Analysis of the Proposal to Build a “Base” and a “Mosque” on the Companions of the Cave from the Point of View of the Two Sects (And Its Connection with the Issue of Building the Tombs of the Righteous and the Issue of Pilgrimage)

In the new era, comparative inter-religious research is being conducted mainly in the Shiite field with the aim of examining the views of the sects and criticizing and evaluating them. In this regard, this article examines the twenty-first verse of Surah Al-Kahf, about which the views of the commentators of the two sects, as well as the interpretive narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt, the Companions (aṣ-ṣaḥābah) and the Followers (tābi‘īn), are different. In this way, the opinions of the commentators of the Companions (aṣ-ṣaḥābah) and Followers (tābi‘īn) on the one hand and the narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt on the other hand are reported, then their opinions are evaluated by applying the opinions of the Shiite and Sunni commentators. Through this comparative study, it was obtained that the proposal to build a mosque for the companions of the cave was not made by heretics and polytheists, but by the monotheists. Among the reasons that were used to confirm this theory, we can mention the method of the verse, the method and the main pillar of the surah and other verses including “base”, as well as the silence of the Qur'an against this proposal. On the other hand, the doubts raised by the Sunnis about this theory have been answered.