Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in the Quran: Difference between revisions

Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in the Quran (view source)

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 As mentioned above, in 2023 academic scholar Thomas Eich identified a written version of the tale which had circulated in an early 7th century Palestinian monastic community and which significantly overlaps with the Quranic tale. In the abstract of his article he writes:
-{{Quote|Part of the abstract from journal article by Thomas Eich (2023)<ref name="Eich2023" />|It is argued that the archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus (d. 690), played a key role in this transfer. His biography puts into focus the transposition of Greek-Palestinian and Egyptian monk congregations including relics and texts to Italy and especially Rome during the seventh century. The relevance of the surviving texts from the school of Canterbury for the study of seventh-century Middle Eastern history is then further illustrated with a version of the so-called legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesos recorded in Theodore’s biblical exegesis. Theodore’s specific version of that legend overlaps significantly with the version contained in the Qurʾān in Sura 18 (al-Kahf, “The cave”). It has always been clear that Sūrat al-Kahf refers to the Christian Seven Sleepers legend. However, since all other hitherto known versions of the story differed significantly from the Qurʾān version, the connection between the versions was usually imagined within a model of “oral transmission.” The version recorded from Theodore’s seventh century teaching sessions now allow us to draw a more nuanced picture in which this specific version of the legend can be situated in seventh-century Palestine.}}
+{{Quote|Part of the abstract from journal article by Thomas Eich (2023)<ref name="Eich2023" />|[...] the archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus (d. 690) [...] biography puts into focus the transposition of Greek-Palestinian and Egyptian monk congregations including relics and texts to Italy and especially Rome during the seventh century. The relevance of the surviving texts from the school of Canterbury for the study of seventh-century Middle Eastern history is then further illustrated with a version of the so-called legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesos recorded in Theodore’s biblical exegesis. Theodore’s specific version of that legend overlaps significantly with the version contained in the Qurʾān in Sura 18 (al-Kahf, “The cave”). It has always been clear that Sūrat al-Kahf refers to the Christian Seven Sleepers legend. However, since all other hitherto known versions of the story differed significantly from the Qurʾān version, the connection between the versions was usually imagined within a model of “oral transmission.” The version recorded from Theodore’s seventh century teaching sessions now allow us to draw a more nuanced picture in which this specific version of the legend can be situated in seventh-century Palestine.}}
 In his article (the rest of which is written in German), Eich explains that Theodore spent the period from the 640s until 668 CE in Rome in the Monastery of St. Anastasius, a Greek monastic community which had begun to move there from Palestine from the 630s, probably triggered by the Byzantine conquest of Palestine in 629-30, though possibly due to the Arab conquest several years later. In 669 the Pope sent Theodore to England to take the vacant seat as Archbishop of Canterbury, where his teachings would go on to reflect those of his former Greek-Palestinian monastic community and showed knowledge of the Syriac church fathers.