تويت
Salam Alikom wr wb
THE STORY OF THE SLEEPERS IN THE CAVE IN THE QUR’AN, THE CONCEPT OF MAHDI
Every religion in the world has some concept of miracles in it. Islam is no exception. In spite of the fact that Islam is propagated in the media as the most rational of system of beliefs and practices, there is definitely a notion of miracle in the system. The most significant element of Islam is the holy Qur’an. All Muslims believe that the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet of Islam through the Archangel Jibreel. The holy Qur’an, that actually exists as a book in our times, came to mankind as a spoken word. As the Prophet received WAHY, he would recite the revealed words to his people.
Apart from the WAHY being a miracle of the Prophet of Islam, if we read the text itself there are a number of events described within the Qur’an which are basically miraculous events.
Let us, at this point, define what a miracle is. Arabic lexicography and philology plays a very significant role in defining and understanding the Islamic principles. That is why there is such great significance attached to the 99 names of Allah (Asmaa-e-Husna). Each name actually signifies a particular attribute of Allah by which His Majesty of Creation and Being is made manifest to His creations.
The word for miracle in Arabic is ‘Ijaaz or M’u’jizaa. These words are derived from the root ‘I-J-Z. The basic meaning of this term is being in a state of helplessness. There are numerous verses in the Qur’an where this word has been used in the meaning of ALLAH IS NOT HELPLESS. For miracles that were given by Allah to the various prophets, the Qur’an has used the word bayyinaat, for example in Q.10:13 and in many other verses. Examples of these that have been mentioned in the Qur’an are given below:
1. The stick that was carried by prophet Moosa, would turn into a serpent and then back into a stick.
2. The hoopoe bringing the news of the Queen of Saba to Prophet Sulayman.
3. One of the men of prophet Sulayman bringing the throne of the queen of Saba to him in the blinking of an eye.
4. The miraculous saving of prophet Isma’eel from the slaughter.
5. The prophet Yunus stays inside a huge fish for forty nights and then returns alive.
6. The destruction of an army of elephants by a flock of birds.
7. The she-camel of prophet Saleh as a sign of Allah
8. The flood of prophet Nooh.
9. The death of prophet Uzair and then his coming alive after a hundred years.
10. The story of the yellow cow of the Banu Israel.
11. The returning of prophet Y’aqoob’s eye-sight by way of the shirt of prophet Yusuf.
One of the most elaborate stories told on those lines in the Qur’an is the story of the Sleepers in the Cave. The sequence of the verse is as follows:
[18.9] Or, do .you think that the Fellows of the Cave and the In******************ion were of Our wonderful signs?
[18.10] When the youths sought refuge in the cave, they said: Our Lord! grant us mercy from Thee, and provide for us a right course in our affair.
[18.11] So We prevented them from hearing in the cave for a number of years.
[18.12] Then We raised them up that We might know which of the two parties was best able to compute the time for which they remained.
[18.13] We relate to you their story with the truth; surely they were youths who believed in their Lord and We increased them in guidance.
[18.14] And We strengthened their hearts with patience, when they stood up and said: Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth; we will by no means call upon any god besides Him, for then indeed we should have said an extravagant thing.
[18.15] These our people have taken gods besides Him; why do they not produce any clear authority in their support? Who is then more unjust than he who forges a lie against Allah?
[18.16] And when you forsake them and what they worship save Allah, betake yourselves for refuge to the cave; your Lord will extend to you largely of His mercy and provide for you a profitable course in your affair.
[18.17] And you might see the sun when it rose, decline from their cave towards the right hand, and when it set, leave them behind on the left while they were in a wide space thereof. This is of the signs of Allah; whomsoever Allah guides, he is the rightly guided one, and whomsoever He causes to err, you shall not find for him any friend to lead (him) aright.
[18.18] And you might think them awake while they were asleep and We turned them about to the right and to the left, while their dog (lay) outstretching its paws at the entrance; if you looked at them you would certainly turn back from them in flight, and you would certainly be filled with awe because of them.
[18.19] And thus did We rouse them that they might question each other. A speaker among them said: How long have you tarried? They said: We have tarried for a day or a part of a day. (Others) said: Your Lord knows best how long you have tarried. Now send one of you with this silver (coin) of yours to the city, then let him see which of them has purest food, so let him bring you provision from it, and let him behave with gentleness, and by no means make your case known to any one:
[18.20] For surely if they prevail against you they would stone you to death or force you back to their religion, and then you will never succeed.
[18.21] And thus did We make (men) to get knowledge of them that they might know that Allah's promise is true and that as for the hour there is no doubt about it. When they disputed among themselves about their affair and said: Erect an edifice over them-- their Lord best knows them. Those who prevailed in their affair said: We will certainly raise a masjid over them.
[18.22] (Some) say: (They are) three, the fourth of them being their dog; and (others) say: Five, the sixth of them being their dog, making conjectures at what is unknown; and (others yet) say: Seven, and the eighth of them is their dog. Say: My Lord best knows their number, none knows them but a few; therefore contend not in the matter of them but with an outward contention, and do not question concerning them any of them.
As is apparent, this story is supposed to have happened during the early history of Christianity. However, it is not mentioned in the Bible. It is though obvious that it was commonly known in the extra-biblical Christian traditions.
Edward Gibbon mentions the story in chapter 33 of his celebrated work;The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire.
This is the time of the Roman emperor named Decius [249-251 AD] (derived from extra-Qur'anic sources - Qur'an does not specifically mention the time and place of the story) - that is before the conversion of Constantine to Christianity. A handful of Christians are the target of the Roman rulers. They run and hide - when found out, they are tortured and killed or forced to revert to the religion of their ancestors.
Five or six young men who have become Christians, are being chased by Roman soldiers. They run all the way from the city of Ephesus (in Asia minor - now Turkey, references in Abul Aala Mawdoodi's TAFHEEM-UL-QUR'AN) to the outskirts of present-day Damascus. They find a cave up in the mountains. They enter the cave. With the young men is their faithful dog. As they enter the cave, their dog sits in a relaxing posture at the mouth of the cave with its jaw resting on its front paws. The soldiers come and search for the fugitives. The relaxing dog indicates to them that there is no one else around. By a miracle, the young men fall asleep and remain so for a period of three hundred (or 309 ) years. The dog too remains. They wake up and feel hungry. One of them goes out to buy a loaf of bread. His dress (which is three hundred years old) and the coin he presents to the baker arouses the curiosity of the city. They want to know if he had found an old treasure. He runs back to the cave while the city folks are chasing him. (if you have seen the film in which Bill Bixby wakes up after 25 years in an Army Hospital and tries to find his US Airforce Unit, then you will appreciate this part of the story very well - Or remember the story of Rip Van Winkle!!)
He re-enters the cave and all of them pray to Allah that they may be saved from the mob. The cave closes by Allah's command and the young men are put to sleep by His command to wake up again on the Day of Judgement. There is another view that they are actually dead now.)
I visited the site of the cave outside of Damascus up in the mountains back in 1977. You really cannot see much. There is now a mosque and a Madrasah at that ************************ (up in the mountains). A teenager comes and tells you this whole story in a non-stop monotone and of course, expects money from you. The curious part of the story is that he tells you the names of the six young men and they are:
1. Mixelmeena
2. Sarnulis
3. Tamleekha
4. Martunis
5. Naynunis
6. Daryunis
Last but not least, the name of the dog is Qitmeer.
One of the lessons of the story is: If a dog such as Qitmeer can be glorified to the extent that it will be mentioned in the holy Qur'an, only because it was the faithful servant of the six pious Christians, then why can't we (the faithful followers of the Prophet and of the Imams) be glorified by declaring ourselves as the servants of the glorified Ahlul-Bayt? In answer to that question, a tradition has developed in the Shia culture of Awadh (Northern India) in that they name their male children as KALB-E-MUSTAFA, Kalb-e-Irtedha, Kalb-e-Husayn, Kalb-e-Abbas, Kalb-e-Hasan, and of course, Kalb-e-Mahdi etc.
As I said, the story of the Companions of the Cave is not mentioned in the Bible but it does have a place in the extra-Biblical Christian Tradition. While the Christian tradition would tend to associate the story to the period of the Diocletion Persecution (284-303 A.D.), the Arab-Muslim tradition would connect it with the period of the emperor Decius (249-251 A.D.). The credibility of the Arab-Muslim tradition is enhanced by the following explanation.
When after their long sleep the Companions of the Cave wake up and feel hungry, one of them named Tamleekha goes out to buy a loaf of bread. He presents a coin to the baker which is now 300 years old. Now, the name Decius has also appeared in some places as Decianus. That, when transcribed in the Arabic Alphabet, reads as DAQYANOOS.
The baker looks up to Tamleekha and says: "Where did you get that DAQYANOOSI coin?"
That monologue of the baker is the origin of one of the well-known Urdu idioms; when some one says something old, primitive and out of date, our reaction is expressed as follows:
KYA DAQYANOOSI BATEN KARTE HO,
or,
baRe Daqyanoosi khayalaat rakhte ho.....
and so on.
For the Christian tradition of the story, see the following websites.
http://www.kusadasi.biz/ephesus.asp
http://www.kusadasi.biz/sevensleepers.asp
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05496a.htm
For the Muslim scholarship, please refer to various books of Tafseer.
There are some interesting points in this Sura. The very first thing in this line is the fact that the letter ‘TA’ of the word yatalattaf in verse number 19 is the exact middle of the Qur’anic text.
Abdullah Yusuali lists the following points on thi story:
(i) The relativity of Time
(ii) The unreality of the position of oppressor and oppressed, persecutor and persecuted, on this earth
(iii) The truth of the Resurrection, when true values will be restored, and
(iv) The potency of Faith and Prayer to lead to the Right. Wonderful though such things may seem to be, they happen every day on Allah’s earth
…………Quoted from A.Y.A., note number 2334
In addition to the question of the relativity of Time, I note the following additional points from the text:
(a) Inspite of extreme hunger, when they wake up, they insist on searching for ‘clean food.’
(b) The are quite careful about their secret – this is the basic concept of TAQAIYYA. Fearing for life and their religious value system, they want to hide their identity.
(c) They start an argument about how long they stayed in the cave but then very quickly settle down on ‘Allah knows best,’ this is a very clear message from the Qur’an that in spite of faith, sincerity and honesty, intelligent people may arrive at different conclusions. This should not be a matter for dispute among believers, because judgement only belongs to Allah. This is a message for all the readers and writers in these forums who are quick to label each other Kafir and Mushrik on the slightest moment of disagreement.
Coming back to the point of relativity of Time, the most powerful message from this story is that Allah, out of His unlimited Power and Majesty, can take a person or a few out of this frame of Time and Space and place them somewhere that their aging proceeds at a different rate.
This is the most direct proof from the holy Qur’an for the long occultation of the twelfth Imam. Who, according to the belief of the Imamiyya, will one day appear on this earth on Allah’s command and fill this earth with justice and equity as its is now filled with oppression and injustice.
The concept of a Mahdi (the guided one) is unanimous among Muslims of all persuasion. The long occultation is an exclusive belief of the Imamiyya.
The hadeeth literature is full of reports on this and they are unanimous between the Shia and the Sunni schools. Some of the Shia books are as follows:
(1) Al-Ghayba, by Sh. Toosi (d. 461 Hijra) – Arabic text
(2) Bihar-ul-Anwaar, Mulla Baqir Majlisis, vol.51 – Arabic and Farsi texts
(3) The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam, Jassim Husain – English text
SUNNI RESEARCH WORK ON THE MAHDI
(1) Dr. Abdul Aleem al-Azeem Bastawi has completed his Ph.D. from Saudi Arabia. His thesis has been published in two volumes. In the first volume, he has collected all the SAHEEH hadeeth reports on the coming of the Mahdi. In the second volume, he has collected all the weak hadeeth reports on the topic. The name of his book is: Al-Mahdi al-Muntazar fi Dhaw al-Ahaadeeth wal-Aasaar as-SAheeha wa Aqwaal-ul-Ulema wa Aara al-Firqa-tul-Mukhtalifa. (Arabic text)
(2) A book from older generations was written by Imam Al-Hafiz al-Qurtabi (d. 681 Hijra). The name of his book is: Alaamaat Yawm al-Qiyama. There are several reports in that book on the coming of the Mahdi. We quote one below:
“Abu Sa’eed Khudri reports from the Prophet, who said: (There would come a time) when this community will be overwhelmed by disasters and bad times, so much so that there would be no one available to help anyone in the misery. IN that midst Allah will raise a man from my ITRAH, the Ahl-ul-Bayt who will fill this earth with Justice and equity as it would have been filled with oppression and injustice. All the inhabitants of this earth and those in the heavens would be happy with that skies will be showering (Allah’s Mercy) and the earth would be vegetating with all good things – until all the living beings would wish that all those who were dead would also come alive (and benefit from all the bounties). This will last for seven or eight or nine years.”
There are to be found similar reports in the Jam’e of Tirmizi as well as in the Sunan of Abu Dawood. The significant wordings in all these reports from the Sunni sources is the mention of the term “a man from my ITRAH, the Ahlul-Bayt…..” This actually connects the reports about Mahdi to the Hadeeth Thaqalayn in which the Prophet had said:
“I am leaving among you two valuable objects, the Book of Allah and my ITRAH, the Ahlul-Bayt. If you attach yourself to those two, never ever shall you go wrong. They will not separate from each other until they both meet me at the Pond.”
That is a clear proof from the Qur’an and the Prophet’s hadeeth of the continuity of the office of the Imamat from Imam Ali to the twelfth Imam and the prophecy about his re-appearance when Allah wills.
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