Sura 105

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الفيل Al-Fīl The Elephant
Arabic text · English translation
Classification	Meccan
Position	Juzʼ 30
No. of verses	5
No. of words	23
No. of letters	96

Arabic text · English translation

Sūrat al-Fīl (Arabic: سورة الفيل‎, "Chapter of the Elephant") is the 105th chapter (surah) of the Quran. It is a Meccan sura consisting of 5 verses. The surah is written in the interrogative form.

Asbab al-nuzul (occasions or circumstances of revelation) is a secondary genre of Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) directed at establishing the context in which specific verses of the Qur'an were revealed. Though of some use in reconstructing the Qur'an's historicity, asbab is by nature an exegetical rather than a historiographical genre, and as such usually associates the verses it explicates with general situations rather than specific events. Taking its name from the mention of the "Army of the Elephant" in the first verse, this surah alludes to the Abyssinian campaign against Mecca in the year 570 of the Christian era. Abrahah, the Christian viceroy of the Yemen (which at that time was ruled by the Abyssinians), erected a great cathedral at Sana'a, hoping thus to divert the annual Arabian pilgrimage from the Meccan sanctuary, the Kabah, to the new church. When this hope remained unfulfilled, he determined to destroy the Kabah; and so he set out against Mecca at the head of a large army, which included a number of war elephants as well, and thus represented something hitherto unknown and utterly astounding to the Arabs: hence the designation of that year, by contemporaries as well as historians of later generations, as "the Year of the Elephant". Abrahah's army was totally destroyed on its march - by an extremely huge flock of martin swallow birds (ababil) that dropped tiny stones onto them and turned them to ashes. - and Abrahah himself died on his return to Sana.

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