Eshab-ı Kehf Complex (Seven Sleepers)

The cave, on a rocky hillside near Afşin, is associated with the story of the Seven Sleepers (Eshab-ı Kehf), young people who hid for their faith and slept for centuries, a story also told in the Kehf (Cave) sura of the Quran. Around the cave stand a mosque and ribat built in the Seljuk era by Nusretüddin Hasan Bey, emir of Maraş, a madrasa added under the Dulkadirids and the Ottoman-era Paşa Çardağı pavilion. The complex was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2015. Visiting conditions may have changed since the 2023 earthquakes; check before you go.