Introduction

This early Makkan Surah refers to an event that happened in the year of the birth of our Holy Prophet, say about 570 A.D. The country of Yemen, to the south and east of Saudi Arabia, was then under the rule of the Abyssinians, who were Christians, and who had driven out the Jewish Himyarite rulers. Abraham Ashram was the Abyssinian governor or viceroy. Intoxicated with power and fired by religious fanaticism, he led a big expedition against Makkah, intending to destroy the Ka'bah. He had an elephant or elephants in his train. But his sacrilegious intentions were defeated by a miracle. No defence was offered by the custodians of the Ka'bah as the army was too strong for them. But a shower of stones, thrown by flocks of birds, destroyed the invading army almost to a man. The stones produced sores and pustules on the skin, which spread like a pestilence.

Commentary

Let not man be intoxicated with power
Or materia resources: they cannot defeat
The purpose of Allah. So Abraham Ashram
Found to his cost. His sacrilegious attack
On the holy Fane of Allah brought about
His own undoing: what seemed but frail
Destroyed his mighty hosts in a day!"
........Abdullah Yusuf Ali [C.285]

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

"Seest thou not how thy Lord dealt
With the companions of the elephant?
Did He not make
Their treacherous plan go astray?
And He sent against them
Flights of birds,
Striking them with stones
Of baked clay.
Then did He make them
Like an empty field of stalks and straw,
(Of which the corn) Has been eaten up."
....Qur'an - Verses 1-5

Sindh - My Motherland My Fatherland

Makhdoom's Quest For The Truth

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