Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in the Quran: Difference between revisions

The [[Qur'an|Qur'anic]] story of the "Companions of the Cave"  has traditionally been explained by the Islamic narrative as proof of [[Allah]]'s divine power whereby he miraculously caused 7 youths to fall asleep and awaken after more than 300 years. Yet comparison with the literary milieu of the Qur'an, 7th century Chrisian culture in the Middle East, reveals parallels to the 7 Sleepers of Ephesus, a Christian legend dating from the 5th century which tells the story of Christian youths being persecuted by the pagan Roman Emperor Decius in the 3rd century. The youths seek shelter in a cave, fall asleep for over 200 years, and venture out only to find that the Empire is now Christian. Their faith confirmed, the youths then die and are embraced by the Lord. Rather than a mere exhibition of god's power, the original story was a parable meant to emphasis the ability of Christian faith to overcome persecution, a celebration of the Christianization of the Roman Empire and an answer to heretics at the time of the story's composition who doubted the literal nature of the physical Resurrection. As the Qur'an does not preserve the entire story, but appears to merely refer to it, the [[tafsir|mufassirun]] of later generations misinterpreted the story, leaving out key components and failing to relay the underlying message of the original parable. In 2023, academic scholar Thomas Eich published his finding that the specific version of the tale found in the Qur'an overlaps significantly with the version taught by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus (d. 690 CE), and which can be situated in an early 7th century Palestinian context.<ref name="Eich2023">Eich, Thomas. [https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/islam-2023-0003/html Muḥammad und Cædmon und die Siebenschläferlegende. Zur Verbindung zwischen Palästina und Canterbury im 7. Jahrhundert] (abstract in English), Der Islam, vol. 100, no. 1, 2023, pp. 7-39. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2023-0003</ref>

It is in a Biblical commentary by Theodore when he was in England (surviving in two 9th century and one 11th century Latin manuscripts) where we find a version of the seven sleepers story, quoted below, with exceptional correspondances to the Quranic version. Unlike all other Syriac-Christian references to the legend (which have all been assigned to communities in Palestine, and in one case to Najran in Southern Arabia), in Theodore's version:

Prior to the identification of the above quoted Palestinian version, a number of clear parallels between the Qur'anic story and the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus had already been identified, though also differences.

Another similarity between the two stories is that both state that one of the companions goes to the city to buy bread with coins. The Syriac legend states that the name of the person who buys bread is Malchus.

Both the Syrian legend and the Qur'anic story state that the youth were awoken as a way to strengthen the faith of believers in the final Day of Judgement.

The author of these verses in the Qur'an does not provide a definitive answer for the number of sleepers, stating the possibility that there were three, five, or seven. The Syrian legend clearly and emphatically states in the first sentence that the story is about seven sleepers.   

Both accounts state that the youths slept for hundreds of years. The Qur'an stating that it was 300 years and the Syrian version stating the number was closer to 200. There is considerable variation in different versions of the Seven Sleeper legend as to the time frame that they slept.  Though all of them are longer than 200 years.

The Syrian account identifies the Emperor persecuting the seven young men as Trajan Decius, who reigned from 249 - 251 CE.  Since the story first originated around the middle of the 5^th century (circa 450 CE) a sleep of 200 years would be the more accurate number.  Given this connection, some Islamic scholars and apologists in modern times have back-peddled on the number of 300 given in the Qur'an, re-interpreting it as a number given by the people at the time and not a definitive number given by Allah.