Around 571 ac, the Abyssinians organized an army in Yemen to raid Makkah and destroy the Kaaba, God’s holy house. The army included several elephants, which were to be used in combat for the first time in Arabia.

The news left the Arabs of Makkah despondent, totally unprepared to resist such an attack. Many of them took flight to the mountains, leaving the Ka’bah as well as their own homes to their fate. For the Christian Abyssinians, the whole campaign was a misguided and pointless one. There was no justification for it, since they had a cathedral in Sana’a, where they used to worship, and could have left the Arabs to worship at the Ka’bah.

The expedition ended in tragedy. The Abyssinian army was attacked by a barrage of stones thrown by birds flying overhead, reminiscent of those thrown at the people of Lot, whose town had disappeared under the ground.

Historians claim that, on the way back to Sana’a, the Abyssinian army, including its leader Abrahah, was decimated by a plague of smallpox. The surah records this historic event in the following words:
Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with the people of the elephant? Did He not confound their stratagem and send against them flocks of birds which pelted them with clay-stones? (1–4)

Historians also say that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was born in that year, known to the Arabs as ‘the Year of the Elephant’. His birth was, therefore, a good portent for the future prosperity and security of the Quraysh, referred to in the following surah, as a prelude to the advent of Islam and its rise from Makkah, the mother of all towns, to all corners of the globe.

by Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali

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