and test who can be more specific about the length of time their sleep lasts (vv. 11-12). It is specified as the narrative progresses that the young men are devout monotheists who have broken away from the idolatry of their cave (v. 17). The young men are also visualized sleeping in the cave: They are thereby turned by God to the right and left (v. 18). There is also a dog with them. The sight of them is described as frightening for every observer. After being awakened, the young men conjecture how long they have slept (v. 19). They decide to let the question rest; one of them should set out to get food supplies. Great caution should be exercised in doing so, as one should fear for one’s own life in case of discovery. Nevertheless, they are discovered so that the contemporaries will know that God’s promise of eschatological final judgment is true (v. 21). A discussion then flares up among the contemporaries as to whether a building (bunyān) should be constructed at the site of the cave. In fact, a place of worship (masǧid) is built there. At the conclusion of the narrative, it is emphasized that the question of the number of young men (v. 22) and their length of stay in the cave (v. 25 f.) is reserved for divine knowledge. At the same time, a parenthetical exhortation is given to place one’s own actions under the reservation of the divine will (v. 23 f.).

Some elements of the Qur’anic narrative of the aṣḥāb al-kahf are given a clear context against the background of the legend of the seven sleepers: for example, the order to one of the young men to get food, or the fear of their discovery. Also, the designation of the youths as “people of the inscription” (aṣḥāb ar-raqīm) could be a reference – as also assumed in traditional exegesis6 – to the tablet that was placed in front of the cave indicating the names and events. According to Sidney Griffith, their nominal identification as people of the cave and the inscription also corresponds to the substantive core of the processed legend in Jacob of Sarug.

Now, in the Qur’anic narration of the aṣḥāb al-kahf, elements are added that are not known from the legend of the seven sleepers: for instance, the turning to the right and to the left of the sleeping youths and of the sun. Similarly, it is surprising that God’s action with regard to the younglings is understood as a test to determine how long they remain in a state of sleep. The new thrust of the Qur’anic seven-sleepers narrative and its concomitant introduction of new motifs becomes understandable only when one recalls a very familiar triad of ancient parables: the parable of the cave, the parable of the sun, and the parable of the line in Plato’s dialogue Politeia.10 Through these parables, Plato attempts to exemplify the ethical and epistemic competencies that the wise philosopher must possess. The culmination of the trinity of parables is the allegory of the cave, in which describes how a plurality of people are chained in a cave.

Socrates suggests that the persons thus bound will never attain knowledge of the true circumstances of the objects they have sighted. Only when one of the cave dwellers is freed and comes out of the cave into the light of day will he realize his previous ignorance. While the Platonic parable triad describes the process of knowledge in a comprehensive sense, the Qur’anic narrative of the aṣḥāb al-kahf serves to allegorize the eschatological knowledge of salvation. The additional narrative elements of the Qur’anic legend of the seven sleepers have a similar function as the corresponding motifs from the Platonic parable triad. The paronomastic and rhetorical introduction of the narrative of the aṣḥāb al-kahf as ʿaǧīb or ʿiwaǧan, with the question of the geometric “curvature” or straightness of the path to salvation, is reminiscent of the vertical and straight line in the line allegory, which also serves to epistemically separate the realms of knowledge. The young men’s desire for rašad is equally ambiguous: on the one hand, it alludes to the legend of the seven sleepers and the persecution of the Christians who ask for their refuge. On the other hand, the concept of rašad or rušd also connotes the conceptual matrix of right knowledge and the rightly guided path. Thus, for example, in the late Middle Meccan sura al-ʾanbiyāʾ, Abraham demonstrates the knowledge of God with his actions and thereby personifies the insight (rušd) given to him. Thus, the aṣḥāb al-kahf also desire true insight here. The fact that their Qur’anic narrative should then also be understood as a parable and not as a legend of punishment or salvation, is clarified by the description of the onset of their sleep in the cave: literally, there is talk here of “striking their ears / sealing their ears” ( fa-ḍarabnā ʿalā ʾāḏānihim). Ḍaraba also becomes a terminus technicus within the Qur’anic proclamation for the introduction of parables (cf. the corresponding introduction of parables in the same sura: V. 32, 45). And while in Plato’s parable of the sun it is the sense of sight which, with the help of the sun, also symbolizes the epistemological constellation of knowledge, in the Qur’an it can only be the ears which – recalling Paul (“So faith is from hearing, but hearing through the word of Christ”, Rom 10:17) – figuratively represent the organ for the reception of the proclamation. Their sealing also serves the Qur’anic image of the deafness of the unbelievers (Q 2:18; 47:23)13, which is also brought into play in the middle section of Surah al-kahf (v. 57).

In the context of the narrative of the aṣḥāb al-kahf, such reference is made to the fact that the younglings are initially returned to a state of eschatological naivety. Thus, the Qur’anic version of the legend of the seven sleepers is not intended to tell of the salvific deeds of divine attention in the story, but to symbolize orthodox knowledge in the form of a parable. Therefore, the divine intention for their sleep is said to be the knowledge (ʿilm) of the two parties about the dwelling time of sleep. This is not a silly guessing game. Whereas the two parties (ḥizbain) in the Platonic parable triad are the knowing and unknowing about the episteme, Quranically, in terms of eschatological knowledge, the two parties are distinguished on the Day of Judgment and the knowledge of it. Thus, the questioning about the dwelling time alludes to the eschatological knowledge and the question about the time of the Last Judgment. In this way, the designation of the young men in the cave as aṣḥāb ar-raqīm must also be understood not only as an allusion to the tablet in the legend of the seven sleepers, but also in the sense of raqm as a reference. After a flashback clarifies the identification of the young men as believing monotheists (vv. 13-16), the parable of the aṣḥāb al-kahf continues with the insertion of the movements of the sun in front of the cave (V. 17).

The sun has the same function here as in the allegory of the sun and the cave in Plato’s Politeia. There, as the idea of the good, it represents the condition of the possibility of knowledge. Koranically, the sun has the same transcendental function; only that now it is about eschatological knowledge. The turning of the sun to the right and left as it rises and sets symbolizes the eschatological knowledge that will be revealed on the Last Day. Early Meccan suras culminate precisely to proclaim this knowledge. While the aṣḥāb al-yamīn (“companions on the right”) comprises the group of virtuous believers (Q 56:27,38) whose good actions weigh more heavily, the sacrilegious unbelievers are identified as the aṣḥāb aš-šimāl (“companions on the left”) (Q 56:41). Accordingly, these spatial coordinates also otherwise serve to mark believers and unbelievers at the eschatological end time. The sun turning to the left and right in the parable of the aṣḥāb al-kahf marks eschatological knowledge as a transcendental symbol. Then the disciples themselves are described (v. 18).

In Plato, this refers to knowledge at the level of doxa. The turning of the young men in the cave to the right and to the left stands here for the unfolding of eschatological knowledge; that is, the making visible of the salvation-relevance of one’s deeds, which remain obscured when one looks straight ahead in earthly life. One could also consider the dog lying on a threshold (waṣīd) in the context of the wall in the Platonic parable of the cave, on which the jesters also bear effigies of animals whose shadows are visible to the cave dwellers. Quranically, the dog, like the effigies and implements of the jugglers, remains earthly staffage for the mundane and naive knowledge at the level of the doxa. Given the scenario of the Qur’anic youths described, it is also not surprising that the sight of them would cause discomfort in an observer (v. 18). This is also an allusion to the reaction of people on the Day of Judgment and the unfolding of eschatological knowledge. Finally, it is made explicit how the young men are awakened and ponder the period of time they have spent in the cave. However, it is stated that the knowledge in this regard is with God alone. It is decided that one of the younglings will now procure pure food, the one being careful not to be discovered, otherwise one would be persecuted and stoned or forced to believe otherwise. Except for the guessing about how long to stay, the Qur’anic description of the raising of the younglings seems to reference the Christian legend of the seven sleepers: Like the martyrs, one decides that one of those present will provide food. Like the martyrs, one is in the firm belief of being persecuted. For the Christian martyrs refuse the pagan sacrificial service. And yet the Qur’anic account of the raising of the disciples has a different flavor: the disciples are now asked about how long they have stayed. Actually, they ask each other here (tasāʾalū), but the impersonal address in the second person plural (“How long have you tarried?”) – instead of the first person (“How long have we tarried?”) – refers to a special – namely post-mortem – context.

The simile-like rendering of the Qur’anic legend of the dormouse or the Qur’anic parable of the cave is followed by a final assessment with the temporal particle ʾiḏ, which on the one hand negates the real-historical interpretation of the events surrounding the aṣḥāb al-kahf and on the other hand rejects apocalyptic speculations. Alluding to a possibly erected sanctuary at the site of the events surrounding the dormice, two groups are described as arguing over the construction of a building (bunyān) or place of worship (masǧid). Koloska suggests that by emphasizing the divine knowledge of the intentions of the parties involved, a Qur’anic case is made for the construction of “a plain tomb” rather than a “tomb-shrine. There is no point in speculating about the function and form of the building, since realhistorical reflection on the dormice is absurd from a Qur’anic perspective.

If Koranically the legend of the seven sleepers is proclaimed as a parable, then any interest in its historical realities is absurd. The futuristic reference to such a speculation regarding the personal composition is striking. It is natural to see in this also a dismissal of speculation about the political messianic events leading up to the eschatological end times.

Instead of a fearsome chimera there is a dog in the Koran. This animalistic belittlement and the accompanying rejection of apocalyptic speculations can be understood at least as a partial aspect of the negation of the realhistorical interpretation of the legend of the seven sleepers. These two aspects also emerge in the question of the young men’s length of stay in the cave (v. 25 f.). Here, then, the initially thetically formulated dwell time of 309 years17 is at the same time taken back by the reference to the superior, divine knowledge.18 Any serious effort to determine the chronology of events in terms of real history is thus negated. For the superiority and privilege of divine knowledge do not refer to the profane knowledge of a chronicler. It is about the knowledge of eschatological time, which is with God alone: When the hour begins, God alone knows! In the context of the Qur’anic final reflections on the parable of the seven sleepers, a request is also noticeable parenthetically, which hermeneutically connects the parables and narratives in the middle part of the Sura. In the energicus, the call is made to put one’s own actions at the service of divine will (v. 23 f.).

The aṣḥāb al-kahf stand paradigmatically for the prototype of the believing human being who, as demanded by God, always asks for the right way and the right insight (rašad) (v. 10). In this way one should also verbatim place all actions under the primacy of the divine will, which alone enables a successful life (eudaimonia), whose telos is the eschatological resolution of all deeds. In the course of the sura there now follows a prophet’s promise (v. 27 f.) and the short insertion of an eschatological double image of the blessed and the unbelievers (v. 29-31). The aṣḥāb al-kahf is now explicitly contrasted in a parable with the antitype of the sacrilegious human being who is eschatologically ignorant and indulges in the hubris of his own power of determination.