Did the People of the Cave know Allah and believe in Him by their innate disposition or through a previous message?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Allah, the story of the People of the Cave is about their innate disposition, not inspiration from Allah the Exalted. In what aspect did they deduce and comprehend lordship and emerge from darkness? That is, even what Allah did in them, was that their innate disposition or was it not?
The Shaykh : It is either their innate disposition or a remnant of a message.
The questioner : Say: Praise be to Allah.
The Shaykh : No, no message, because[Fatir 35:24]
The Shaykh : It is either their innate disposition or a remnant of a message.
The questioner : Say: Praise be to Allah.
The Shaykh : No, no message, because
And there was no nation but that there had passed within it a warner.
وَإِن مِّنْ أُمَّةٍ إِلَّا خَلَا فِيهَا نَذِيرٌ
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 4174 - 4600 هل أصحاب الكهف عرفوا الله وامنوا به فطرة أم برسالة سابقة؟ ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.