History of Islam – Pre-revelation: Incident of the Elephant
In this video, I will mention about a significant historical event called “the incident of the elephant” which happened in the year of 520, just 50 days before PM was born. And it is about the Ka’ba and the people who wanted to destroy it with elephants.
First, I want to give you a background information about The Ka’ba. Ka’ba is a sacred building in Mecca built by P.Ibrahim and his son Ismael, as a place of worship, about 2000 years before Christ. So People all over Arabia were coming to Mecca to visit the Ka’ba…Abraha, who was the Christian governor of Yemen, at the time, was jealous of this favor of people towards Ka’ba, so he wanted to stop people from visiting it.
Because of that, he built a great temple with precious stones to turn Arabs, towards his own temple…But he
realized that the number of the pilgrims to the Ka’ba did not decrease but actually increased. So his plan did not work. This made him very angry. And he swore that he would destroy the Ka’ba..So He asked the king of Abyssinia, which is modern-day Ethiopia, to send his the greatest elephant, named Mahmud, as a help. It was the biggest and the strongest elephant at the time. So the king sent the elephant to him. And then Abraha prepared a strong army with 6000 soldiers, including elephants. Then he marched his army towards Mecca. When they arrived in Mecca, he ordered his army to demolish the Ka’ba.
However, there was someone in the army who did not obey his orders. A man, called Nufayl ibn Habib, who was one of the stablemen for the elephants, whispered to the ear of the elephant Mahmud. He said:
“Settle where you are and do not get up; because you are in a very sacred place. If you keep sitting, you will get prize from the king. Then you can return to the place where you come from”
The elephant Mahmud indeed kept sitting in its place and did not stand up despite all efforts. The people could not even turn it to the direction of the Ka’ba. They tried to force the poor animal with all methods, but nothing worked. Suddenly, the army witnessed something very extraordinary. They saw that a black mass, in the sky, was approaching them from the direction of the Red Sea. When the mass came closer, they realized that it was a group of birds coming towards them with great noise. Moreover, the birds were carrying little stones—the size of chickpeas, with their beaks and feet. Then, the birds began to drop the stones to hit the soldiers in the army; and The army became afraid. Indeed, they had never seen or heard, of such a thing. Obviously, the soldiers were not able to escape the stones. So they were hit by the stones; and everybody died in the army in a painful way, including Abraha….So, who defeated Abraha’s army? Obviously, it was God who defeated Abraha’s army, through the flock of birds. So God protected His house, because He was the owner of it…Also the Qur’an mentions this historical event in a chapter called “Surah Al-Fil” which is “Chapter The Elephant” in English. In this very short Qur’anic chapter Allah briefly mentions how He sent the flock of birds against the army of the elephant and how they were defeated. If you are interested in reading the verses on this incident, you can look at Chapter 105 in the Holy Qur’an.
I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for watching!
