The chapter of the Cave introduces the account as a sign among the signs of God: young men who took refuge in a cave and prayed for mercy and for right guidance in their affair, whose ears God sealed for a number of years, and who were then raised up so that it might be known which of the two parties had better counted the time they stayed. They are described as youths who believed in their Lord and were increased in guidance, who stood and declared that their Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth and that they would not call on any god besides him, and who withdrew from their people and from what they worshipped. The sun is described as passing to the right of the cave when it rises and cutting past them on the left when it sets, while they lie in an open space within it, and they are turned to the right and to the left in their sleep, with their dog stretching out its forelegs at the threshold.
The passage is unusually explicit about the limits of what is known. On the question of how many they were, it reports that people say three and the fourth their dog, five and the sixth their dog, guessing at the unseen, and seven and the eighth their dog, and instructs that the answer is that the Lord knows best how many they were and that only a few know. It gives three hundred years and nine more, and adds that God knows best how long they stayed. This refusal to settle detail is the passage's own subject as much as the sleep is, and the instruction that follows, not to say of anything that one will do it tomorrow without adding if God wills, is drawn from it directly.