2020-01-10 Fri

The Seven Sleepers or Ashab-ul-Kahaf (People of the Cave) is the story of the youth who hid inside a cave the city of Ephesus around the third century to escape religious persecution and emerged some 300 years later. The story is considered by Catholics and Orthodox Christians and is also mentioned in the Qur'an.

According to the story, during the persecution of Christians (250 CE) under the Roman emperor Decius, seven (eight in some versions) Christian soldiers were concealed near their native city of Ephesus in a cave to which the entry was later sealed. There, having protected themselves from being forced to do pagan sacrifices, they fell into a miraculous sleep.

Decius died in 251, and many years passed during which Christianity went from being persecuted to being the state religion of the Roman Empire. During the reign of the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II (408–450 CE), the cave was reopened, and the Sleepers awoke.

When the sleepers awakened they believed they had slept for only a few hours. One of them was sent to buy food. The coins he used to buy food were no longer in circulation and it drew the attention of the people. After the story was known throughout the town, the sleepers died.

The above-shown stamp depicts Ephesus which believed to be the city of the Seven Sleepers. The bottom stamp is of a mosque in Chenini in the Tataouine governate of Tunisia, where the Seven Sleepers are purportedly buried.

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