¹ ’alam tara kayfa fa‘ala rab-buka bi’aṣḥābi l-fīl(i)
¹ ’alam tara kayfa fa‘ala rab-buka bi’aṣḥābi l-fīl(i)
⁵ Faja‘alahum ka‘aṣfi m-mākūl(in) 1 Have you (O Muhammad (Peace be upon him)) not seen how your Lord dealt with the Owners of the Elephant?
[The elephant army which came from Yemen under the command of Abrahah Al-Ashram intending to destroy the Kaaba at Mecca].
Taking its name from the mention of the "Army of the Elephant" in the first verse, this surah alludes to the Abyssinian campaign against Mecca possibly in the year 570 CE.
Abrahah, the Christian viceroy of the Yemen (which at that time was ruled by the Abyssinians), erected a great cathedral at Sana'a, hoping thus to divert the annual Arabian pilgrimage from the Meccan sanctuary, the Kabah, to the new church.
When this hope remained unfulfilled, he was determined to destroy the Kabah; and so he set out against Mecca at the head of a large army, which included several war elephants as well, and thus represented something hitherto unknown and utterly astounding to the Arabs: hence the designation of that year, by contemporaries as well as historians of later generations, as "the Year of the Elephant".
Abrahah's army was destroyed on its march [8][9] - by an extremely huge flock of martin swallow birds (ababil) that dropped tiny stones onto them and turned them to ashes.
The traditionists and historians almost unanimously state that the event of the people of the elephant had occurred in Muharram and Muhammad was born in Rabi' al-awwal.
[14] Wm Theodore de Bary, an East Asian studies expert, describes that "The final process of collection and codification of the Quran text was guided by one over-arching principle: God's words must not in any way be distorted or sullied by human intervention.
For this reason, no serious attempt, apparently, was made to edit the numerous revelations, organize them into thematic units, or present them in chronological order ...".
Most of the mufassirun[18] say that this is unanimously[19] a Meccan sura; and if it is studied against its historical background it appears that it must have been sent down in the very earliest stage at Makkah.
Quranic exegetes interpreted that God saved the Meccans from this force by sending a swarm of birds that pelted the invaders with clay stones and destroyed them.
[31] In this Surah, God's punishment which was inflicted on the people of the elephant is referred to and described very briefly because it was an event of recent occurrence, and everyone in Makkah and Arabia was fully aware of it.
1951), a well-known Pakistani Muslim theologian, Quran scholar and exegete, and educationist, explains the theme of Surah Al-Fil is to inform the Quraysh that the God – Who routed His enemies in this manner before them – will also not spare them now that they too have shown enmity to Him.
Hamiduddin Farahi, an Islamic scholar of the Indian subcontinent, is known for his work on the concept of nazm, or coherence, in the Quran.
104), it is pointed to the Quraysh that they have remained so possessed with the love of wealth and children that they have grossly failed to fulfill the rights of God as well as their fellow beings.
Therefore, instead of showing vanity, it is their obligation to worship the Lord of this House, who fed them in hunger and secured them against every kind of danger.