Seven sleepers
Venerated inCatholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Oriental Orthodox Church
Islam
CanonizedPre-Congregation
Feast27 July
4 August, October 22 (Eastern Christianity)
Decius orders the walling in of the Seven sleepers[1] From a 14th-century manuscript.

The Seven Sleepers (Greek: ἑπτὰ κοιμώμενοι, romanizedhepta koimōmenoi;[2] Latin: Septem dormientes), also known in Christendom as Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and in Islam as Aṣḥāb al-Kahf, lit. Companions of the Cave,[3] is a late antique Christian and later also Islamic legend. The Christian legend speaks about a group of youths who hid inside a cave[4] outside the city of Ephesus (modern-day Selçuk, Turkey) around AD 250 to escape Roman persecutions of Christians and emerged many years later. The Qur'anic version of the story appears in Sura 18 (18:9–26).[3]

  1. ^ Fortescue, Adrian (1909). "Seven Sleepers of Ephesus" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  2. ^ "Koranion". Typographeion tōn katastēmatōn A. Kōnstantinidou. January 6, 1886 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ a b Archer, George (October 2016). "The Hellhound of the Qur'an: A Dog at the Gate of the Underworld". Journal of Qur'anic Studies. 18 (3). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press on behalf of the Centre for Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies: 1–33. doi:10.3366/jqs.2016.0248. eISSN 1755-1730. ISSN 1465-3591. OCLC 43733991.
  4. ^ "Cave of Ashabe Kahf (The Cave of the Seven Sleepers)". Madain Project. Archived from the original on 2 November 2020. Retrieved 2 November 2020.