I say: The motive behind Chosroes’ haughty retort lay in his sense of superiority. The Abyssinians had once occupied Yemen, and their ruler had marched on Mecca with an elephant, intending to destroy the Kaʿbah. They were Christians, so Allah sent against them, from the direction of the sea, birds in successive flocks, each flock dispersed yet united, carrying stones of clay. They dropped those stones upon the Abyssinian Christians and annihilated them. This was a momentous sign through which the nations humbled themselves before the House and its neighbors.

People of sound judgment understood that this was not a victory from Allah for the idolatrous Arabs, for the religion of the Christians was better than theirs. Rather, it was a victory for the House itself, for the Muslim community that would revere it, and for the Prophet to be sent forth from its precincts. The event took place in the very year the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was born.

Concerning this Allah revealed:

“Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant?
Did He not render their scheme futile?
He sent against them birds in flocks,
Striking them with stones of baked clay,
And He made them like devoured straw.”
(Qur’an 105: 1–5)

Subsequently, Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan went to Chosroes and asked him for an army.