Verses 1–5
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful
This sūrah was revealed in Mecca and consists of 5 verses. It presents the story of the Riders of Elephants, when they marched toward Mecca to destroy the Holy Kaʿbah. God destroyed them by sending flocks of birds to pelt them with clay stones, until they became like eaten straw. This was one of the great signs of God which was not hidden from anyone. The people at the time—before the advent of Islam—chronicled this event and incorporated it in their poetry.
Commentary
أَ لَمْ تَرَ كَيْفَ فَعَلَ رَبُّكَ بِأَصْحابِ الْفِيلِ ١
(105:1) Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the Riders of Elephants?
This is a rhetorical question which implies a negation. What is meant by “seeing” (ruʾyah) here is patent knowledge, which is compared to sensory observation for its clarity. The meaning is: “Do you not know what your Lord did to the Riders of Elephants?” This incident occurred the year the Prophet was born.
أَ لَمْ يَجْعَلْ كَيْدَهُمْ فِي تَضْلِيلٍ ٢
(105:2) Did He not render their stratagems in loss (taḍlīl)?
Their stratagems were their ill-willed plot targeting Mecca, and their intent to destroy God’s Sacred House. Taḍlīl is synonymous with iḍlāl (misguiding, leading astray). What is meant here is that God took their efforts off course so that they would not find their way to their intended goal. They set out to destroy the Kaʿbah, but ended up destroying themselves.
وَ أَرْسَلَ عَلَيْهِمْ طَيْراً أَبابِيلَ ٣
(105:3) And He sent against them flocks (abābīl) of birds,
This verse and the next one interpret the last verse: Did He not render their stratagems in loss? (). Abābīl is said to mean “separated groups, differentiated clusters” [such as squadrons of troops]. The meaning is: “God sent dispersed flocks of birds upon the Riders of Elephants.”
تَرْمِيهِمْ بِحِجارَةٍ مِنْ سِجِّيلٍ ٤
(105:4) pelting them with stones of shale (sijjīl).
The flocks of birds pelted the Riders of Elephants with stones of hard clay. We already discussed the meaning of sijjīl in our exposition of Prophet Lot’s story.
فَجَعَلَهُمْ كَعَصْفٍ مَأْكُولٍ ٥
(105:5) Thus He made them like chewed-up (maʾkūl) straw (ka-ʿaṣf).
ʿAṣf means “leaves of crops.” Chewed-up straw refers to such leaves the seeds of which are eaten, or husks that are emptied of kernels. There are two possible meanings here: (1) “After being struck by stones of dried clay, they turned into lifeless bodies.” (2) “The hot stones burned them to their guts.”
Some have interpreted chewed-up straw as leaves of crops blighted and eaten by worms, causing them to wither and die. There are further suggested interpretations for the verse which are not compatible with the Qur’an’s language.
Examining Narrations
- It was the king of Yemen who sought to destroy the Kaʿbah. His name was Abrahah b. al-Ṣabāḥ al-Ashram. It is said that his kunyah (title) was Abū Yaksūm. According to al-Wāqidī, he was the grandfather of al-Najāshī [the king of Abyssinia] who lived during the time of God’s Messenger.
After taking control of the kingdom in Yemen, he built a kaʿbah there and topped it with golden domes. He ordered his subjects to make a pilgrimage to it [every year], trying to match God’s Sacred House [in Mecca]. A man from Banū Kinānah tribe traveled to Yemen and saw the house there. He also happened to squat there to answer the call of nature. When Abrahah came in and found the excrement there, he said, “Who has dared against me by doing such a thing? By my Christian faith, I will destroy that other House so that no one would ever make a pilgrimage to it.”
He called for elephants, and told his people and his followers in Yemen to prepare for departure. The majority of his followers were from the tribes of ʿAkk, al-Ashʿar and Khathʿam. After journeying a bit, he sent a man from Banū Sulaym to call people to make a pilgrimage to the house that he had built. But his messenger was confronted and killed by a man from al-Ḥums tribe, which is also a branch of Banū Kinānah. That only enraged Abrahah further, so he pushed his contingent on.
He requested a guide from the people of Ṭāʾif, and they sent a man from Hudhayl tribe, called Nufayl. He went with them and guided them until they reached al-Mughammas, six miles from Mecca, where they camped. They sent their vanguards to Mecca, whereby the Quraysh scattered hither and thither into the mountaintops, saying, “We don’t have the strength to fight such an army.” No one remained in Mecca except ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāshim and Shaybat b. ʿUthmān b. ʿAbd al-Dār. The former maintained his post of giving water [to the pilgrims], and the latter kept his stand as the custodian of the Kaʿbah. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib clasped onto the two doorjambs of the Kaʿbah and prayed:
لَاهُمَّ إِنَّ الْعَبْدَ يَمْـ ـنَعُ رَحْلَهُ فَامْنَعْ حِلَالَكَ
لَا يَغْلِبَنْ صَلِيبُهُمْ وَ مِحَالُهُمْ غَدْواً مِحَالَكَ
إنْ كُنْتَ تَارِكَهُمْ وَ قِبْلَتَنَا فَأْمُرْ مَا بَدَا لَكَ
“My Lord! Everyone would protect their object;
Now we’ve settled at Your House, would You not protect?
Let not Your plan and power be wrecked
By the plots and crosses that by them are erect.
From reaching our qiblah, if You wish to neglect,
Then decree as You will, and no one shall object.”
The vanguards of Abrahah seized the camels of Quraysh, including two hundred camels belonging to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāshim. When he heard of this, he left Mecca to meet the army. Abrahah’s door-guard was a man from al-Ashʿar tribe who knew ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. He went in to seek permission for him to see the king. The door-guard said to Abrahah: “Your majesty! The chief of Quraysh has come to see you. He feeds the people in the towns and the beasts in the mountains.” “Let him in,” said Abrahah.
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was a sturdy handsome man. When Abū Yaksūm [Abrahah] saw him, he found him too noble to sit in a lower place than himself, yet did not want to seat him next to himself on his throne either. So he got off of his seat, sat on the ground, and seated ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib next to himself. “What can I do for you?” asked Abrahah.
“Give me my two hundred camels which your vanguards have usurped,” ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib calmly replied.
“By God! I was quite impressed by you when I saw you,” said Abū Yaksūm [Abrahah]. “But now that you’ve spoken, you’ve turned me off.”
“And why is that, your majesty?”
“Because I’ve come here to demolish and destroy the House which gives you honor and strength among the Arabs; the House which sets you above and apart from the people; the House which is at the center of your religion and rituals. And on the side, I’ve taken two hundred camels of yours. Now, when I ask you what you want, you raise the issue of your camels, but make no appeal for your Holy House!”
“Your majesty! I spoke to you concerning what belongs to me. The House has its own Lord Who will defend it. I’m not in charge of that in any way.”
Abū Yaksūm was taken aback. He ordered the camels to be returned to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, who then left. The night passed over the army with a gloom overshadowing the stars. As if they were speaking to them, whispering that some catastrophe was imminent, and their souls sensed the impending doom…
At sunrise, birds with rocks swarmed above the troops and began pelting them with stones. Each bird had a stone in its beak and a stone in each of its talons. As soon as one dropped its stones, it flew away, only to be replaced by another one. If a stone stuck one’s belly, it would split it open. If it fell on a bone, it would melt and pierce it. Abū Yaksūm, struck by some stones, turned back and fled. In every land along his way, some part of his body fell off. Until when he finally reached Yemen, his body was completely in ruin. When he entered his town, his chest split open, his stomach cleft apart, and he died. However, none of the members of al-Ashʿar or Khathʿam tribes was struck…
Author’s comment: Narrations disagree widely about the specifics of the story. Interested readers should consult the extensive books of history and Prophetic biography (sīrah).
See verses and . (Trans.) ↩︎
There are more lines to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s poem, which is widely reported with some variations. What is presented here is a slightly more accurate and reliable version than the one quoted by the author from Majmaʿ al-bayān. (Ed.) ↩︎
Majmaʿ al-bayān, narrating the consensus of narrators. ↩︎