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:

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. However Reynolds (2020), citing Griffith notes that there was indeed a dispute in other Syriac traditions over the number of sleepers: ''“According to the mêmrâ of Jacob of Serugh and the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus, the number is consistently eight … while the Ecclesiastical History of Zacharias of Mitylene speaks of ‘their leader Akleides and his six companions.’ In other early Christian language traditions the youths are usually called the ‘Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.’.''<ref name=":0">Reynolds, Gabriel Said. ''Christianity and the Qur'an: The Rise of Islam in Christian Arabia (p. 92).'' Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.