What are your main concerns when you wake up after a long night’s sleep? Food, perhaps? Even if it is not your main concern, it must be at the top of your list. And especially if you haven’t had dinner the night before, you would very likely be ravenous and you would very likely eat the first thing you get your hands on. Be it a bar of chocolate or a leftover pizza slice (as unappetizing as it sounds).
But that is just us. In sūrah al-Kahaf, the youth of the cave prove yet again why they were much different and much nobler than us –
After sleeping for 300+ years, famished wouldn’t have been a good enough word to describe their state, but upon waking up and *briefly* discussing their situation, they form a plan,
[So send one of you with this silver coin of yours to the city and let him look to which is the best of food and bring you provision from it] Kahaf:19
“ازكى طعاماً” translates to “Best of food”.
A more literal translation would be “purest of food”; pure from anything unlawful (Ḥarām) and pure in terms of it being beneficial for the eater — and in both ways pleasing to Allāh.
Upon waking up from their deep slumber, the pleasure of Allāh was their main concern.
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