The Seven Sleepers, commonly called the "Seven Sleepers of Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

", refers to a group of Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 youths who hid inside a cave outside the city of Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

 around 250 AD, to escape a persecution of Christians being conducted during the reign of the Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 emperor Decius

Decius

Trajan Decius , was Roman Emperor from 249 to 251. In the last year of his reign, he co-ruled with his son Herennius Etruscus until they were both killed in the Battle of Abrittus.-Early life and rise to power:...

. Having fallen asleep inside the cave, they purportedly awoke approximately 150-200 years later during the reign of Theodosius II

Theodosius II

Theodosius II , commonly surnamed Theodosius the Younger, or Theodosius the Calligrapher, was Byzantine Emperor from 408 to 450. He is mostly known for promulgating the Theodosian law code, and for the construction of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople...

, following which they were reportedly seen by the people of the now-Christian city before dying. An outline of this tale appears in Gregory of Tours

Gregory of Tours

Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...

 (b. 538, d. 594), and in Paul the Deacon

Paul the Deacon

Paul the Deacon , also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefred, Barnefridus and Cassinensis, , was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards.-Life:...

's (b. 720, d. 799) History of the Lombards

Lombards

The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

. The best-known Western version of the story appears in Jacobus de Voragine

Jacobus de Voragine

Blessed Jacobus de Varagine or Voragine was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church that was one of the most popular...

's Golden Legend

Golden Legend

The Golden Legend is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that became a late medieval bestseller. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived, compared to twenty or so of its nearest rivals...

.

The story has its highest prominence, however, in the Muslim world; it is told in the Qur'an

Qur'an

The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

 (Surah

Sura

A sura is a division of the Qur'an, often referred to as a chapter. The term chapter is sometimes avoided, as the suras are of unequal length; the shortest sura has only three ayat while the longest contains 286 ayat...

 18, verse 9-26). While not giving the number of youths involved, the Quranic rendering of the Seven Sleepers story largely parallels the Christian account. Unlike the Christian story, the Islamic version includes a dog

Dog

The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

 who allegedly accompanied the youths into the cave, and kept watch at the entrance for the entire time (see Islamic interpretation). In Islam, these youths are referred to as "The People of the Cave". It represents one of the trials of Muhammad by the Jewish elders of Madina while he was in Makkah; by explaining this mystery to his followers, Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 would confirm his being a Prophet of God.

The Roman Martyrology

Roman Martyrology

The Roman Martyrology is the official martyrology of the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. It provides an extensive but not exhaustive list of the saints recognized by the Church.-History:...

 mentions the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

 under the date of 27 July, as follows: "Commemoration of the seven Holy Sleepers of Ephesus, who, it is recounted, after undergoing martyrdom, rest in peace, awaiting the day of resurrection." The Byzantine Calendar

Byzantine calendar

The Byzantine calendar, also "Creation Era of Constantinople," or "Era of the World" was the calendar used by the Eastern Orthodox Church from c. 691 to 1728 in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It was also the official calendar of the Byzantine Empire from 988 to 1453, and in Russia from c...

 commemorates them with feasts on 4 August and 22 October.

The story

The story alleges that during the persecutions

Persecution of Christians

Persecution of Christians as a consequence of professing their faith can be traced both historically and in the current era. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith, at the hands of both Jews from whose religion Christianity arose, and the Roman Empire which controlled much of the land...

 of the Roman emperor Decius, around 250 AD, seven young men were accused of following Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. They were given some time to recant their faith, but chose instead to give their worldly goods to the poor and retire to a mountain cave to pray, where they fell asleep. The emperor, seeing that their attitude towards paganism

Paganism

Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

 had not improved, ordered the mouth of the cave to be sealed.

Decius died in 251, and many years passed during which Christianity went from being persecuted to being the state religion of the Roman Empire. At some later time—usually given as during the reign of Theodosius II

Theodosius II

Theodosius II , commonly surnamed Theodosius the Younger, or Theodosius the Calligrapher, was Byzantine Emperor from 408 to 450. He is mostly known for promulgating the Theodosian law code, and for the construction of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople...

 (408–450)—the landowner decided to open up the sealed mouth of the cave, thinking to use it as a cattle pen. He opened it and found the sleepers inside. They awoke, imagining that they had slept but one day, and sent one of their number to Ephesus to buy food, with instructions to be careful lest the pagans recognize and seize him. Upon arriving in the city, this person was astounded to find buildings with cross

Cross

A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run obliquely, the design is technically termed a saltire, although the arms of a saltire need not meet...

es attached; the townspeople for their part were astounded to find a man trying to spend old coins from the reign of Decius. The bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 was summoned to interview the sleepers; they told him their miracle

Miracle

A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...

 story, and died praising God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

.

As the earliest versions of the legend spread from Ephesus, an early Christian catacomb came to be associated with it, attracting scores of pilgrims. On the slopes of Mount Pion (Mount Coelian) near Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

 (near modern Selçuk

Selçuk

Selçuk is the central town of Selçuk district, İzmir Province in Turkey, 2 km northeast of Ephesus.Its original Greek name, Agios Theológos referred to John the Theologian. Under the Ottoman Empire, it was known as Ayasoluk...

 in Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

), the "grotto" of the Seven Sleepers with ruins of the church built over it was excavated in 1927–28. The excavation brought to light several hundred graves which were dated to the 5th and 6th centuries. Inscriptions dedicated to the Seven Sleepers were found on the walls of the church and in the graves. This "grotto" is still shown to tourists.

Syriac origins

The story appeared in several Syriac

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

 sources before Gregory's lifetime. It was retold by Symeon Metaphrastes

Symeon Metaphrastes

Symeon the Metaphrast was the author of the 10 volume medieval Greek menologion, or collection of saint's lives. He lived in the second half of the 10th century...

. Another Syriac version is printed in Land's Anecdota, iii. 87ff; see also Barhebraeus, Chron. eccles. i. 142ff., and cf Assemani, Bib. Or. i. 335ff.

The Seven Sleepers form the subject of a homily in verse by the Edessan

Edessa, Mesopotamia

Edessa is the Greek name of an Aramaic town in northern Mesopotamia, as refounded by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.-Names:...

 poet Jacob of Saruq ("Sarugh") (died 521), which was published in the Acta Sanctorum

Acta Sanctorum

Acta Sanctorum is an encyclopedic text in 68 folio volumes of documents examining the lives of Christian saints, in essence a critical hagiography, which is organised according to each saint's feast day. It begins with two January volumes, published in 1643, and ended with the Propylaeum to...

. Another 6th-century version, in a Syrian manuscript in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 (Cat. Syr. Mss, p. 1090), gives eight sleepers. There are considerable variations as to their names.

Dissemination

The story rapidly attained a wide diffusion throughout Christendom, popularized in the West by Gregory of Tours, in his late 6th-century collection of miracles, De gloria martyrum (Glory of the Martyrs). Gregory says that he had the legend from "a certain Syrian".

In the following century, Paul the Deacon told the tale in his History of the Lombards (i.4) but gave it a different setting:
Their dress identified them as Romans, according to Paul, and none of the local barbarians dared to touch them.

During the period of the Crusades

Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...

, bones from the sepulchres near Ephesus, identified as relics of the Seven Sleepers, were transported to Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

, France in a large stone coffin, which remained a trophy of the church of Saint Victoire, Marseille.

The Seven Sleepers were included in the Golden Legend

Golden Legend

The Golden Legend is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that became a late medieval bestseller. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived, compared to twenty or so of its nearest rivals...

compilation, the most popular book of the later Middle Ages, which fixed a precise date for their resurrection, 378 AD, in the reign of Theodosius.

Early modern literature

The account had become proverbial in 16th century Protestant culture. The poet John Donne

John Donne

John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...

 could ask,
In John Heywood

John Heywood

John Heywood was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs. Although he is best known as a playwright, he was also active as a musician and composer, though no works survive.-Life:...

's Play Called the Four PP (1530s), the Pardoner, a Renaissance update of Chaucer's Pardoner, offers his companions the opportunity to kiss "a slipper / Of one of the Seven Sleepers," but the relic is presented as absurdly as the Pardoner's other offerings, which include "the great-toe of the Trinity" and "a buttock-bone of Pentecost."

Little is heard of the Seven Sleepers during the Enlightenment, but the account revived with the coming of Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

. The Golden Legend may have been the source for retellings of the Seven Sleepers in Thomas de Quincey

Thomas de Quincey

Thomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...

's Confessions of an English Opium-eater, in a poem by Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

, Washington Irving

Washington Irving

Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...

's "Rip van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle

"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. Written while Irving was living in Birmingham, England, it was part of a collection entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon...

", H.G. Wells's The Sleeper Awakes

The Sleeper Awakes

The Sleeper Awakes is a dystopian novel by H. G. Wells about a man who sleeps for two hundred and three years, waking up in a completely transformed London, where, because of compound interest on his bank accounts, he has become the richest man in the world...

. It also might have an influence on the motif of the "king in the mountain

King in the mountain

A king in the mountain, king under the mountain or sleeping hero is a prominent motif in folklore and mythology that is found in many folktales and legends...

".

Modern literature

Serbo-Croatian writer Danilo Kiš

Danilo Kiš

Danilo Kiš was a Yugoslavian novelist, short story writer and poet who wrote in Serbo-Croatian. Kiš was influenced by Bruno Schulz, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges and Ivo Andrić, among other authors...

 retells the story of the Seven Sleepers in a short story, "The Legend of the Sleepers", in his book The Encyclopedia of the Dead. Italian author Andrea Camilleri

Andrea Camilleri

Andrea Camilleri is an Italian writer.-Biography:Originally from Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Camilleri, began studies at the Faculty of Literature in 1944, without concluding them, meanwhile publishing poems and short stories.From 1948 to 1950 Camilleri studied stage and film direction at the Silvio...

 incorporates the story in his novel The Terracotta Dog

The Terracotta Dog

The Terracotta Dog is a 1996 novel by Andrea Camilleri, translated into English in 2002 by Stephen Sartarelli. It is the second novel in the internationally popular Inspector Montalbano series....

.

The Seven Sleepers appear in two books of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series; Will Stanton awakens them in The Grey King

The Grey King

The Grey King is a children's fantasy novel by British author Susan Cooper, which was awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in U.S. children's literature in 1976. It is the fourth of five stories in her young adult Arthurian fantasy cycle, The Dark Is Rising...

, and in Silver on the Tree they ride in the last battle against the Dark.

The Seven Sleepers series by Gilbert Morris

Gilbert Morris

Gilbert Morris, is a Christy Award-winning, prolific Christian author. He is also sometimes cited as Gilbert L. Morris or Gilbert Leslie Morris.Gilbert was born May 24 in Forrest City, Arkansas, the son of Osceola M. and Jewell Irene Gilbert Morris....

 takes a modern approach to the story, in which seven teenagers must be awakened to fight evil in a post-nuclear-apocalypse world.

The Persian–Dutch

Iranians in the Netherlands

Iranians in the Netherlands form one of the newer and larger populations of Iranians in Europe.-Terminology:Iranians/Persians in the Netherlands are sometimes referred to by hyphenated terms such as "Dutch-Iranians", "Iranian-Dutch", "Dutch-Persian", or "Persian-Dutch"...

 writer Kader Abdolah

Kader Abdolah

Kader Abdolah is a Persian–Dutch writer, poet and columnist. He has written books and many articles in Dutch and is known for using Persian literary items in his Dutch works...

 gives his own interpretation to the Islamic version of the story, (see below) in the 2000 book Spijkerschrift (English trans. 2006 "My Father's Notebook"), based on the writer's experience in the left-wing opposition to both the Shah

Shah

Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...

's regime and the Islamic Republic

Islamic republic

Islamic republic is the name given to several states in the Muslim world including the Islamic Republics of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Mauritania. Pakistan adopted the title under the constitution of 1956. Mauritania adopted it on 28 November 1958. Iran adopted it after the 1979 Iranian...

. The book includes extensive quotations from the Koran's account. At its end the narrator's sister and fellow-activist escapes from prison and together with other escaped political prisoners hides at a mountain cave in north Iran, where they would sleep until Iran is free of oppression.

The Qur'anic version

English translation:

Islamic scholarly interpretation

The above mentioned verses from the Qur'an are the only known Islamic source for this story. According to Muslim scholars, Allah (God) revealed these verses because the people of Makkah

Mecca

Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

 challenged the Prophet Muhammad with questions that were passed on to them from the Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 of Medina

Medina

Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...

 in an effort to test his authenticity. They asked him about young men from the past, about a man who traveled the earth from east to west, and about the soul.
The story parallels the Christian version, recounting the story of a group of young believers who resisted the pressure from their people to worship others beside God, and took refuge in a cave, following which they fell asleep for a long time. When they woke up they thought that they had slept for only a day or so, and they sent one of them back to the city to buy food. His use of old silver coins revealed the presence of these youths to the town. Soon after their discovery, the People of the Cave (as the Qur'an calls them) died and the people of their town built a place of worship at the site of their burial (the cave). The Qur'an does not give their exact number; rather, it mentions that some people would say that they were three, others would say five and some would say seven, in addition to one dog, and that they slept for 300 years, plus 9, which could mean 300 solar years or 309 lunar years (300 solar years are equal to 309 lunar years). However, Muslim scholars debate whether the timespan given in the Qur'an refers to the actual time spent by the sleepers in the cave, or rather to a timespan being alleged by those who were telling the tale (see below).

The Qur'an emphasized that their number and the length of their stay is known only to God and a few people, and that these issues are not the important part of the story, but rather the lessons that can be learned from it.

Some Muslim scholars mentioned more details to the story, but the sources of these details cannot be definitively verified as being thoroughly Islamic.

Location of the cave and duration of stay

Muslims firmly believe in the story as it is mentioned in the Qur'an; however, some aspects of the story are not covered in its account, including the exact location of the cave. Some allege that it is in Ephesus, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

; others cite a place near Amman

Amman

Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...

, Jordan

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

. Uyghur

Uyghur people

The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...

 Muslims even suggest Tuyukhojam, Turpan is the location of the cave,because they believe the place match Koranic description.The exact dates of their alleged sleep are also not given in the Qur'an; some allege that they entered the cave at the time of Decius (250 AD) and they woke up at the time of Theodosius I (378–395) or Theodosius II (408–450), but neither of these dates can be reconciled with the Qur'an's account of sleeping 300 or 309 years. Some Islamic scholars, however, assert that the 300 or 309 years mentioned in the Qur'an refers to periods of time alleged by those telling the tale, rather than a definitive statement by Allah as to how long they were actually there.

Linguistic derivatives

The Legend of the Seven Sleepers has given origin to sjusovare or syvsover (literally a seven-sleeper) to be used in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish to refer to the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. It means someone who "sleeps hard and long". The word also is used to mean the hibernating rodent called the edible dormouse

Edible dormouse

The edible dormouse or fat dormouse is a large dormouse and the only living species in the genus Glis.-Description:...

.

The words Siebenschläfer in German, zevenslaper in Dutch, hétalvó in Hungarian and sedmispáč in Czech bear a meaning similar to the Scandinavian; they characterize someone who usually sleeps long, waking up later than what is considered necessary or proper.

In Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 (Cymraeg), a late-riser may be referred to as a saith cysgadur—seven sleeper—as in the 1885 novel Rhys Lewis

Rhys Lewis

Rhys Lewis is a novel by Daniel Owen, written in the Welsh language and first published in 1885. Its full title is Hunangofiant Rhys Lewis, Gweinidog Bethel...

by Daniel Owen

Daniel Owen

Daniel Owen was a Welsh novelist, generally regarded as the foremost Welsh-language novelist of the 19th century.-Early life:...

, where the protagonist is referred to as such in chapter 37, p. 294 (Hughes a'i Fab, Caerdydd

Caerdydd

Caerdydd is a Welsh language television programme set in Cardiff made by Fiction Factory for Welsh public service television station S4C...

, 1948). This has the double meaning of one who wakes at seven—well into the working day in a Welsh rural setting.

In the Middle East and specifically in Syria, people say: "نومات أهل فسّو", which can be translated as: "You may sleep like the people of Ephesus".

External references

• Quran - Authorized English Version The Cave- Sura 18 - Quran - Authorized English Version
• "SS. Maximian, Malchus, Martinian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine, Martyrs", Butler's Lives of the Saints
• Seven Sleepers videos Catholic Encyclopedia on The Seven Sleepers. Text containing the Seven Sleepers' commemoration as part of the Office of Prime.
• Sura al-Kahf at Wikisource Photos of the excavated site of the Seven Sleepers cult. The Grotto of the Seven Sleepers, Ephesus Mardan-e-Anjelos is a historical reenactment of the story of Ashaab-e-Kahf (also known as "The Companions of the Cave") Tarsus Turkey Seven Sleepers Eshab-ı Kehf
• Link to 3D stereoview image for cross-eyed free viewing technique of Seven Sleepers near Ephesus - Turkey
• Gregory of Tours, The Patient Impassioned Suffering of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus translated by Michael Valerie
• The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus by Chardri, translated into English by Tony Devaney Morinelli: Medieval Sourcebook. fordham.edu