The Cave of the Seven Sleepers is a historical and religious site in al-Rajib, a village to the east of Amman. It is claimed that this cave housed the Seven Sleepers (Ashab-E-Kahf) - a group of young men who, according to Byzantine and Islamic sources, fled the religious persecution of Roman emperor Decius. Legend has it that these men hid in a cave around 250 AD, emerging miraculously about 300 years later.

Account in the Quran
The story of the Companions of the Cave (ashab al-kahf) is referred to in Quran 18:9-26. The precise number of the sleepers is not stated. The Quran furthermore points to the fact that people, shortly after the incident emerged, started to make "idle guesses" as to how many people were in the cave. To this, the Quran asserts that: "My Sustainer knows best how many they were". Similarly, regarding the exact period of time the people stayed in the cave, the Quran, after asserting the guesswork of the people that "they remained in the cave for 300 years and nine added", resolves that "God knows best how long they remained [there]." The Quran says the sleepers included a dog, who sat at the entrance of the cave (verse 18).

Story
The story says that during the persecutions by the Roman emperor Decius, around AD 250, seven young men were accused of following Christianity. They were given some time to recant their faith, but they refused to bow to Roman idols. Instead, they chose to give their worldly goods to the poor and retire to a mountain cave to pray, where they fell asleep. The Emperor, seeing that their attitude towards paganism had not improved, ordered the mouth of the cave to be sealed.

Germany Decius died in 251, and many years passed during which Christianity went from being persecuted to being the state religion of the Roman Empire. At some later time—usually given as during the reign of Theodosius II (408–450)—in AD 447 when heated discussions were taking place between various schools of Christianity about the resurrection of the body on the day of judgment and life after death, a landowner decided to open up the sealed mouth of the cave, thinking to use it as a cattle pen. He opened it and found the sleepers inside. They awoke, imagining that they had slept but one day, and sent one of their numbers to Ephesus to buy food, with instructions to be careful.

Upon arriving in the city, this person was astounded to find buildings with crosses attached; the townspeople for their part were astounded to find a man trying to spend old coins from the reign of Decius. The bishop was summoned to interview the sleepers; they told him their miracle story and died praising God. The various lives of the Seven Sleepers in Greek are listed and in other non-Latin languages at BHO.