Seven Sleepers
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In Christian and Islamic tradition, the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (Arabic: اصحاب الکھف aṣḥāb al kahf, "companions of the cave") is the story of a group of youths who hide inside a cave outside the city of Ephesus around 250 AD to escape a religious persecution and emerge 300 years later.
The earliest version of this story comes from the Syrian bishop Jacob of Sarug (c. 450–521), which is itself derived from an earlier Greek source, now lost. An outline of this tale appears in Gregory of Tours (b. 538, d. 594), and in Paul the Deacon's (b. 720, d. 799) History of the Lombards. The best-known Western version of the story appears in Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend.
The Roman Martyrology mentions the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus under the date of 27 July (June according to Vatican II calendar). The Byzantine Calendar commemorates them with feasts on 4 August and 22 October.
The story appears in the Qur'an (Surah 18, verse 9–26) as thus is important to Islam. The Quranic story does not state the number of sleepers Surah 18, verse 22. It also gives the number of years that they slept as 300 solar years (equivalent to 309 lunar years). The Islamic version includes mention of a dog who accompanied the youths into the cave and appears to keep watch. In Islam, these youths are referred to as "The People of the Cave".
