Overall meaning : Allah, Exalted be He, depicts these youths after they woke up from their long sleep: Just as We caused them to sleep and preserved their bodies for such a long period, so too We awakened them from their long sleep so that they might ask one another as to what had happened to them. One of them asked, ‘How long have you stayed here?’ They said, ‘We have been here for a day or part of a day.’ Then, having failed to determine the period they had spent in the cave, they said, ‘Your Lord knows best how long you have been here. Let, then, one of you go to the city with these silver coins of yours and bring us back whatever food he finds purest and most wholesome. He should proceed with caution and behave with great care at all times—when entering the city, when buying food, when leaving it and when returning to the cave—and by no means make anyone aware of our whereabouts. If your unbelieving people find your whereabouts and lay their hands on you, they will stone you to death or force you back into their faith; then you will never succeed, neither in this life nor in the life to come.’