Surah 105. Al-Fil

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Verses [Section]: 1-5[1]

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Quran Text of Verse 1-5105. Al-Filبِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِیْمِاَلَمْHave notتَرَyou seenكَیْفَhowفَعَلَdealtرَبُّكَyour Lordبِاَصْحٰبِwith (the) Companionsالْفِیْلِؕ(of the) Elephant اَلَمْDid notیَجْعَلْHe makeكَیْدَهُمْtheir planفِیْgoتَضْلِیْلٍۙastray وَّ اَرْسَلَAnd He sentعَلَیْهِمْagainst themطَیْرًاbirdsاَبَابِیْلَۙ(in) flocks تَرْمِیْهِمْStriking themبِحِجَارَةٍwith stonesمِّنْofسِجِّیْلٍ۪ۙbaked clay فَجَعَلَهُمْThen He made themكَعَصْفٍlike strawمَّاْكُوْلٍ۠eaten up

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Translation of Verse 1-5In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

(105:1) Have you not seen¹ how your Lord dealt with the people of the elephants?²

(105:2) Did He not bring their plan³ to naught?⁴

(105:3) And He sent against them swarms of birds⁵

(105:4) which smote them with stones of baked clay,⁶

(105:5) and made them like straw eaten up (by cattle).⁷

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Commentary

1. Although addressed to the Prophet (peace be upon him), the message is directed at not only the Quraysh but also all the Arabs who were fully aware of this incident. The Qur’anic address alam tara (Have you not seen?) recurs throughout the Qur’an, which seeks to draw the attention of not only the Prophet (peace be upon him), but of everyone. (See for example Ibrahim 14: 19; al-Hajj 22: 18 and 65; al-Nur 24: 43; Luqman 31: 29 and 31; Fatir 35: 27 and al-Zumar 39: 21.) Since many first-hand witnesses of this incident were alive at the time in and around Makkah, and across Arabia and Yemen, — they are asked: “Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the people of the elephants?” (Verse 1). Only forty-five years previously many of these people had seen the incident with their own eyes, even the rest had heard first-hand reports about the same.

2. As this incident was well known to all, the Qur’an does not offer a detailed account of the origin and objective of the people of the elephants.

3. Kayd stands for a secret plot aimed at harming someone. This raises the question about the secret plot of this 60,000-strong army that had publicly arrived all the way from Yemen. They had not made secret their plan to demolish the Ka’bah. Instead, their secret intent was to snatch. from the Arabs their control over the trade route by demolishing the Ka’bah and, thus, overawing the Arabs. They did not, however, declare this objective publicly. Rather, they pretended that they were seeking to avenge the desecration of their own church by some Arabs by demolishing the Ka’bah.

4. The reference here is to their plot's failure. Their plot was reduced to naught and none of their objectives could be achieved.

At other places too, the Qur’an describes the failure of other plots. hatched by the unbelievers:

The guile of the unbelievers always ends in vain. | (al-Mu'min 40: 25) Allah does not allow the design of the treacherous to succeed. (Yusuf 12: 52)

5. The Qur’an uses the words tayran ababil. In Urdu, ababil is a particular species of bird and the assumption, therefore, is that hosts of these birds were sent against Abrahah’s army. In Arabic, however, ababil refers to several hosts that descend, one after another. These hosts may comprise human beings or animals. ‘Ikrimah and Qatadah report that on that occasion, flocks of birds had come from the direction of the Red Sea. Sa‘id ibn Jubayr and ‘Ikrimah assert that this species of birds had not been spotted in the region since or before that incident; they were not found in Najd, Hijaz or Tihamah, the area between Hijaz and the Red Sea coast. Ibn ‘Abbas relates that these creatures had the beaks of birds and the claws of dogs, while their heads, according to ‘Ikrimah, were like those of birds of prey. All narrators unanimously state that each of these birds carried a stone in its beak and two in its claws. Some Makkans preserved these stones for some time thereafter. Abu Nu‘aym records Nawfal ibn Abi Mu‘awiyah’s first-hand account of the stones which had been pelted on the people of the elephants. They were the size of a pea and darkish red in color. Abu Nu’aym and Ibn Marduwayh have cited several reports about the size of these stones, which slightly differ in their detail.

6. Sijjil is the Qur’anic word used for these stones. In the opinion of Ibn ‘Abbas, it is the Arabicized version of the Persian word sang-i kil, i.e. the stone made of baked clay. Other instances of the Qur’anic use of sijjil are Verses 82 of Hud and 74 of al-Hijr, stating that the same stones were showered on the Prophet Lot's community. Verse 33 of al-Dhariyat clarifies that these stones were of baked clay.

Hamiduddin Farahi, a recent Qur’anic scholar contributing valuable studies, interprets the verse differently. According to him, these stones were pelted by the Makkans and other Arabs, and the birds were there only to eat the corpses of the vanquished army. His contention, in sum, is that ‘Abd al-Muttalib’s visit to Abrahah and his demand that his camels be returned are not untenable. Nor is it conceivable that the Quraysh and other Arab pilgrims had not put up any resistance, leaving the Ka’bah at Abrahah’s mercy while they took shelter in the mountains. He insists that the Arabs did hurl stones at Abrahah’s army and that Allah also sent storms, hurling stones that crushed the invading army. Then the birds were sent in order to eat their corpses. However, we explained in our Introduction that some reports indicate that ‘Abd al-Muttalib had not called on Abrahah for the return of his camels. Rather, he had tried to dissuade Abrahah from attacking the Ka‘bah. It has also been pointed out by us that Abrahah’s army arrived during Muharram, a time by when all pilgrims had returned. It was impossible for the Quraysh and the tribes in the vicinity of Makkah to take on the huge army of Abrahah. Even at the time of the Battle of the Confederates, after their elaborate preparations and notwithstanding their alliance with other polytheists and Jews, the Quraysh could muster only a 12,000 strong army. They could not, therefore, dare to confront Abrahah’s army, which outdid them in every respect. Leaving aside all these arguments, the sequence of events as described in Surah al-Fil does not support Farahi’s stance. In the light of his contention, the order of the verses would have been different, i.e. Verses 4-5 would have preceded Verse 3. However, the Qur’anic version is that Allah sent against them swarms of birds which smote them with stones of baked clay, and this account is concluded thus: “And made them like straw eaten ' up (by cattle)”.

7. ‘Asf, as employed in this verse and in Verse 12 of al-Rahman, stands for the husk on seeds. This straw serves as fodder for cattle. As cattle eat it, some of it falls on the ground and some of it is crushed by them under their feet.