The Cave (Al-Kahf)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
All praise unto Allah who hath sent down unto His bondman the Book, and hath not placed therein any crookedness. 1 [a divine writ] unerringly straight, meant to warn [the godless] of a severe punishment from Him, and to give unto the believers who do good works the glad tiding that theirs shall be a goodly reward 2 wherein they shall abide for ever; 3 and to warn those who say, 'God has taken to Himself a son'; 4 They have no knowledge of this, nor did their forefathers have any either. What they say is monstrous: they are merely uttering falsehoods! 5 Yet perchance, if they do not believe in this tiding, you will consume yourself with grief and follow after them. 6 We have made whatever exists on the earth its adornment to test and try them (and) know who acts better; 7 And indeed We shall one day make all that is on it a barren plain. 8 Do you think that the people of the Cave and the Inscription were one of Our wondrous signs? 9 When those youths took refuge in the cave, they prayed: "O our Sustainer! Bestow on us grace from Thyself, and endow us, whatever our [outward] condition, with consciousness of what is right!" 10 Then We draw (a veil) over their ears, for a number of years, in the Cave, (so that they heard not): 11 And afterward We raised them up that We might know which of the two parties would best calculate the time that they had tarried. 12