As for his birth, the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—came into the world in the Year of the Elephant. It was the year when Abraha, the ruler of Yemen, having been commissioned by the Negus of Abyssinia, marched to demolish the Kaʿbah, bringing with him a huge elephant. When he reached a place called al-Mughammis and was on the verge of entering Mecca to lay the Sanctuary low, the people of Mecca scattered to the surrounding mountains, for they had no power to oppose him.

Abraha sought to drive the elephant toward the Kaʿbah, but Allah restrained the beast: it refused to rise from the ground. Whenever they turned it in any direction other than toward Mecca, it would stand and hurry forward; yet whenever they faced it toward Mecca it became immobile and could not take a single step.

While they were in this predicament, they suddenly beheld flocks of birds coming from the sea, each bird carrying three stones—one in its beak and one in each claw. The birds dropped their stones upon the army: each pebble struck a man on the crown of his head, passed through his body, and exited from his backside, cleaving him in two. Thus Allah destroyed them. Concerning this event He revealed—by way of reminding Quraysh—Surah al-Fil: “Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the People of the Elephant? Did He not make their plot go astray? He sent against them flocks of birds, pelting them with stones of baked clay—from Hell, and we seek Allah’s protection—then He made them like chewed straw” (Qur’an 105:1–5), that is, like fodder already eaten and expelled by animals.

Such is the story of the Elephant: Allah safeguarded His Sacred House and destroyed that tyrant. In that very year Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was born, and at his birth there appeared