The People of The Elephant

 

: ALLAH says


أَلَمْ تَرَ كَيْفَ فَعَلَ رَبُّكَ بِأَصْحَابِ الْفِيلِ
Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with the possessors of the elephant
أَلَمْ يَجْعَلْ كَيْدَهُمْ فِي تَضْلِيلٍ
Did He not cause their war to end in confusion,
وَأَرْسَلَ عَلَيْهِمْ طَيْرًا أَبَابِيلَ
And send down (to prey) upon them birds in flocks,
تَرْمِيهِمْ بِحِجَارَةٍ مِنْ سِجِّيلٍ
Casting against them stones of baked clay,
فَجَعَلَهُمْ كَعَصْفٍ مَأْكُولٍ
So He rendered them like straw eaten up


THE HOLY QURAN : surat AL -FIL
( the elephant )
105



The prophet Muhammad  came in to the world in 571 AD known as the year of the Elephant

The incident of the People of the elephant was in actual fact a divine declaration and a discreet sign indicating towards the imminent arrival of the seal of Prophets, the Final Messenger, Muhammad  . The divine protection which was extended to the Quraish was simply due to the fact that the final messenger, who was about to set foot on this earth, was to come from this tribe (the Quraish)

Abraha was the governer of Yemen Seeing the Arabs travelling from far and wide to Makkah Mukarramah to perform Tawaaf of the Baitullah, Abraha burned with envy. Hence, he decided to erect a unique and magnificent church in the name of Christianity. His aim and goal was to make his church the centre of pilgrimage instead of the KAABA . Thus, he went ahead with his mission and erected a beautiful church in the actuel Yemen. He then began preventing the People of Yemen from visiting Makkah Mukarramah and ordered them to take his church as a substitute for the simple KAABA

Abraha raised an army and intended to destroy AL KAABA . With this malicious intention, he proceeded towards Makkah Mukarramah with a powerful and formidable army, The troops of Abraha was alsoaccompanied by a herd of elephants



As he advanced to demolish the AL KAABA, all of a sudden, huge flocks of small birds appeared , each of them carrying pebbles. The size of each pebble resembled the size of pea seeds or lentils. With the divine power of Allah Ta’ala, these pebbles swiftly rained down upon the army of Abraha like volleys of lethal bullets. The soldiers and elephants fled in panic. Many of them died instantly and the rest of them died on their way back. In this way Abraha’s army was completely eliminated and wiped out from the face of the earth

the story of Abraha and his army is mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica






Many books talk about the failed military campaign of Abraha

War Elephants

John M. Kistler,Richard Lair

page 177

Animals in the Military: From Hannibal's Elephants to the Dolphins of the Us navy


John Kistler

page 85

From the book:

The book is part of a series of books about the Holy Lands. It is mentioned that in 570 AD, the Christian King of Yemen, Abraha, attacked Mecca. This was after he built a church in Yemen and wanted pilgrims to convert to it instead of the Kaaba, so he decided to demolish the Kaaba. Abraha crossed the desert with his soldiers and an elephant and ordered his soldiers to besiege Mecca and demanded that the people of Mecca submit. When they refused, Abraha ordered his men and the elephant to attack Mecca. At this moment, flocks of small birds began to fill the sky and throw stones at Abraha's army. The elephant collapsed and Abraha fled in fear after witnessing this miracle. This year became known as the Year of the Elephant.

This book on Christianization and missionaries tells the story of the Elephant Incident. It mentions that the Christian viceroy decided to enter Mecca to demolish the Kaaba, and that a catastrophic event thwarted that.

New evidence of the truth of the story of the owners of the elephant:

Encyclopedia
of Plague and Pestilence : From Ancient Times to the Present Author: George C. Kohn Page: 343 The above paragraph talks about an epidemic that ravaged Abraha’s army during his campaign to destroy the Holy Kaaba, in an attempt to divert attention from his church that he built in Yemen .

The above paragraph says: The Arab fighters were facing certain defeat, but they survived thanks to a severe disease that struck Abraha's army and completely destroyed it. This campaign was called the Elephant War epidemic after the white elephant that Abraha rode when he entered Mecca.
This war was later described in the Quran, the holy book of Muslims, in Surah 105.
Birds carried stones and threw them at Abraha's army, causing its complete destruction.
Other writings reported the sudden appearance of blisters on the soldiers' skin (Abraha's soldiers)
:
broke out on soldier's skin

explanation broke out:

it starts suddenly and sometimes violently.



Everyone died except for one soldier who remained in the camp and did not participate in the battle, as the book says.

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What can be learned:

1- The writer relied on historical facts and not on the Holy Quran, as evidenced by his statement: was

later

allegorically described

. We focus here on the phrase later , which indicates that the story was known before it was mentioned in the Holy Quran.

2- The Holy Quran is not the only one that touched on the story of Abraha, as evidenced by the writer’s statement:
other writings.
3-

Pustules broke out on soldier’s skin . The question here is: Why did pustules suddenly appear on Abraha’s soldiers and only during the

battle ? Because if smallpox had been rampant in the camp before the battle, there would not have been a single survivor and he would have been infected as well. Note: As the writer says, the only survivor did not participate in the battle and therefore was not infected.