Thumma baAAathnahum linaAAlama ayyu alhizbayni ahsa lima labithoo amadan
English
Ahmed Ali
Then roused them to ascertain which of the two groups could account for the period they had stayed.
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Tafseer
'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī
تفسير : (and afterward we raised them up) we woke them up just as we sent them to sleep (that we might know) we might see (which of the two parties) the believers or the disbelievers (would best calculate the time) the duration (that they had tarried) in the cave.
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī
تفسير : then we aroused them, we awakened them, that we might know, a knowledge of direct vision, which of the two parties, the two groups in disagreement over the length of their stay [in the cave], was better in calculating (ahsā is [of the pattern] of af‘al, meaning ‘more precise’]) what they had tarried (li-mā labithū is semantically connected to the following) in [terms of the] length of time (amadan, [in the accusative] denotes purpose).
