Surah Al-Fil — The Elephant

Introduction to Surah Al-Fil

Five verses, Meccan, one hundred and fifth in the written order. It recounts an event that the people it was recited to regarded as their own recent history.

What it refers to

The Arab sources describe an expedition against Mecca by Abraha, the Abyssinian Christian governor of Yemen, who had built a great church at Sana’a and wanted to draw the Arabian pilgrimage away from the Ka’ba. His army included at least one elephant, an animal not otherwise seen in that part of Arabia, and the year in which it happened became known as the Year of the Elephant. The Prophet’s birth is traditionally placed in or near it.

What the surah says

That the Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant; that He made their plan go astray; that He sent against them flights of birds, striking them with stones of baked clay; and that He made them like an eaten field of stalks.

Five verses, and four of them are the event. The surah assumes the audience knows the story and is not telling it to them; it is reminding them who they think saved the city.

What actually happened to the army has been discussed by historians, Muslim and otherwise, since the early period — a smallpox epidemic is among the explanations advanced in the sources themselves. The surah gives the account in the terms above and does not argue for it.

Why it is here

It is followed immediately by Surah Quraysh, about the Quraysh and their trade, and the two are widely read together: the city was protected, and out of that protection came the security the Quraysh lived on. The surah that is entirely about the past is placed as the premise of the one after it.