The Cave
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[18:17]
And [for many a year] thou might have seen the sun, on its rising, incline away from their cave on the right, and, on its setting, turn aside from them on the left, while they lived on in that spacious chamber, [bearing witness to] this of God’s messages: He whom God guides, he alone has found the right way; whereas for him whom He lets go astray thou canst never find any protector who would point out the right way.

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* v.17 : Lit., “while they were in a broad cleft thereof.” The cave evidently opened to the north, so that the heat of the sun never disturbed them: and this, I believe is an echo of the many Qur’anic allusions to the happiness of the righteous in paradise, symbolized by its “everlasting shade” (see, in particular, sūrah 4, note 74, on the metaphorical use of the term zill in the sense of “happiness”).