The Koran and the Year of the Elephant

Scriptural literalists believe every word of their sacred texts is true historically as well as in every other way. For Christians and Jews, this means believing the sun was created four days after the earth as described in Genesis 1. And for Muslims, it includes believing in the battle of the elephant.

Surat Al-Fil, the chapter of the elephant (Koran 105), is considered to be an early Meccan sura and is one of the shortest in the Koran. Its text reads simply, "Have you seen what your Lord did to the owners of the elephant? Did not he ruin their plot when he sent flocks of birds to attack them with pellets of baked clay? He made them like the stalks of an empty corn field after its ears were devoured by the cattle."

This short video gives the version of the story first recorded by Muhammad biographer Ibn Ishaq and taught to millions of young Muslim children around the world. In 570 AD, the year of Muhammad's birth, Abraha was the governor of Yemen which was part of the Ethiopian Kingdom ruled by the Negus. With the Negus' permission Abraha built in Sana "the greatest cathedral in the world at that time" (Al-Qullays in Arabic, the word is from the Greek word for church "ekklesia"). Abraha's reason for building the church, according to Ibn Ishaq, was not to establish a house of worship but to divert Arab pilgrims from going to the Kaaba in Mecca. When an infuriated  Arab visitor from Mecca took revenge by urinating and defecating inside the church, Abraha decided to invade Mecca and destory the Kaaba. With a huge army that included elephants (although Ibn Ishaq says it was one elephant named Mahmud, other accounts give numbers varying from 13 to 1000), Abraha headed towards Mecca defeating every Arab tribe he met along the way. As he approached the city, his army was  suddenly attacked by flocks of thousands of birds who hurled pellets of hardened clay that caused their flesh to explode and destroyed the entire army. "Such was the victory bestowed by Allah, the All-Majestic, All Powerful, to the people of Mecca and such was the protection provided by him for his house the Kabaa in Mecca," concludes early expositor Ibn Kathir.

Apart from bringing back memories of Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds, the story poses the more basic question, Is is True? That question was recently discussed here on the Arabic program Daring Question.

In addition to Islam's default position that anything in the Koran is true simply because the Koran says so, Muslim scholars have argued the story must be accurate because we have no evidence of Meccans contradicting Muhammad when he first recited it as revelation from God. But the fact is that no contradiction of Muhammad was allowed at all, with writers and poets such as Asma bint Marwan killed simply for challenging him. There is no way of knowing, 14 centuries later, how the Meccans responded to Surat Al-Fil when they first heard it, because the voice of Islam is the only voice that remains from that time.

The description of the birds who attacked the army in the story suggests legend rather than fact. According to Ibn Ishaq and other Muslim historians, they had shoulders of dogs and each one carried three pellets with the bird's name written on each one.  Many temples in Greek and Hindu mythology have similar stories of deities magically protecting them from attacks by their enemies.

The most famous Byzantine historian of this era was a scholar who lived in Palestine named Procopius. His volumes give many details of the rule of  Abraha, but make no mention of a journey across the desert with an army containing elephants. Elephants graze most of the day and consume as much as 600 pounds of food and 60 gallons of water per day. They are not desert animals, and an elephant marching across the Arabian desert would require even more water. Although the Ethiopians used elephants for battle in areas where water and food was readily available, they never used them in the desert. The distance from Sana to Mecca is over 500 miles,  and it would have been highly unlikely for an army of elephants to cross that distance.

Apart from the issue of whether Surat Al-Fil is accurate historically, another interesting question is when it was written. Muslim scholars have always claimed it was an early Meccan sura, but this was during the time when the Negus of Ethiopia welcomed Muslim refugees sent by Muhammad from Mecca because of the hardships they were experiencing there (described here). The relationship between Muhammad and the Negus was good, with the Muslims enjoying his hospitality. It is difficult to relate this hospitality with Islam's rendition of the Negus building a temple in Sana to detract from the Kaaba and then sending an army to destroy it. Had his entire army been destroyed by Muhammad's machine-gun firing birds, why would the Negus turn around and welcome the Muslims as guests to live in his country for years?

An additional point is that the Quraysh of Mecca sent emissaries to Ethiopia in an attempt to persuade the Negus to repatriate the Muslims who were living there. If the Koranic story of the elephant had been given by Muhammad before that time, it stands to reason the emissaries would have used it to inform the Negis of what Muhammad said about them. There is no evidence, however, that this story was used in their arguments to the Negus.

What makes more sense is that this sura was written later in Medina, perhaps when Muhammad was preparing to invade the Christians of Tabuk. It was during the Medinan period that Muhammad began to demonize regional Christians in his preparations to attack them. What better way to motivate his army than to create a story of a Christian general who wanted to destroy the Kaaba but whose army was destroyed by the miraculous power of Allah!

There are additional problems with the Islamic account of the story. According to Ibn Ishaq, the Christian Abraha built his church to divert Arab pilgrims from Mecca to Sana for economic reasons. When the Arab defecated in the church, Abraha determined to attack the Kaaba both for revenge and to destroy the competition to his church. The problem is that Muslims, from ancient historians to those alive today, view history and religion from an Islamic perspective. The idea of a Haj, or pilgrimage to a holy location where one's sins will be forgiven, is a Muslim and not a Christian concept. It is true that Christians visit revered sites, but not for the reasons Muslims do. Christians also do not try to entice non-Christians to visit their sites. The idea that Abraha would build a pilgrim site to attract non-Christian pilgrims is not a Christian concept and has never happened throughout Christian history. As noted above, it is more likely the story was created to increase antagonism against Christians attacked by the Muslims at the end of Muhammad's life and in the decades following.

Although Muslim scholars claim that all the Arabs made pilgrimages to Mecca and its Kaaba, which they believe was built by Adam and restored by Abraham, non-Muslim history tells a different story. At least 21 regional cities are recorded as having temples called kaabas where people came for pilgrimages and religious practices. A Greek historian named Diodorus and other pre-Islamic historians described one such location in present day Tabuk in northern Saudi Arabia as being where "all the Arabs came for pilgrimage". The idea that Mecca was a famous religious center and that Abraha would come from Yemen to destroy its Kaaba because it provided competition to his church in Sana is nothing more than Muslim fiction.

Here is a short review of how Surat Al-Fil contradicts historical records:

1. Historians of the era including Procopius detail in history the reign of Abraha in Yemen. These details include how he came to rule, accounts of his wars, and his death in about 535 AD. They make no mention of his crossing the desert with elephants to attack Mecca, or of his death after being blitzed by Muhammad's magical birds.

2. These historians state that Abraha died about 545 AD, 25 years before Muslims claim he died during the year of Muhammad's birth, and that following his death his sons took over his kingdom. When the Persians invaded about 570 AD and defeated them, these sons had already been ruling many years.

3. The Muslim claim that Abraha built a cathedral to divert pilgrims from Mecca has no historical basis apart from the Quran-based claim of Muslim historians. Engravings found at Yemen's Dam of Marab, one of the eight wonders of the ancient world, detail various events of Abraha's kingdom, but none of them mention his cathedral or any attack against Mecca.

4. The Himyar Kingdom was at enmity with Abraha, and assisted the Persians in defeating him in 570 AD. The Himyars left extensive engravings of their battles with Abraha. Had he been killed by a magical bird attack following his raid against Mecca it is highly improbable this would not have been noted in their historical engravings. As can be expected, there is no mention of such an event.

5. The Ethiopian Kings of the time also left records of their territories and rulers. There is no mention in ancient Ethiopian history of Abraha attacking Mecca and dying as a result.

6. Ibn Ishaq is the only reference for the story as believed by Muslims. Even later Muslim historians acknowledge that Ibn Ishaq often exaggerated in some of the accounts he created surrounding Muhammad's life. These same historians, however, have no other source to authenticate the events described in Surat Al-Fil.

And here is a short list of why Muslim historians deliberately distorted the historical records concerning Abraha:

1. Their claim that he died during the year of Muhammad's birth gave added importance to the birth of Islam's Prophet.
2. The story created animosity against Christians, in preparation for the attacks carried out against them by Muslims beginning near the end of Muhammad's life.
3. The Koran says so.

For believing Muslims, "The Koran says so" is the most important reason of all. Very few have the courage to publicly question the historical accuracy of the Koran.