“The People of the Cave” are the seven young saints who lived in Ephesus: Maximilian, Xacostodianus, Pamphilchus, Martinus, Dionysius, Antonius, and John.

The Church commemorates them twice a year: on the fourth of August and the twenty-second of October. Their story says that they were contemporary with the pagan Emperor Decius (250), during whose reign persecution was practiced against Christians, including our seven boys. They fled from worshiping idols and prostrating to them to a mountain adjacent to Ephesus and resided in a cave, praising and glorifying God all night and day. Maximilian said to the emperor, refusing to prostrate to idols: “We believe in one God, whose glory fills the heavens and the earth, and we offer Him our constant prayers.” The Lord laid them in the cave for a long period of nearly three hundred years, then He woke them up and brought them resurrection. The Church considers them among its righteous martyrs, because the cave in which they took refuge was blocked by soldiers with stones to bury them alive.

Stories differ about the number of years the young men spent in the cave before their resurrection. There is a story that says that they woke up during the reign of the young Emperor Theodosius (446). So, it means that the seven boys spent about two hundred years sleeping. The novel continues by saying that a heresy that denied the resurrection of the dead had spread during the time of this emperor, and the leader of this heresy was a bishop named Theodore. Naturally, the resurrection of the seven young men contributed to the victory of the true faith and refuted the heresy of Theodore and his followers, as the believers found in it a conclusive argument and proof against those who disbelieved in the resurrection. In this regard, the Church sings: “What a wonder, how those who have been asleep for so many and many years have achieved the resurrection that is not certain for many, and have silenced the mouths of heretics.”

This novel occupied a distinguished place in the Levantine and Arab heritage. The Qur’an narrated it, and one of its surahs, the eighteenth surah, was called “The People of the Cave.” The great Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim also recovered it in one of his plays. The proverb has become known that those who sleep for a long time are like the people of the cave. The Qur’an recalls the Christian narrative about the People of the Cave, and confirms that the reason for the persecution that befell the youth was their refusal to worship idols. It says: “So they said, ‘Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth. We will never call upon any god other than Him’” (verse 14).

In its narration, the Qur’an addresses the heresy of not believing in the resurrection, confirming the Christian narration about the implications of the resurrection of the seven boys in refuting this heresy. It says: “So We struck their ears in the cave for a number of years. Then We sent them to know which of the two parties was counted when they had remained for a while” (verses 11-12). What is meant by the two parties, in these two verses, is the party of believers in the Resurrection and those who disbelieve in it. Here, it must be pointed out that Islam believes in resurrection and the resurrection of the dead, which is why it adopts the position of youth against innovators. He says in another verse: “And likewise so that they may know that God’s promise is true and that the Hour is of no doubt when they dispute among themselves their affairs” (verse 21). One of the contemporary commentators of the Qur’an comments on this verse, saying: “And just as We raised the young men from their sleep, We revealed them to their people while they were alive, so that the people would know that God’s promise of resurrection is true and established, and that the resurrection is coming about which there is no doubt. So when they saw them, they believed in the resurrection.” The same verse continues and tells that God put the youth to death, so the people built a place of worship over their shrine, which is considered an innovation in Islam. However, the contemporary commentator mentioned above says: “This was permissible in their law (i.e. in Christianity), and then Islam forbade placing mosques over graves.” In this regard, we point out that a church was built in Ephesus over the tomb of the youth.

The Qur’an praises the seven young men, and refers to their steadfastness in faith: “We narrate to you their news of the truth. Indeed, they are young men who believed in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance” (verse 13), and their isolation from their people and their families: “These are our people who have taken gods other than Him, so who is more unjust than he who invents a lie against God” (verse 13). 15). However, the Qur’an does not resolve the issue of the number of boys, although it gives preference to the number seven in addition to their dog. It says: “They will say: Three, the fourth of whom is their dog, and they will say: Five, the sixth of whom is their dog, according to the unseen, and they will say: Seven, and the eighth of them is their dog. Say: My Lord knows best their number.” The many versions of this story, even in Christianity, make the issue of the dog ambiguous in this context. However, the Qur’anic interpretation makes the dog’s mission to scare people from approaching the cave in which the seven young men lay. The number of years that the boys spent sleeping is three hundred and nine Hijri years (verse 25), equivalent to three hundred Gregorian years.

There is no doubt that the story of the seven Ephesian saints is full of symbols and meanings, the most important of which, as we have seen, is the affirmation of belief in the general resurrection of the dead, which is one of the pillars of faith in Christianity.

As for the issue of the Qur’an narrating this story, it is not surprising, because the Christian presence in the East in general and the Arabian Peninsula in particular was an active presence at the time of the emergence of Islam. There are also many strange, astonishing and astonishing Christian narratives mentioned in the Qur’an, such as our narrative today, Christ’s creation of the bird, his speaking in the cradle, and Christ’s birth under the trunk of the palm tree... These are narratives, some of which came in the apocryphal books, including what came in the pre-Islamic Christian Arab heritage.

Troparia in the fourth tune
Your martyrs, O Lord, through their efforts, obtained from you indestructible crowns, O our God, because they attained your power, so they destroyed the usurpers and crushed the power of the demons who have no power. Through their supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Qandaq with the fourth tune
Those who turned away from the vanities of the mortal world and took on immortal talents fell asleep and remained incorruptible, then after a few years they rose, burying all the infidelity of the stubborn ones. That is why we glorify them today with songs, O believers, imprisoning Christ forever.