18. Sura Al-Káhf

[Mention] when the youths retreated to the cave and said, "Our Lord, grant us from Yourself mercy and prepare for us from our affair right guidance."

So We cast [a cover of sleep] over their ears within the cave for a number of years.

Then We awakened them that We might show which of the two factions was most precise in calculating what [extent] they had remained in time.

It is We who relate to you, [O Muḥammad], their story in truth. Indeed, they were youths who believed in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance.

And We bound [i.e., made firm] their hearts when they stood up and said, "Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth. Never will we invoke besides Him any deity. We would have certainly spoken, then, an excessive transgression.

These, our people, have taken besides Him deities. Why do they not bring for [worship of] them a clear evidence? And who is more unjust than one who invents about Allāh a lie?"

[The youths said to one another], "And when you have withdrawn from them and that which they worship other than Allāh, retreat to the cave. Your Lord will spread out for you of His mercy and will prepare for you from your affair facility."

And [had you been present], you would see the sun when it rose, inclining away from their cave on the right, and when it set, passing away from them on the left, while they were [lying] within an open space thereof. That was from the signs of Allāh. He whom Allāh guides is the [rightly] guided, but he whom He sends astray - never will you find for him a protecting guide.

And you would think them awake, while they were asleep. And We turned them to the right and to the left, while their dog stretched his forelegs at the entrance. If you had looked at them, you would have turned from them in flight and been filled by them with terror.