Ancient World

Cave of the Seven Sleepers

The Cave of the Seven Sleepers (Arabic: كهف الرقيم, Kahf ar-Raqīm) is an archaeological and religious site in ar-Rajib, a village to the east of Amman, Jordan. It is claimed that this cave housed the Seven Sleepers, also known from Christian sources as the "Sleepers of Ephesus" and from the Qur’an as the "Companions of the Cave" (Arabic: اصحاب الكهف, romanized: aṣḥāb al kahf)—a group of young men who, according to Byzantine Christian and Islamic sources, fled the religious persecution of Roman emperor Decius. Legend has it that these men hid in a cave around AD 250, emerging miraculously centuries later - according to the Quran, 309 lunar years later. Rediscovered in 1951, it is one of several caves associated with the Seven Sleepers (see "Other contenders").

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸Hagop Kevorkian
• ▸HD 212710
• ▸Cuetlajuchitlán

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