Surah AL-FIL / الفيل in Arabic | Surah 105

Description of Surah Al-Fil

Al-Fil is the 105^th surah of the Holy Quran and is part of Juz 'Amma. Located just after Surah Al-Humazah, it is the first of the last ten chapters of the Word of Allah, each of which deals with a different subject in relation to the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.

Circumstances of the revelation of Surah The Elephant

Whereas Surah Al-Humazah deals with any person having a certain number of characteristics, Surah Al-Fil and the surahs that follow it will address the audience the Prophet was confronted with in Mecca: the Quraysh. Their ego was such that when one of the surahs was recited to them they did not feel concerned, since the various preceding chapters were universal messages. Starting from Surah Al-Humazah, the Holy Quran contains warnings more specifically directed at this people.

This confrontation between the Messenger of Allah and the Quraysh began as an ideological conflict, since they refused to believe in one single God. There followed a sociological conflict, since the leaders of Mecca launched into the worst persecutions against the Muslims, who were only a minority. Then Mecca was the seat of a military conflict, to silence what they considered an affront to their deities and an obstacle to their rules and way of life.

How could they accept a religion that advocates equality of duties and rights between man and woman, and which conceives of the superiority of human beings only in proportion to their piety and not their social status?

They saw in Muhammad, our Prophet, a troublemaker in their society who had to be silenced at all costs. They refused to believe in him as a Messenger and were prepared to kill him.

This city, Mekka, Mecca, has a history, that of our Prophet Ibrahim who built, with his son and Prophet Ismail, the Kaaba, the house of Allah. Ibrahim had travelled to this city, formerly called Bakka, to settle his family there: his wife Hajar and his newborn Ismail. At that moment, he made a supplication to ask Allah to make of this city a place of peace and prosperity. This supplication is found in Surah Al-Baqara, where Allah informs us that Ibrahim asked "to make it a city, or, a land of peace", for when he arrived there it was only an arid land, empty of any inhabitant. Now in the original text in Arabic this nuance is not represented in the translation, and that is a pity, but this supplication is formulated quite differently from the second time in Surah Ibrahim.

He therefore asks to make of this place a land of peace and to give prosperity to his family, to his descendants who will have believed in Allah. But following this verse, Allah informs us that even those who will not believe, He will give them prosperity for a time before they are punished.

Then, in Surah Ibrahim, Allah tells us that the latter asked to make of this city a place of peace and that he asked to give to those who will believe among his descendants all kinds of fruits.

Having returned to visit his family, he built the Kaaba with his son Ismail, peace be upon them, and again made a supplication that Allah send among them a prophet who would show them their rites in order to continue to proclaim the oneness of Allah.

Only, Shirk, associationism, took place in the Kaaba over the centuries that followed.

This is why Allah sent a man from among them (the people of Mecca) to purify the Kaaba of that atrocity which is to give partners to Allah.

This surah al-fil speaks of a conflict between 'Abdel-Muttalib Ben Hashim and Abraha. 'Abdel-Muttalib was the grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and chief of an important tribe in Mecca; he was also the keeper of the keys of the Kaaba, a holy place built by Ibrahim, peace be upon him, but which had become a place of pilgrimage for the idolaters of all lands, because the idols they venerated were sheltered in the Kaaba. Abraha, for his part, was the Abyssinian king, governor of Yemen, who came with the intention of destroying the Kaaba.

This surah Al-Fil is as if addressed to the Prophet Muhammad to tell him that he is not the first to experience a conflict between a disbelieving people and himself.

Abraha was therefore a king originally from Abyssinia who had invaded Yemen at a time in history when Yemen had lost its power. Following this invasion, Yemen once again became a prosperous country. Annoyed that no one came to visit the monumental church he had just built, the ruler Abraha Al-Ashram made the decision to go to Mecca with his troops in order to destroy the Kaaba, which continued to attract pilgrims from all sides. Having learned this news, some Meccans went to San'a to set fire to his church, which finally decided the king to destroy the Kaaba.

 It was therefore for reasons of pride, of vengeance and for economic reasons that the Kaaba was attacked.

The camels of the Meccans were stolen while the latter, alarmed by the terrible news of a coming attack, were trying to protect themselves in the mountains. When he was called before the king, Abdel-Muttalib asked him to return their camels, but the king was astonished to see Abdel-Muttalib inquiring about his beasts instead of worrying about this attack being prepared against them. Seeing that the king looked down on him, he answered him with this phrase that has remained famous: "I am the master of my camels, and the Kaaba has its Master who will protect it."

Allah therefore relates in this surah 105 the story of this major event in the history of Mecca.

It is said that Abraha's army was far more numerous than the population of Mecca. This Meccan people had never seen an elephant in their lives. They had no solid architecture that could withstand the trampling of an elephant. Yet they came out unharmed from this event, because Allah in His Omnipotence protected the Sacred House built by Ibrahim.

On the morning of the invasion the elephant refused to rise. Each time it was directed toward any direction other than Mecca it hastened to rise, but each time they directed it toward Mecca it refused to rise.

"Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the people of the Elephant?"

Allah addresses the Prophet Muhammad with this phrasing and this question because the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, was not yet born at the time of this significant event, which took place in 570. That year would moreover be called the Year of the Elephant, which saw the birth of our beloved Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

Through this short surah al-fil, comprising only 5 verses, Allah recounts this episode from the history of Mecca to remind them of Allah's favours upon the people of Quraysh, saved from a terrible massacre by the sole divine Power.

Allah sent against them birds carrying pebbles of clay on which, it is said, the name of each Abyssinian was written. The remaining troops ended up fleeing, and King Abraha died on the way back, struck by the punishment of the stones.

Surah The Elephant, without however going into the details of this major event in the life of the Meccans, reminds them how Allah annihilated the plot of those who swelled with pride and believed they could destroy His Sacred House, just as they swelled with pride and tried, in their turn, to destroy the religion of Allah.

It is at once a call to order addressed specifically to the Quraysh, but also a source of comfort for every believer in despair, to remind him of the Greatness of Allah, Capable of protecting His faithful.