Continuation of the explanation of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “And when you withdrew from them and what they worshipped other than Allah, go to the cave; your Lord will spread for you of His mercy and prepare for you a facility in your affair. And you will see the sun, when it rises, decline from their cave to the right, and when it sets, pass by them to the left, while they are in a spacious part of it.”

The Shaykh : And Allah the Exalted turned them over because if they had remained on one side for this long period, their blood would have coagulated and they would not have moved. But He turned them to the right and to the left so that if a person saw them, he would think they were awake, meaning that the faces of sleepers were not on them; whoever saw them would say, “These are awake, and they are lying down sleeping.” And Allah cast upon them great awe. Glory be to Allah! You would have turned away from them in flight with your body, and your heart would have been filled with terror; the heart would panic and the body would flee, so that no one would circle around them and wake them. But Allah, Mighty and Majestic, honored them with this. The miracles of the People of the Cave are many; we will limit ourselves to this and, if Allah wills, mention the rest in another lesson. We ask Allah the Exalted to make us and you among His honored close friends.
The Reciter: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon his family and all his Companions. He (may Allah have mercy on him) said: “The chapter on the miracles of the awliya (close friends of Allah) and their virtue. Allah the Exalted said:

And when you have withdrawn from them and that which they worship other than Allah, retreat to the cave. Your Lord will spread out for you of His mercy and will prepare for you from your affair facility." ⁽¹⁷⁾ 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 [laying] within an open space thereof

وإذ اعتزلتموهم وما يعبدون إلا الله فأووا إلى الكهف ينشر لكم ربكم من رحمته ويهييء لكم من أمركم مرفقًا * وترى الشمس إذا طلعت تزاور عن كهفهم ذات اليمين وإذا غربت تقرضهم ذات الشمال وهم في فجوة منه

[Al-Kahf 18:16-17]

the verse.”

The Shaykh : The author (may Allah have mercy on him) mentioned in his book *Riyad al-Salihin*, in the chapter on the miracles of the awliya (close friends of Allah) and their virtue, several verses that include miracles of the awliya, among which is the story of the People of the Cave. They were young men who believed in Allah and withdrew from their people and left their town. So Allah prepared for them a cave, meaning a spacious cave in the mountain, and they entered it. Then Allah cast sleep upon them, and they slept for three hundred years and nine years. While they were sleeping, they did not need food or drink, and their bodies were not affected. And Allah the Exalted turned them to the right and to the left. This is among the miracles of Allah for them: that Allah the Exalted prepared for them a safe abode, to the extent that Allah says: No one circles around them. And among the miracles of Allah for them is that they remained for this period of three hundred years and nine years, and not a single nail or hair or anything else of them changed, even though the custom is that nails grow and hair grows. But their nails and hair did not grow, and they remained as if they had slept yesterday. For this reason, Allah the Exalted said: regarding this sleep, because nothing of them had changed. As for what some people mentioned that their nails and hair grew, this is an error, because if that were the case, they would have known that they had remained for a long period, but they did not change. And among the miracles of Allah for them is that Allah kept them in this sleep until Allah replaced their tyrannical king with a righteous king. When they awoke, they sent one of them to the town to bring them food. They had with them old coins from the currency that was three hundred years and nine years old. When they came to buy from the town and paid the coins, the people of the town were amazed: where did these coins come from? Until Allah revealed them to the people. This is among the miracles of Allah for them. It is good to gather these verses and others, reflect upon them, and extract from them the miracles that point to the power of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and that He, Blessed and Exalted is He, is more generous than His creation. When a person worships Him with what He is pleased with, Allah the Exalted gives him what He is pleased with. And Allah grants success.