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The Year Of The Elephant - The Attempt To Destroy The Kaaba Of Mecca - Culture - Nairaland

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The Year Of The Elephant - The Attempt To Destroy The Kaaba Of Mecca by Nobody: 11:56pm On Oct 11, 2017
The Year of the Elephant or The ʿĀmu l-Fīl (Arabic) is the name in Islamic history for the year approximately equating to 570 AD (the same year as the birth of Prophet Mohammed). Recent discoveries in Southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568 AD, as the Sasanian Empire overthrew the Ethiopian Axumite-affiliated regimes in Yemen around 570 AD. However, Historians today believe that this event occurred at least a decade prior to the birth of Prophet Muhammad.

Chapter 106 of the Quran, "Chapter of the Elephant", is named after a particular historical encounter that led to a march towards Mecca shortly before the Prophet Muhammad's birth there.

Background

Around 517 AD, King Kaleb of the Ethiopian Axumite Empire sent his army across the Red Sea to invade and annex what is today called Yemen, on report that the Jewish King Yūsuf Asar Yathar was persecuting Christians and Axumites. Abraha, a general in the Axumite army, was reported to have led the army of 100,000 men with hundreds of elephants to successfully crush all resistance of the Yemeni army. Yūsuf Asar Yathar was killed in the battle and King Kaleb appointed a viceroy to rule in his place. The Yemenite Kingdom was then forced to pay tribute to the Axum empire. But Abraha later declared himself an independent King of Himyar and ruled much of present-day Arabia and Yemen from at least 531–547 AD to 555–565 AD.

General Abraha built a great church at Sana'a known as al-Qullays, a loanword borrowed from Greek: εκκλησία "church".

Al-Qullays gained widespread fame, even gaining the notice of the Byzantine Empire. The pagan Arab people of the time had their own center of religious worship and pilgrimage in Mecca, the Ka‘bah. 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 Is-haq'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 honoured them.

Then he crowned Muhammad ibn Khuza'i, and made him emir of Mudhar, and ordered him to go among the people to invite them to pilgrimage at his cathedral which he had built. When Muhammad ibn Khuza'i got as far as the land of Kinana, the people of the lowland, knowing what he had come for, sent a man of Hudhayl called ʿUrwa bin Hayyad al-Milasi, who shot him with an arrow, killing him. His brother Qays who was with him fled to Abraha and told him the news, which increased his rage and fury and he swore to raid the Kinana tribe and destroy the temple."

Ibn Ishaq further states that one of the men of the Quraysh tribe was angered by this, and going to Sana'a, slipped into the church at night and defiled it; it is widely assumed that he did so by defecating in it.

Abraha expedition to Mecca

Abraha, incensed, launched an expedition of 40,000-60,000 men against the Ka‘bah 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 Ka‘bah. Several Arab tribes attempted to fight him on the way, but were defeated.

When news of the advance of Abraha's army came, the Arab tribes of the Quraysh, Banu Kinanah, Banu Khuza'a and Banu Hudhayl united in defense of the Ka‘bah. A man from the Himyarite Kingdom was sent by Abraha to advise him that Abraha only wished to demolish the Ka‘bah and if they resisted, they would be crushed. ‘Abdul Muttalib told the Meccans to seek refuge in the hills while he with some leading members of the Quraysh remained within the precincts of the Ka‘bah. 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 Mecca, a dark cloud of birds appeared. The birds, sent by Allah, carried brimstone and bombarded Abraha's army, and killed him and his army.

This is the theme mentioned in the Qur'an, Chapter 105 "al-Feel" (The Elephant) as follows:
"Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the possessors of the elephant? Did He not cause their war plot to end in confusion, and send down (to prey) upon them birds in flocks, casting them with brimstone, so He rendered them like straw eaten up"

No reliable information exists about the date of 'Abraha's death. Munro-Hay dates his death to some time after 553 AD based on the inscription at Murayghän. Islamic tradition places it immediately after his expedition to Mecca. He was succeeded on the throne by two of his sons, Yaksum and Masruq, born to him by Raihäna, a Yemenite noblewoman whom 'Abraha had abducted from her husband.

Between 570 and 575 AD the pro-Persian group in Yemen made contact with the Sassanid king through the Lakhmid princes in Al-Hirah. The Persians then sent troops under the command of Wahriz, who helped the semi-legendary Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan drive the Aksumites from Yemen and Southern Arabia became a Persian dominion under a Yemenite vassal within the sphere of influence of the Sassanian empire.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Elephant
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraha
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Fil

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Re: The Year Of The Elephant - The Attempt To Destroy The Kaaba Of Mecca by Nobody: 1:25am On Oct 12, 2017
Didn't bother reading it sef

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