Explanation Of Surah Al Fil (The Elephant)
In the Name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful 1. Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant? 2. Did He not make their plot go astray? 3. And He sent against them flocks of birds, 4. Striking them with stones of hard clay, 5. And made them like an empty field of stalks of which the corn has been eaten up by cattle.
(1-5) “Have you not considered” the might of Allah, His greatness, His mercy to His slaves, the proofs of His Tawhid and the truthfulness of His Messenger –may Allah praise and send him peace – demonstrated in “what your Lord did with the army of the elephant” who set out for the Sancti fied House with the goal of demolishing it. They fully equipped their army and enlisted a herd of elephants to help them and, as such, amassed an army from Abyssinia and Yemen that the Arabs had no hope of repelling. When they approached Makkah, they found no defending army to face them, seeing instead that the inhabitants of Makkah had fled in fear. “Did He not make their plot go astray? And He sent against them flocks of birds”, one after another, “Striking them with stones of hard clay”, striking ever y single one of them, weakening them, wearing them down and finally killing them, “And made them like an empty field of stalks of which the corn has been eaten up by cattle”. Allah sufficed against their evil and utterly confounded their plot. Their story is well known and famous. This event occurred in the year that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was born, and became one of the miracles prior to his call and one of the clear proofs of his message. To Allah belongs all praise and thanks.