The Sura of the Cave as intercultural and metahistorical dialogue in the Qur'an

Abstract

The Sura of The Cave (al-Kahf) is one of the most vibrant and fascinating symbolic spaces in the whole Qur'anic text. This sura brings together four major symbolic and cross-cultural narratives with clear references to the Jewish tradition (Mishna, Talmud), the classical world (the Sleepers of Ephesus, Alexander the Great) and late antiquity (the visions of the Syrian world) in a purely cross-cultural context. Narratives that transcend from the historical to the metahistorical, elaborated in a kairological time and that lead the reader to reflect on the triumph of the symbolic, the problem of evil and the unfathomability of divine decisions. The aim of this paper is to reflect philosophically on how all these elements become a profound intercultural and metahistorical dialogue within the Qur'anic prophetic experience that the believer relives in his reading.