ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Beams of Illumination From the Divine Revelation (juz' 'amma - the Last Section of the Qur'an) Sura 2 : Surat Al Fil the Elephant In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful This surah refers to the event that took place, as far as we know, in the year of the birth of the Prophet, salla-llihu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam. Although many people talked about it at the time, very few of the actual details of the event have come down to us.

We know that people were very jealous of the residents of Mecca and the Quraysh, who, as guardians of the house of Sayyidna Ibrahim, alayhi-s-salam, that is, the House of God, held a position of great honor among the Arabs. One of their rivals was the Emperor of Abyssinia. Through his viceroy Abraha in the Yemen, he built what he believed was another Ka'bah, this time in San'a, to compete with the one in Mecca.

This second ka'bah did not attract pilgrims in the numbers the Emperor had hoped for, and so he sent a huge army, headed by elephants, to de­stroy the Ka'bah in Mecca. He believed that San'a could thus become the most important center of pilgrimage in that part of the world. 1 Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with the possessors of the elephant? What is of relevance here is the confrontation between apparent strength and power of great magnitude with its direct opposite.

The lesson is that real power is not measurable by ordinary means. The destruction of the army which had been sent to destroy the Ka'bah was not a miracle but, rather it was a natural phenomenon which heralded the birth of the Prophet, salla-llahu 'alayhi wa alihi wa sallam, the shining forth of that great Light in the midst of darkness. To understand the significance of the elephant we must realize that what weapons people possessed at that time were flimsy and scarce.

In a land where warriors had, at most, a few thin spears and bent swords, the possession of an elephant meant that its possessor was regarded almost as an emperor. 2 Did He not cause their strategy to end in confusion? Kayd means "an artful plot," or "scheme." Did Allah not make their plot go awry? 3 And send down flocks of flying creatures onto them, Ababil means "flocks," and it does not necessar­ily only refer to birds but also to large, overwhelming numbers.

4 Pelting them with stones of baked clay.