Year of the Elephant
The ʿām al-fīl is the name in Islamic history for the year approximately equating to 570 CE. According to some Islamic resources, it was in this year that Muhammad was born. The name is derived from an event said to have occurred at Mecca: Abraha, the Abyssinian, Christian ruler of Yemen, which was subject to the Kingdom of Aksum of Ethiopia, marched upon the Ka‘bah in Mecca with a large army, which included war elephants, intending to demolish it. However, the lead elephant, known as 'Mahmud', is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter. It has been theorized that an epidemic, perhaps caused by smallpox, could have caused such a failed invasion of Mecca. The year came to be known as the Year of the Elephant, beginning a trend for reckoning the years in the Arabian Peninsula. This reckoning was used until it was replaced with the Islamic calendar during the times of ‘Umar.
Archaeological discoveries in Southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568, as the Sasanian Empire overthrew the Aksumite-affiliated rulers in Yemen around 570. New research date the Year of the Elephant between 552 and 555.
The year is also recorded as that of the birth of ‘Ammar ibn Yasir.
Events
According to early Islamic historians such as Ibn Ishaq, in honor of his ally, Negus Abraha built a great church at Sana'a known as al-Qullays, a loanword borrowed from "church".Al-Qullays gained widespread fame, even gaining the notice of the Byzantine Empire. The Arab people of the time had their own center of religious worship and pilgrimage in Mecca, the Kaaba. Abraha attempted to divert their pilgrimage to al-Qullays and appointed a man named Muhammad ibn Khuza'i to Mecca and Tihamah as a king with a message that al-Qullays was both much better than other houses of worship and purer, having not been defiled by the housing of idols.
Ibn Ishaq's Prophetic biography states:
Ibn Ishaq further states that one of the men of the Quraysh tribe was angered by this, and going to Sana'a, slipped into the church at night and defiled it; it is widely assumed that he did so by defecating in it.
Abraha, incensed, launched an expedition of forty thousand men against the Ka‘bah at Mecca, led by a white elephant named Mahmud in order to destroy the Ka‘bah. Several Arab tribes attempted to fight him on the way, but were defeated.
When news of the advance of Abraha's army came, the Arab tribes of the Quraysh, Banu Kinanah, Banu Khuza'a and Banu Hudhayl united in defense of the Ka‘bah. A man from the Himyarite Kingdom was sent by Abraha to advise them that Abraha only wished to demolish the Kaaba and if they resisted, they would be crushed. ‘Abdul Muttalib told the Meccans to seek refuge in the hills while he with some leading members of the Quraysh remained within the precincts of the Ka‘bah. Abraha sent a dispatch inviting Abdul-Muttalib to meet with Abraha and discuss matters. When Abdul-Muttalib left the meeting he was heard saying, "The Owner of this House is its Defender, and I am sure He will save it from the attack of the adversaries and will not dishonor the servants of His House."
The reference to the story in Qur’an is rather short. According to Surah al-Fil, the next day , a dark cloud of small birds named 'Ababil' appeared. The birds carried small rocks in their beaks, and bombarded the Ethiopian forces and smashed them like "eaten straw". However according to Muhammad Asad this surah does not describe birds literally carrying small rocks, he instead, referencing Al-Zamakhshari and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi translates the above mentioned verses as:
| Thus, He let loose upon them great swarms of flying creatures which smote them with stone-hard blows of chastisement pre-ordained |
Mohammad Asad the words used in this verse, namely the "stones of sijjil", denote "a writing and, tropically, something that has been decreed ". He further explains that this decree by god was a very sudden epidemic outbreak, which, according to Ibn Ishaq, caused fever and smallpox. This, as Asad concludes, points to the fact that the "stone hard blows of chastisement pre-ordained" were a very sudden virulent epidemic due to the fact that the word for fever "hasbah" primarily means "pelting with stones" in the famous arabic dictionary al-Qamous by Fairuzabadi. The word ta'ir can denote any "flying creature, whether bird or insect ".