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Seven Sleepers of Ephesus

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Delta View Drop Down
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    Posted: 21 June 2007 at 2:52pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sleepers

In the KORAN Sura 18 - al kahf

How do you explain this ?
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abuzaid View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote abuzaid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 June 2007 at 10:44pm

What explanation you want to have. Read it and tell us what exctly is the problem.

The Islamic version is related in Surah (Chapter) Al-Kahf (18, "The Cave"), of the Qur'an. The holy Quran tells the story of the sleepers in detail, but does not give importance to their number. In the Quran God says, they (the Jews) ask you about their number, say to them, only God knows it best. [1] It also mentions a dog along the sleepers. The Quran states that the period of time these sleepers spent in the cave was three hundred years during which the calendar of their people was changed from Gregorian (solar) to lunar and, as a result, the period of their sleep has increased to 309 (lunar) years. When they woke up, they had no idea they slept for centuries and thought they only slept a few hours. When they sent one of them to buy food, that's when their story became known. Scholars have postulated that the reason they were discovered is that the coins they were using to buy food were out of circulation for ages and that drew the attention of the town's people. After the story was widely known, the sleepers died, just as the moral of their story was impressed on the people, that is God resurrects the dead and protects true believers.

During the time of prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, the Jews of Medina challenged him to tell them the story of the sleepers knowing that none of the Arabs knew about it. God then sent Gabrial to reveal the story to him through Surah Al-Kahf. After hearing it from him, the Jews confirmed that he told the same story they knew.

 

If you feel that story in Quran is not accurate as per your history, then why do you think that your history is perfect and Quran should be in line with your version of history??

Had you have found the Quran exactly as per you history christian would have said that Prophet Mohammed have heard it from people around and included it in Quran. Now, if you find it different from your history you are raising doubt about Quran, either way Quran should be at fault. how can we help such people??

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote BMZ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 June 2007 at 7:00am
Do you have that story in the Christian or the Jewish Bible, Delta?
Shasta's Aunt: "Well, there's the difference you see. The Bible was written by man about God, The Quran was revealed to man by God."
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Delta View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Delta Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 June 2007 at 7:25am
Originally posted by BMZ BMZ wrote:

Do you have that story in the Christian or the Jewish Bible, Delta?


That's a very old Christian Legend

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05496a.htm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote superme Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 June 2007 at 6:55pm
Originally posted by abuzaid abuzaid wrote:

If you feel that story in Quran is not accurate as per your history, then why do you think that your history is perfect and Quran should be in line with your version of history??

Unnecessary comment abuzaid, sound like you are on the defensive and trapped in the corner. Are you trapped?

The survival of the sleepers for such duration is really hard to understand considering that the human body can only survived without water in matter of days, not weeks due to dehydration. Therefore the place - which was the cave - must be really something so unique that supplied the fluid to their body need when they were unconscious. And the food is another matter. Than we need to consider the timing.

Time traveller is what we need to consider here but I don't know how, maybe any of you can start it.

And thou mightest have seen the sun when it rose move away from their cave to the right, and when it set go past them on the left, and they were in the cleft thereof. That was (one) of the portents of Allah. He whom Allah guideth, he indeed is led aright, and he whom He sendeth astray, for him thou wilt not find a guiding friend.(18:17)

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Andalus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 June 2007 at 12:16am

Originally posted by Delta Delta wrote:

Originally posted by BMZ BMZ wrote:

Do you have that story in the Christian or the Jewish Bible, Delta?


That's a very old Christian Legend

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05496a.htm

The story is one of the many examples of the legend about a man who falls asleep and years after wakes up to find the world changed. It is told in Greek by Symeon Metaphrastes in his "Lives of the Saints" for the month of July. Gregory of Tours did it into Latin. There is a Syriac version by James of Sarug (d. 521), and from the Syriac the story was done into other Eastern languages. There is also an Anglo-Norman poem, "Li set dormanz", written by a certain Chardry, and it occurs again in Jacobus de Voragines's "Golden Legend" (Legenda aurea) and in an Old-Norse fragment. Of all these versions and re-editions it seems that the Greek form of the story, which is the basis of Symeon Metaphrastes, is the source.

Actually, the story in the Quran has several issue in it, not a �single man� who falls asleep. The authors attempt to make such a sweeping generalization about a subject that will, no doubt, be found in writings of other cultures, given the fact that �sleep� has been regarded as something mystical, or even mysterious. Man was born with a �fitra�, a natral state, and it is through parents and culture that we can be deviated from our natural �fitra�. It is reasonable that many elements remain, such that man, even as a pagan, has regarded blood sacrifices of animals as something mystical, though it does not mean that Moses borrowed the notion of blood sacrifices from pagans, or the idea of a virgin birth as something mystical, does not mean that the virgin birth of Jesus is borrowed from pagan legends. This author attempts to generalize the idea of sleep in mystical literature by trying to erroneously equate the story in the Quran with his undefined idea of �a man who falls asleep�.

The Quran tells us a story that is not about a man who goes to sleep for a long time. The story covers essential topics such as young men who were under great persecution and went to great lengths to refrain from idolatry, and they were used as an example to a future generation.

The truth is, the Christians wish to dismiss it because doing so will, in their hope and as a part of their agenda, diminish the Quran. The problem is that they have no way to authenticate their inheritance, and they have no idea if the story took place or not, and the story does not share its main traits with the older accounts of a �single man who sleeps� that the author briefly mentions, but fails to show us how they are actually related.

   

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 The story is this: Decius (249-251) once came to Ephesus to enforce his laws against Christians -- a gruesome description of the horrors he made them suffer follows -- here he found seven noble young men, named Maximillian, Jamblichos, Martin, John, Dionysios, Exakostodianos, and Antoninos (so Metaphrastes; the names vary considerably; Gregory of Tours has Achillides, Diomedes, Diogenus, Probatus, Stephanus, Sambatus, and Quiriacus), who were Christians. The emperor tried them and then gave them a short time for consideration, till he came back again to Ephesus. They gave their property to the poor, took a few coins only with them and went into a cave on Mount Anchilos to pray and prepare for death. Decius came back after a journey and inquired after these seven men. They heard of his return and then, as they said their last prayer in the cave before giving themselves up, fell asleep. The emperor told his soldiers to find them, and when found asleep in the cave he ordered it to be closed up with huge stones and sealed; thus they were buried alive. But a Christian came and wrote on the outside the names of the martyrs and their story. Years passed, the empire became Christian, and Theodosius [either the Great (379-395) or the Younger (408-450), Koch, op.cit. infra, p.12], reigned. In his time some heretics denied the resurrection of the body. While this controversy went on, a rich landowner named Adolios had the Sleepers' cave opened, to use it as a cattle-stall. Then they awake, thinking they have slept only one night, and send one of their number (Diomedes) to the city to buy food, that they may eat before they give themselves up. Diomedes comes into Ephesus and the usual story of cross-purposes follows. He is amazed to see crosses over churches, and the people cannot understand whence he got his money coined by Decius. Of course at last it comes out that the last thing he knew was Decius's reign; eventually the bishop and the prefect go up to the cave with him, where they find the six others and the inscription. Theodosius is sent for, and the saints tell him their story. Every one rejoices at this proof of the resurrection of the body. The sleepers, having improved the occasion by a long discourse, then die praising God. The emperor wants to build golden tombs for them, but they appear to him in a dream and ask to be buried in the earth in their cave. The cave is adorned with precious stones, a great church built over it, and every year the feast of the Seven Sleepers is kept.

This author, nor any Christian today, has any way to authenticate any bit of their story as legend or fact or fiction, and with what truth may rest in their story, they have no way to discern between what is real and what is a fabrication.

 

Quote

Koch (op.cit.) has examined the growth of this story and the spread of the legend of miraculously long sleep. Aristotle (Phys., IV, xi) refers to a similar tale about sleepers at Sardes; there are many more examples from various countries (Koch, pp. 24-40, quotes German, British, Slav, Indian, Jewish, Chinese, and Arabian versions). Frederick Barbarossa and Rip Van Winkle are well-known later examples.

The statement

Quote the growth of this story
is simply an assertion that has been accepted in the premise without proof. This is presumptuous, that if some element in one culture is found in another culture, then they must have borrowed from one another; this is conjecture unless it can be shown. Cultures unrelated to one another will have common ideas and practices and fixations on aspects of life such as blood, sacrifice, virgin births, death, dreams, sleeping, etc ,etc, etc.

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 The Ephesus story is told in the Koran (Sura xviii), and it has had a long history and further developments in Islam (Koch, 123-152),

This is a blatant lie. The Quran has mentioned a story, and this story has not changed. There was not �further� developed after revelation.

 

Quote

 as well as in medieval Christendom (ib., 153-183). Baronius was the first to doubt it (Ann. Eccl. in the Acta SS., July, 386, 48); it was then discredited till modern study of folk-lore gave it an honoured place again as the classical example of a widely spread myth.

The problem is that, as I have stated a few times, these people have no way to �authenticate� any of their traditions. They really have no idea, and simply dismiss and accept based upon conjecture.

 

Quote  

 

The Seven Sleepers have feasts in the Byzantine Calendar on 4 August and 22 October; in the Roman Martyrology they are commemorated as Sts. Maximianus, Malchus, Martinianus, Dionysius, Joannes, Serapion, and Constantinus on 27 July.

Let�s say this is true, and lets say that the story in the Quran is about the 7 young men in Ephesus. So if the idea of 7 sleepers is a known symbol, then, it would be �reasonable� to say that if God wanted to make a point that people in this region would really understand, then familiar symbolism would be a part of the miracle. Magic was used against Moses as a symbol, and God let Moses work miracles that used this symbolism, and this can be said of the time of Jesus also. All in all, this is a really juvenile and unsophisticated piece that attempts bad sophistry.

 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mariyah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 June 2007 at 12:33pm
Originally posted by superme superme wrote:

Originally posted by abuzaid abuzaid wrote:

If you feel that story in Quran is not accurate as per your history, then why do you think that your history is perfect and Quran should be in line with your version of history??

Unnecessary comment abuzaid, sound like you are on the defensive and trapped in the corner. Are you trapped?

The survival of the sleepers for such duration is really hard to understand considering that the human body can only survived without water in matter of days, not weeks due to dehydration. Therefore the place - which was the cave - must be really something so unique that supplied the fluid to their body need when they were unconscious. And the food is another matter. Than we need to consider the timing.

Time traveller is what we need to consider here but I don't know how, maybe any of you can start it.

And thou mightest have seen the sun when it rose move away from their cave to the right, and when it set go past them on the left, and they were in the cleft thereof. That was (one) of the portents of Allah. He whom Allah guideth, he indeed is led aright, and he whom He sendeth astray, for him thou wilt not find a guiding friend.(18:17)


Superme:
If you read the thread where Delta puts forth the notion that the Kaaba is a Hindu Temple, and read the posts where Delta puts down and attacks Islam, you will see why Abuzaid made this comment.
Delta's style is to post a seemingly innocent question, let a few Muslims make some innocent replies, then he goes for the jugular and derides our faith.
Kinda like Bismarck is doing with the non Muslims in his posts.
Read them and see. Delta is someone I am avoiding because it is like  repeatedly hitting at a brick wall.
Only the bricks fall occasionally and hit you.
Why waste your breath with arguing with him?
"Every good deed is charity whether you come to your brother's assistance or just greet him with a smile.
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Delta View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Delta Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 June 2007 at 1:44pm
Maryah

Please calm down

Please read CAREFULLY this topic in a stricter muslim forum :

http://www.imanway.com/en/showthread.php?t=4405

I have many posts in there

and only a few here :

www.turntoislam.com

=========

But I wonder why Maryah, why you are reacting that way

Read that, and then you can make a new topic

"Delta the idiot"  or "Delta the troll"

I don't care....I will answer and explain whatever you want

But read please...read


Edited by Delta
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