We shall soon come to read that they slept for a period of 309 years, and so their sleep was some how like a death. Then Allah wakened them up so as to ask one another. They thought to have slept one day or less, because they had entered the cave in a morning, and had been raised in the evening. But when they considered their long hair and nail, and the condition of their clothes, they thought otherwise and said:ِ
``Our Lord knows best how long have we tarried here. Now let us find something clean and lawful to eat.''
The money they had was the coins of king Daghiyanus who persecuted Monotheists in favour of idolaters and their false gods.
They sent one of them to buy some clean lawful food for them and emphasized keeping it confidential because they thought that the fierce persecution they knew, was still going on, and they had to pay their life to their faith.