Year of the Elephant
Encyclopedia
The Year of the Elephant is the name in Islam
ic history for the year approximately equating to 570
AD
. According to Islamic tradition, it was in this year that Muhammad
was born. The name is derived from an event said to have occurred at Mecca
in which Abraha
, the Christian
ruler of the principality
of Sheba
in Yemen
(although differing accounts make him either a viceroy of the Axumite Empire under the Byzantine empire rule or as having broken away and styled himself King of Yemen; the scholarly consensus from inscriptions is that his domain was limited to Yemen and adjoining areas, he started out as a viceroy of the Ethiopians then, declared himself king), marched upon the Kaaba
with a large army, which included one or more elephant
s, intending to demolish it. However, the elephant is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter. The year came to be known as the Year of the Elephant, beginning a trend for reckoning the years in the Arabian Peninsula
used until it was replaced with the Islamic calendar
during the rule of Umar
.
Recent discoveries in southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569
or 568
, as the Sassanid Empire
overthrew the Axumite- and Byzantine
-affiliated regimes in Yemen around 570. However, historians today believe that this event occurred at least a decade prior to the birth of Muhammad.
The year is also recorded as that of the birth of Ammar ibn Yasir
.
, in honor of his ally, Negus
Abraha built a great church at Sana'a
known as al-Qullays, a loanword
borrowed from "church".
Al-Qullays gained widespread fame, even gaining the notice of the Byzantine
s. The pagan Arab
s of the time had their own center of religious worship and pilgrimage
in Mecca, the Kaaba. Abraha then proceeded to attempt to divert their pilgrimage to it and is reported to have appointed and sent a man named Muhammad ibn Khuza'i to Mecca and the Hijaz as a king with a message that al-Qullays was both much better than other houses of worship and purer, having not been defiled by the housing of idols.
Ibn Ishaq's prophetic biography
states:Ibn Ishaq further states that one of the men of the Quraysh was angered by this, and going to Sana'a, slipped into the church at night and defiled it; it is widely assumed that they did so by defecating
in it.
Abraha, incensed, launched an expedition of forty thousand men against the Kaaba at Mecca, led by a white elephant named Mahmud (and possibly with other elephants - some accounts state there were several elephants, or even as many as eight)) in order to destroy the Kaaba. Several Arab tribes attempted to fight him on the way, but were defeated.
Abraha's elephant is supposed to have refused to cross the boundary of Mecca and sat down. It could not be persuaded otherwise, either by reason or violence. The accounts state that if the elephant was turned towards Syria
or Yemen it would walk without hesitation, but when it was turned towards the Kaaba it would kneel on its knees as if it would adore the city that its master was intent on destroying.
When news of the advance of Abraha's army came, the Arab tribes of Quraysh, Banu Kinanah
, Banu Khuza'a
and Banu Hudhail united in defense of the Kaaba. A man from the Himyarite Kingdom was sent by Abraha to advise them that Abraha only wished to demolish the Kaaba and if they resisted, they would be crushed. Abdul Mutallib told the Meccans to seek refuge in the hills while he with some leading members of the Quraysh remained within the precincts of the Kaaba. Abraha sent a dispatch inviting Abdul-Muttalib to meet with Abraha and discuss matters. When Abdul-Muttalib left the meeting he was heard saying, "The Owner of this House is its Defender, and I am sure He will save it from the attack of the adversaries and will not dishonor the servants of His House."
According to the Qur'an, the next day, as Abraha prepared to enter the city, a dark cloud of small birds appeared. The birds carried small rocks in their beaks, and bombarded the Ethiopian forces, who fled in panic. Abraha was seriously wounded and he retreated towards Yemen but died on the way. However, the animals of Abraha's army were not killed, and the tribes saw this as a sign of the holiness of the Kaaba.
, sura
105, Al-Fil, and is discussed in its related tafsir
.
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic history for the year approximately equating to 570
570
Year 570 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 570 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Europe :* Spoleto becomes the capital of an...
AD
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
. According to Islamic tradition, it was in this year that Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
was born. The name is derived from an event said to have occurred at Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
in which Abraha
Abraha
Abraha also known as Abraha al-Ashram or Abraha b...
, the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
ruler of the principality
Principality
A principality is a monarchical feudatory or sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a monarch with the title of prince or princess, or by a monarch with another title within the generic use of the term prince....
of Sheba
Sheba
Sheba was a kingdom mentioned in the Jewish scriptures and the Qur'an...
in Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
(although differing accounts make him either a viceroy of the Axumite Empire under the Byzantine empire rule or as having broken away and styled himself King of Yemen; the scholarly consensus from inscriptions is that his domain was limited to Yemen and adjoining areas, he started out as a viceroy of the Ethiopians then, declared himself king), marched upon the Kaaba
Kaaba
The Kaaba is a cuboid-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the most sacred site in Islam. The Qur'an states that the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham, or Ibraheem, in Arabic, and his son Ishmael, or Ismaeel, as said in Arabic, after he had settled in Arabia. The building has a mosque...
with a large army, which included one or more elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
s, intending to demolish it. However, the elephant is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter. The year came to be known as the Year of the Elephant, beginning a trend for reckoning the years in the Arabian Peninsula
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...
used until it was replaced with the Islamic calendar
Islamic calendar
The Hijri calendar , also known as the Muslim calendar or Islamic calendar , is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to date events in many Muslim countries , and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic...
during the rule of Umar
Umar
`Umar ibn al-Khattāb c. 2 November , was a leading companion and adviser to the Islamic prophet Muhammad who later became the second Muslim Caliph after Muhammad's death....
.
Recent discoveries in southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569
569
Year 569 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 569 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Byzantine Empire :* The King of the Garamantes signs...
or 568
568
Year 568 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 568 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Europe :* April 1 – King Alboin leads the Lombards...
, as the Sassanid Empire
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
overthrew the Axumite- and Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
-affiliated regimes in Yemen around 570. However, historians today believe that this event occurred at least a decade prior to the birth of Muhammad.
The year is also recorded as that of the birth of Ammar ibn Yasir
Ammar ibn Yasir
ʻAmmār ibn Yāsir al-Ansi was one of the companions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was one of the Muhajirun, and referred to as by Shia Muslims as one of the Four Companions....
.
Events
According to early Islamic historians such as Ibn IshaqIbn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...
, in honor of his ally, Negus
Negus
Negus is a title in Ge'ez, Tigrinya, Tigre and Amharic, used for a king and at times also a vassal ruler in pre-1974 Ethiopia and pre-1890 Eritrea. It is subsequently used to translate the word "king" in Biblical and other literature...
Abraha built a great church at Sana'a
Sana'a
-Districts:*Al Wahdah District*As Sabain District*Assafi'yah District*At Tahrir District*Ath'thaorah District*Az'zal District*Bani Al Harith District*Ma'ain District*Old City District*Shu'aub District-Old City:...
known as al-Qullays, a loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
borrowed from "church".
Al-Qullays gained widespread fame, even gaining the notice of the Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
s. The pagan Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s of the time had their own center of religious worship and pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
in Mecca, the Kaaba. Abraha then proceeded to attempt to divert their pilgrimage to it and is reported to have appointed and sent a man named Muhammad ibn Khuza'i to Mecca and the Hijaz as a king with a message that al-Qullays was both much better than other houses of worship and purer, having not been defiled by the housing of idols.
Ibn Ishaq's prophetic biography
Prophetic biography
The sīrat rasūl allāh or al-sīra al-nabawiyya or just al-sīra, is the Arabic term used for the various traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad from which, in addition to the Qur'an and Hadith, most historical information about his life and the early period of Islam is derived.-Etymology:In the...
states:Ibn Ishaq further states that one of the men of the Quraysh was angered by this, and going to Sana'a, slipped into the church at night and defiled it; it is widely assumed that they did so by defecating
Defecation
Defecation is the final act of digestion by which organisms eliminate solid, semisolid or liquid waste material from the digestive tract via the anus. Waves of muscular contraction known as peristalsis in the walls of the colon move fecal matter through the digestive tract towards the rectum...
in it.
Abraha, incensed, launched an expedition of forty thousand men against the Kaaba at Mecca, led by a white elephant named Mahmud (and possibly with other elephants - some accounts state there were several elephants, or even as many as eight)) in order to destroy the Kaaba. Several Arab tribes attempted to fight him on the way, but were defeated.
Abraha's elephant is supposed to have refused to cross the boundary of Mecca and sat down. It could not be persuaded otherwise, either by reason or violence. The accounts state that if the elephant was turned towards Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
or Yemen it would walk without hesitation, but when it was turned towards the Kaaba it would kneel on its knees as if it would adore the city that its master was intent on destroying.
When news of the advance of Abraha's army came, the Arab tribes of Quraysh, Banu Kinanah
Banu Kinanah
Banu Kinanah is the largest Adnanite tribe of western Saudi Arabia in Hejaz. Since Islamization they started to claim that they are descended from Kinanah, who was a grandson of Ilyas who was named after the prophet Elijah.- Ancestry :The tribe traces a genealogical history backwards from their...
, Banu Khuza'a
Banu Khuza'a
the Khuza'a or Banu Khuza'a form a branch of the South Arabian tribe of Azd-Origin:Most traditionalists trace the origins of the tribe to Amr ibn Lahi al-Khuza'i, and agree that with the other branches of the Azd they at some point left the Yemen and moved north. 'Amr ibn Luhay and his clan...
and Banu Hudhail united in defense of the Kaaba. A man from the Himyarite Kingdom was sent by Abraha to advise them that Abraha only wished to demolish the Kaaba and if they resisted, they would be crushed. Abdul Mutallib told the Meccans to seek refuge in the hills while he with some leading members of the Quraysh remained within the precincts of the Kaaba. Abraha sent a dispatch inviting Abdul-Muttalib to meet with Abraha and discuss matters. When Abdul-Muttalib left the meeting he was heard saying, "The Owner of this House is its Defender, and I am sure He will save it from the attack of the adversaries and will not dishonor the servants of His House."
According to the Qur'an, the next day, as Abraha prepared to enter the city, a dark cloud of small birds appeared. The birds carried small rocks in their beaks, and bombarded the Ethiopian forces, who fled in panic. Abraha was seriously wounded and he retreated towards Yemen but died on the way. However, the animals of Abraha's army were not killed, and the tribes saw this as a sign of the holiness of the Kaaba.
Other historical sources
This event is referred to in the Qur'anQur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
, sura
Sura
A sura is a division of the Qur'an, often referred to as a chapter. The term chapter is sometimes avoided, as the suras are of unequal length; the shortest sura has only three ayat while the longest contains 286 ayat...
105, Al-Fil, and is discussed in its related tafsir
Tafsir
Tafseer is the Arabic word for exegesis or commentary, usually of the Qur'an. Ta'wīl is a subset of tafsir and refers to esoteric or mystical interpretation. An author of tafsir is a mufassir .- Etymology :...
.