Year of the Elephant
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The ʿām al-fīl ( ar, عام الفيل, Year of the Elephant) is the name in
Islamic history The history of Islam concerns the political, social, economic, military, and cultural developments of the Islamic civilization. Most historians believe that Islam originated in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE. Muslims r ...
for the year approximately equating to 570–571 CE. According to Islamic resources, it was in this year that
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
was born.Hajjah Adil, Amina, "''Prophet Muhammad''", ISCA, Jun 1, 2002, The name is derived from an event said to have occurred at
Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...
:
Abraha Abraha (Ge'ez language, Ge’ez: አብርሃ) (also spelled Abreha, died after CE 570;Stuart Munro-Hay (2003) "Abraha" in Siegbert Uhlig (ed.) ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. r. 525–at least 553S. C. Munro-Hay ...
, the Abyssinian,
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
ruler of
Aksum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole regio ...
marched upon the Ka‘bah in
Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...
with a large army, which included
war elephant A war elephant was an elephant that was trained and guided by humans for combat. The war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant ...
s, intending to demolish it. However, the lead elephant, known as 'Mahmud' ( ar, مَـحْـمُـوْد, consonant letters: m-ħ-m-w-d), is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter. It has been theorized that an
epidemic An epidemic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics ...
, perhaps caused by
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
, or an outbreak of the
plague of Justinian The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (541–549 AD) was the first recorded major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. The dis ...
, 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 The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...
. This reckoning was used until it was replaced with the
Islamic calendar The Hijri calendar ( ar, ٱلتَّقْوِيم ٱلْهِجْرِيّ, translit=al-taqwīm al-hijrī), also known in English as the Muslim calendar and Islamic calendar, is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or ...
during the times of ‘
Umar ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate o ...
. Archaeological discoveries in
Southern Arabia South Arabia () is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jizan, Al-Bahah, and 'A ...
suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568, as the
Sasanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
overthrew the
Aksumite The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in wh ...
-affiliated rulers in Yemen around 570. Few western historians even consider the year to be as far as 552 CE. The year is also recorded as that of the birth of ‘
Ammar ibn Yasir Abū 'l-Yaqẓān ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir ibn ʿĀmir ibn Mālik al-ʿAnsīy al-Maḏḥiǧī ( ar, أبو اليقظان عمار ابن ياسر ابن عامر ابن مالك العنسي المذحجي) also known as Abū 'l-Yaqẓān ʿAmmār i ...
.


Events

According to early Islamic historians such as
Ibn Ishaq Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār (; according to some sources, ibn Khabbār, or Kūmān, or Kūtān, ar, محمد بن إسحاق بن يسار بن خيار, or simply ibn Isḥaq, , meaning "the son of Isaac"; died 767) was an 8 ...
, in honor of his ally, Abraha built a great
church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...
at
Sana'a Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء, ' , Yemeni Arabic: ; Old South Arabian: 𐩮𐩬𐩲𐩥 ''Ṣnʿw''), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, is the capital and largest city in Yemen and the centre of Sanaa Governorate. The city is not part of the Governo ...
known as '' al-Qullays'', a
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
borrowed from εκκλησία "church". Al-Qullays gained widespread fame, even gaining the notice of the
Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
. The
Arab people The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...
of the time had their own center of religious worship and
pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
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 Tihamah or Tihama ( ar, تِهَامَةُ ') refers to the Red Sea coastal plain of the Arabian Peninsula from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Bab el Mandeb. Etymology Tihāmat is the Proto-Semitic language's term for ' sea'. Tiamat (or Tehom, in m ...
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 Al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya (), commonly shortened to Sīrah and translated as prophetic biography, are the traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad from which, in addition to the Quran and Hadiths, most historical information about his life and the ...
states: Abraha, incensed, launched an expedition of sixty thousand men against the Ka‘bah at Mecca, led by a white elephant named ''Mahmud'' (and possibly with other elephants - some accounts state there were several elephants, or even as many as eightWilliam Montgomery Watt (1961)
''Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman''
Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 7.
) 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 The Banū Khuzāʿah ( ar, بنو خزاعة singular ''Khuzāʿī'') is the name of an Azdite, Qaḥṭānite tribe, which is one of the main ancestral tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. They ruled Mecca for a long period, prior to the Islamic ...
and Banu Hudhayl united in defense of the Ka‘bah. A man from the
Himyarite Kingdom The Himyarite Kingdom ( ar, مملكة حِمْيَر, Mamlakat Ḥimyar, he, ממלכת חִמְיָר), or Himyar ( ar, حِمْيَر, ''Ḥimyar'', / 𐩹𐩧𐩺𐩵𐩬) ( fl. 110 BCE–520s CE), historically referred to as the Homerit ...
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
Sura A ''surah'' (; ar, سورة, sūrah, , ), is the equivalent of "chapter" in the Qur'an. There are 114 ''surahs'' in the Quran, each divided into '' ayats'' (verses). The chapters or ''surahs'' are of unequal length; the shortest surah ('' Al-K ...
h
al-Fil Al-Fil ( ar, الفيل, "The Elephant") is the 105th chapter (surah) of the Quran. It is a Meccan sura consisting of 5 verses. The surah is written in the interrogative form. : ۝ HAST thou not seen how thy LORD dealt with the masters of the ...
, the next day s Abraha prepared to enter the city a dark cloud of small birds named ' Ababil' ( ar, أَبـابـيـل) 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 Muhammad Asad, ( ar, محمد أسد , ur, , born Leopold Weiss; 2 July 1900 – 20 February 1992) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Pakistani journalist, traveler, writer, linguist, political theorist and diplomat. He was a Jew but, later conve ...
this surah does not describe birds literally carrying small rocks, he instead, referencing
Al-Zamakhshari Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari (; 1074 –1143) was a medieval Muslim scholar of Iranian peoples, Iranian descent. He travelled to Mecca, Makkah and settled there for five years and has been known since then as Jar Allah ‘God's Ne ...
and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi translates the above mentioned verses as: According to Mohammad Asad, the words used in this verse, namely the "stones of sijjil", denote "a writing and, tropically, something that has been decreed
y God Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...
. He further explains that this decree by God was a very sudden epidemic outbreak, which, according to Ibn Ishaq, caused fever (in arabic hasbah) and smallpox (arab. judari). 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
r smiting R, or r, is the eighteenth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabe ...
with stones" in the famous arabic dictionary ''al-Qamous'' (القاموس) by
Fairuzabadi Firuzabadi ( fa, فیروزآبادی) also spelled as al-Fayrūzabādī ( ar, الفيروزآبادي (1329–1414) was a lexicographer and was the compiler of ''al-Qamous'' (), a comprehensive and, for nearly five centuries, one of the most wi ...
. The word ta'ir can denote any "flying creature, whether bird or insect (Taj al-'Arus)".


Shia

According to
Hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
, in al-Kafi Volume one, Imam
Ali ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, عَلِيّ بْن أَبِي طَالِب; 600 – 661 CE) was the last of four Rightly Guided Caliphs to rule Islam (r. 656 – 661) immediately after the death of Muhammad, and he was the first Shia Imam ...
was born in the 20th year of the Elephant and died in AH 40.


Other sources

This event is referred to in the Qur’an, in
Sura A ''surah'' (; ar, سورة, sūrah, , ), is the equivalent of "chapter" in the Qur'an. There are 114 ''surahs'' in the Quran, each divided into '' ayats'' (verses). The chapters or ''surahs'' are of unequal length; the shortest surah ('' Al-K ...
h 105, ''
Al-Fil Al-Fil ( ar, الفيل, "The Elephant") is the 105th chapter (surah) of the Quran. It is a Meccan sura consisting of 5 verses. The surah is written in the interrogative form. : ۝ HAST thou not seen how thy LORD dealt with the masters of the ...
'' ( ar, الـفِـيـل, "The Elephant"), and is discussed in its related
tafsir Tafsir ( ar, تفسير, tafsīr ) refers to exegesis, usually of the Quran. An author of a ''tafsir'' is a ' ( ar, مُفسّر; plural: ar, مفسّرون, mufassirūn). A Quranic ''tafsir'' attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, in ...
. Some scholars have placed the Year of the Elephant one or two decades earlier than 570 CE, with a tradition attributed to
Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Ubaydullah ibn Abdullah ibn Shihab al-Zuhri ( ar, محمد بن مسلم بن عبید الله بن عبد الله بن شهاب الزهری, translit=Muḥammad ibn Muslim ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh b. S̲h̲i ...
in the works of ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-San‘ani placing it before the birth of Muhammad's father.


See also

*
War elephant A war elephant was an elephant that was trained and guided by humans for combat. The war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant ...
*
Cultural depictions of elephants Elephants have been depicted in mythology, symbolism and popular culture. They are both revered in religion and respected for their prowess in war. They also have negative connotations such as being a symbol for an unnecessary burden. Ever sin ...


References


External links


Page at Islamic-Awareness.org discussing the event
{{DEFAULTSORT:Year Of The Elephant Life of Muhammad History of Mecca Kaaba Shia days of remembrance Pre-Islamic Arabia Islamic terminology Elephants in culture War elephants