al-Bayhaqī (1) records—through the narration of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Thābit al-Madīnī, who said: al-Zubayr ibn Mūsā related to us, from Abū al-Ḥuwayrith—who said:
“I heard ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān say to Qabāth ibn Ashyam al-Kinānī, then al-Laythī, ‘O Qabāth, which of you is the elder—you or the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ)?’
He replied, ‘The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) is greater than I, though I am older in years. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was born in the Year of the Elephant, and my mother once stood me beside the elephant’s dung—already decayed and dust-like—so that I might remember it. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was sent as a prophet at the age of forty.’ ”

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān (2) said: [Aḥmad ibn al-Khalīl narrated to us;] Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bukayr related to us; Naʿīm—meaning Ibn Maysarah—narrated from someone who reported from Suwayd ibn Ghafalah, who said:
“I am a coeval of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ); I was born in the Year of the Elephant.”

al-Bayhaqī (3) added: “It is also reported from Suwayd ibn Ghafalah that he said, ‘I am two years younger than the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ).’ ”

Yaʿqūb (4) further said: Ibrāhīm ibn al-Munḏir narrated to us; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Thābit related to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Sulaymān al-Nawfalī told me, from his father, from Muḥammad ibn Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim, who said:
“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was born in the Year of the Elephant; ʿUkāẓ took place fifteen years thereafter; the Kaʿbah was rebuilt twenty-five years after the Elephant; and the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was commissioned a prophet forty years after the Elephant.”

The upshot is that, according to the overwhelming majority, the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was born in the Year of the Elephant. Some say his birth occurred one month after the event, others forty days, and still others fifty days—the last being the most common view. Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir stated that the arrival of the elephant was on the fifteenth of Muḥarram, and that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was born fifty-five nights thereafter.

Others have asserted that the Year of the Elephant preceded the birth of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) by ten years; this was the opinion of Ibn Abzā. Yet another report—related by Shuʿayb ibn Shuʿayb from his father, from his grandfather, as mentioned earlier—places the interval at twenty-three years. Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, on the authority of al-Zuhrī—may Allah have mercy on him—held that the Prophet was born thirty years after the Elephant, a view Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah himself also favored.

Abū Zakariyyā al-ʿAjlānī said: “Forty years after the Elephant,” a report cited by Ibn ʿAsākir (5). This is exceedingly odd. Even more unusual is what Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ (6) narrated: Shuaib ibn Ḥayyān told us, from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Abī ʿAmr, from al-Kalbī, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said, “The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was born fifteen years before the Elephant.” This ḥadīth is both strange and objectionable, and it is also weak (7).

Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ (8) concluded: “The settled consensus is that he—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was born in the Year of the Elephant.”