Surah Al-fil – Musa Bilal

Al-Fil ("The Elephant") is the 105th surah of the Quran, in Juz' Amma. Meccan, it has 5 verses and is the 19th surah in the traditional order of revelation, after Al-Kafiroon. It recalls the fate of "the companions of the elephant" (105:1), the army that marched on Mecca in the year the Prophet ﷺ was born, according to the prevailing view.

According to the historical accounts, Abraha, the Abyssinian ruler of Yemen, set out to destroy the Ka'ba with an army accompanied by one or more elephants, an event traditionally dated around 570 CE. God frustrated their plan: He sent against them birds in flocks, pelting them with stones of baked clay, and left them like devoured straw (105:2-5). The Arabs named that year the Year of the Elephant.

The Prophet ﷺ himself referred to the event. When his camel knelt at al-Hudaybiya, he said she had been held back by the One who held back the elephant (al-Bukhari), and at the conquest of Mecca he declared that God had held back the elephant from the city (al-Bukhari, Muslim). The next surah, Quraish, draws the lesson of this protection.