The Seven Sleepers, also known in Christianity as the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and in Islam as Aṣḥāb al-Kahf, is a late antique Christian legend, and a Qur'anic Islamic story. It speaks about a group of youths who hid inside a cave around the year 250 AD to escape Roman persecutions of Christians and emerged many years later. The Qur'anic version of the story appears in Sura 18 (18:9–26).