The Cave (Al-Kahf)
Allah - beginning with the name of - the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Praise belongs to God who has sent down upon His servant the Book and has not assigned unto it any crookedness; 1 and which rightly directs, to give warning of stern punishment from Him, and to proclaim to the believers who do righteous deeds that they shall have an excellent recompense, 2 Where they will abide for ever; 3 And to warn those who say, "God has taken to Himself a son." 4 They have no knowledge of this, as their fathers did not have. How terrible are the words they utter! They speak nothing but lies. 5 Yet it may be, if they believe not in this statement, that thou (Muhammad) wilt torment thy soul with grief over their footsteps. 6 Behold, We have willed that all beauty on earth be a means by which We put men to a test, [showing] which of them are best in conduct; 7 but We shall reduce all this to barren waste. 8 Do you think the men of the cave and Ar-Raqim were so strange among Our signs? 9 When those young men took shelter in the cave, and prayed: "O Lord, grant us Your favour and dispose our affair aright," 10 And thereupon We veiled their ears in the cave for many a year, 11 We then awakened them to see which of the two groups more accurately tells the period they had stayed. 12