Since there was a long distance between Rome and Yemen...

Since there was a long distance between Rome and Yemen, Caesar wrote a letter to Najaishi, the king of Yemen, advising him to take revenge on the murder and sent the letter by the man, himself. Najashi prepared an army of about seventy thousand men and sent them to Yemen under the leadership of 'Irbat'. Abrahah was also one of the commanders of that army. The army invaded Yemen and before long defeated Zu-Nuwas, and 'Irbat’ became the ruler of Yemen.

But, after a short time, Abrahah rose against him and killing him, substituted Irbat. The news reached Najashi who decided to punish Abrahah. Abrahah shaved the hair of his head and with some soil of Yemen sent this to Najashi as a sign of complete submission and loyalty. When Najashi understood the situation, he forgave him and retained him in his position.

Then, to show his good behaviour and gratification, Abrahah had built a great, beautiful, splendid church unsurpassed in the world at that time. After that he introduced it as 'Ka'ba', to the people of Arabia, instead of the real Ka'ba and decided to make it the center for the Arab Haj pilgrimage and to transfer the great central place of gatherings of Mecca to that place. For this purpose, he sent many preachers to different places and among the Arab tribes in Arabia.

But, Arabs, who intensely loved Mecca and the Ka'ba and knew it as the greatest sign of Prophet Abraham, the Khalil (as), felt danger. According to some narrations, a group of people hiddenly burnt the church, and according to some other narrations some people hiddenly desecrated it and thus they showed their intense reaction against that vast invitation and discredited Abrahah's church.

Abrahah became very angry and decided to destroy the Ka'ba, totally, both in order to take revenge, and to attract Arabs to the new temple. He set out to invade Mecca with an army which consisted of soldiers and elephants. Approaching the outskirts of Mecca, Abrahah's men captured 200 camels belonging to Abdul-Muttalib, the grandfather of the holy Prophet (S).

Abrahah sent a man to Mecca to find the supreme chief of Mecca and tell him of his intentions of destroying the Holy Ka'ba and to inform the authorities that if they did not stand against him he would not kill anyone. The man arrived in Mecca and looked for the chief of the city. Everyone showed Abdul-Muttalib to him and he gave him the message.