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Year of the Elephant
The ʿām al-fīl (Arabic: عام الفيل, Year of the Elephant) is the name in Islamic history for the year approximately equating to 570–571 CE. According to Islamic literary sources, it was in this year that Muhammad was born. The name is derived from an event said to have occurred at Mecca: Abraha, the Abyssinian Christian king of Himyar marched upon the Ka‘bah in Mecca with a large army, which included war elephants, intending to demolish it. However, the lead elephant, known as 'Mahmud' (Arabic: مَـحْـمُـوْد), is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter. It has been mentioned in the Quran that the army was destroyed by small birds, sent by Allah, that carried pebbles that destroyed the entire army and Abraha perished. Surah Fil in the Quran contains an account of the event. The year came to be known as the Year of the Elephant, beginning a trend for reckoning the years in the Arabian Peninsula. This reckoning was used until it was replaced with the Islamic calendar during the times of ‘Umar.
Archaeological discoveries in Southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568, as the Sasanian Empire overthrew the Aksumite-affiliated rulers in Yemen around 570.
The year is also recorded as that of the birth of ‘Ammar ibn Yasir.
According to early Islamic historians such as Ibn Ishaq, in honor of his ally, Abraha built a great church at Sanaa known as Al-Qalis, a loanword borrowed from εκκλησία "church".
Al-Qullays gained widespread fame, even gaining the notice of the Byzantine Empire. Other Arab people of the time had their own center of religious worship and pilgrimage in Mecca, the Kaaba. Abraha attempted to divert their pilgrimage to al-Qullays and appointed a man named Muhammad ibn Khuza'i to Mecca and Tihamah 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:
With Abraha there were some Arabs who had come to seek his bounty, among them Muhammad ibn Khuza`i ibn Khuzaba al-Dhakwani, al-Sulami, with a number of his tribesmen including a brother of his called Qays. While they were with him a feast of Abraha occurred and he sent to invite them to the feast. Now he used to eat an animal's testicles, so when the invitation was brought they said, "By God, if we eat this the Arabs will hold it against us as long as we live."
Thereupon Muhammad ibn Khuza'i got up and went to Abraha and said, "O King, this is a festival of ours in which we eat only the loins and shoulders." Abraha replied that he would send them what they liked because his sole purpose in inviting them was to show that he honored them.
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Year of the Elephant
The ʿām al-fīl (Arabic: عام الفيل, Year of the Elephant) is the name in Islamic history for the year approximately equating to 570–571 CE. According to Islamic literary sources, it was in this year that Muhammad was born. The name is derived from an event said to have occurred at Mecca: Abraha, the Abyssinian Christian king of Himyar marched upon the Ka‘bah in Mecca with a large army, which included war elephants, intending to demolish it. However, the lead elephant, known as 'Mahmud' (Arabic: مَـحْـمُـوْد), is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter. It has been mentioned in the Quran that the army was destroyed by small birds, sent by Allah, that carried pebbles that destroyed the entire army and Abraha perished. Surah Fil in the Quran contains an account of the event. The year came to be known as the Year of the Elephant, beginning a trend for reckoning the years in the Arabian Peninsula. This reckoning was used until it was replaced with the Islamic calendar during the times of ‘Umar.
Archaeological discoveries in Southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568, as the Sasanian Empire overthrew the Aksumite-affiliated rulers in Yemen around 570.
The year is also recorded as that of the birth of ‘Ammar ibn Yasir.
According to early Islamic historians such as Ibn Ishaq, in honor of his ally, Abraha built a great church at Sanaa known as Al-Qalis, a loanword borrowed from εκκλησία "church".
Al-Qullays gained widespread fame, even gaining the notice of the Byzantine Empire. Other Arab people of the time had their own center of religious worship and pilgrimage in Mecca, the Kaaba. Abraha attempted to divert their pilgrimage to al-Qullays and appointed a man named Muhammad ibn Khuza'i to Mecca and Tihamah 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:
With Abraha there were some Arabs who had come to seek his bounty, among them Muhammad ibn Khuza`i ibn Khuzaba al-Dhakwani, al-Sulami, with a number of his tribesmen including a brother of his called Qays. While they were with him a feast of Abraha occurred and he sent to invite them to the feast. Now he used to eat an animal's testicles, so when the invitation was brought they said, "By God, if we eat this the Arabs will hold it against us as long as we live."
Thereupon Muhammad ibn Khuza'i got up and went to Abraha and said, "O King, this is a festival of ours in which we eat only the loins and shoulders." Abraha replied that he would send them what they liked because his sole purpose in inviting them was to show that he honored them.