18.12. Thumma baAAathnahum linaAAlama ayyualhizbayni ahsa lima labithuu amadan
18.12. And afterward We raised them up that We might know which of the two parties would best calculate the time that they had tarried. (Pickthall)
18.12. Dann haben Wir sie auferweckt, damit Wir wissen, welche der beiden Gruppierungen eher errechnet, welche Zwischenzeit sie verweilt hatten. (Ahmad v. Denffer)
18.12. Hierauf erweckten Wir sie auf, um zu wissen, welche der beiden Gruppierungen am richtigsten die Dauer ihres Verweilens erfaßt hat. (Bubenheim)
18.12. Dann weckten Wir sie wieder, um zu erfahren, welche von den beiden Parteien die Jahre, die sie dort verbrachten, genauer berechnen konnte. (Azhar)
18.12. Dann erweckten WIR sie, damit WIR kenntlich machen, welche der beiden Gruppierungen die von ihnen verweilte Zeit genauer errechnete. (Zaidan)
18.12. Hierauf weckten wir sie auf, um in Erfahrung zu bringen, welche der beiden Gruppen (al-hizbaini) am ehesten errechnen würde, eine wie lange Zeit sie (in der Höhle) verweilt hatten. (Paret)
18.12. Dann erweckten Wir sie, damit Wir erführen, welche von den beiden Scharen die Zeit ihres Verweilens am besten berechnet habe. (Rasul)
Tafsir von Maududi für die Ayaat 9 bis 12
Do you consider "the Sleepers of the Cave", ( 6 ) and the bearers of the "Inscription" ( 7 ) to be among Our strange Signs? ( 8 ) When those few young men took refuge in the Cave, they said, "Our Lord! have a special mercy on us from Thyself and guide us out of our ordeal aright." Accordingly We lulled them to a deep sleep in the Cave for a number of years. Then We raised them up in order to test which of them were able to calculate correctly the period of their stay there.
Desc No: 6 The Arabic word (Kahaf) literally means a vast cave.
Desc No: 7 There is a difference of opinion about the meaning of ar-raqim. Some Companions and their followers opined that it was the name of that habitation where this event took place and that it was situated somewhere between Aylah and Palestine. There are other commentators who take it to mean the "Inscription" that had been set up at the Cave as a memorial to "the Sleepers of the Cave". Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, in his commentary, Tarjmanul-Qur'an, has preferred the first meaning and opined that it is the same place which has been called Rekem in the Bible (Joshua, 18: 27). Then he identifies it with the ancient historical city of Petra. But he has not considered the fact that Rekem, as mentioned in the Bible, belonged to the children of Benjamin and according to the Book of Joshua, the territory of this clan was situated to the west of river Jordan and the Dead Sea and that the ruins of Petra are situated to the south of Jordan. That is why the modern archaeologists do not believe that Petra and Rekem are one and the same place. (Please refer to Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1946, Vol XVII, page 658). We are also of the opinion that by "Ar-raqim"is meant "the inscription".
Desc No: 8 This question has been posed to expose the sceptical attitude of the disbelievers towards the "Sleepers of the Cave", as if to say, `Do you think that Allah, Who has created the heavens and the earth, does not have the power to keep a few persons in a state of sleep for a couple of hundred years and then to raise them up as hale and hearty as they were at the time of going to sleep? If you ever had pondered over the wonderful creation of the sun and the moon and the earth, you would never have expressed any doubt that such a thing was anything difficult for Allah. "
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