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Surah 105 · Makkah · 5 āyāt
Phase 02 · Going public — and the persecution(c. 10–8 BH) — view in timelineAl-FīlThe Elephant
الفيل
A short surah that recalls a well-known event from the year of the Prophet's ﷺ birth: Abraha's army, with an elephant at its front, marched from Yemen to destroy the Kaʿbah, and Allah repelled them with flocks of birds and stones of baked clay. It is framed as a rhetorical question — 'Have you not seen?' — appealing to something the first hearers already knew, to make the point that the House belongs to Allah and He alone defends it.
Why it was revealed
Abraha al-Ashram, the Abyssinian viceroy ruling Yemen, built a grand church (al-Qullays) in Ṣanʿāʾ and wanted to divert Arab pilgrimage to it. When a man from Kinānah desecrated it, Abraha marched on Makkah with an army that included one or more elephants to demolish the Kaʿbah. Quraysh could not resist militarily; ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the Prophet's ﷺ grandfather, asked for his camels back from Abraha and left the House to its Lord. Allah sent flocks of birds (abābīl) pelting the army with stones of baked clay, and the army was destroyed.
Drawn fromal-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-Rusul wa-l-Mulūk; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa-l-Nihāyah and Tafsīr on Sūrat al-Fīl; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, introduction to Sūrat al-Fīl; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr on 105:1–2; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr on 105:3–5; Ibn Hishām, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah; Ibn Hishām's recension of Ibn Isḥāq, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah; Ibn Isḥāq, as preserved in Ibn Hishām, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah
This account is preserved in the earliest biographical sources rather than in a single ḥadīth about the surah's revelation; the Qurʾān itself narrates the outcome and leaves the details to what Quraysh already knew and to the sīrah reports. No sound occasion of revelation names a specific incident that prompted the surah beyond recalling this shared historical memory.
Cited toIbn Hishām's recension of Ibn Isḥāq, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa-l-Nihāyah and Tafsīr on Sūrat al-Fīl; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-Rusul wa-l-Mulūk
In the Prophet's ﷺ life
Abraha builds al-Qullays and is defied
Abraha, the Abyssinian governor of Yemen, built a magnificent church in Ṣanʿāʾ hoping to redirect Arab pilgrimage away from the Kaʿbah. A man from Kinānah entered it and fouled it in protest, enraging Abraha.
Recalled in āyah 1
أَلَمْ تَرَ كَيْفَ فَعَلَ رَبُّكَ بِأَصْحَـٰبِ ٱلْفِيلِ
Have you not considered, [O Muḥammad], how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant?
Cited toIbn Isḥāq, as preserved in Ibn Hishām, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah
- Madd — 2 vowels
- Madd — 2, 4 or 6 vowels
- Madd — 6 vowels (lāzim)
- Madd — 4 or 5 vowels (wājib)
- Ghunnah — 2 vowels
- Qalqalah
- Ikhfāʾ
- Ikhfāʾ shafawī
- Idghām shafawī
- Idghām with ghunnah
- Idghām without ghunnah
- Idghām mutajānisayn
- Idghām mutaqāribayn
- Iqlāb
- Hamzat al-waṣl
- Lām shamsiyyah
- Silent letter
Tajwīd markup and colour convention: Quran.com API (v4) — text_uthmani_tajweed. Recitation audio: Quran.com / Quran Foundation Audio API (v4).
Have you not seen? — appealing to known history
The surah opens by addressing the Prophet ﷺ — and through him, his people — with a rhetorical question about something they already knew: what their Lord did to the People of the Elephant. It is not new information; it is a summons to draw the right conclusion from it.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
أَلَمْ تَرَ كَيْفَ فَعَلَ رَبُّكَ بِأَصْحَـٰبِ ٱلْفِيلِ
Tajwīd markup unavailable for this āyah — text shown uncoloured
Have you not considered, [O Muḥammad], how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant?
From the tafsīr
The address 'have you not seen' can mean literal sight for those who witnessed it, or 'have you not known/considered' for later hearers — either way it points to an event of undisputed public knowledge among the Arabs.
Cited toIbn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Some early scholars noted the Prophet ﷺ was born in that very year, so the question reminds his contemporaries of something so recent and so famous that no one could deny it.
Cited toAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān
Key takeaways
- The Qurʾān sometimes argues by pointing at shared, verifiable history rather than by asserting a new claim.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- A rhetorical question here functions as proof: the answer is already agreed upon.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- This surah is not narrating a private vision — it is naming a public fact.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Reflect
What events in your own life has Allah already shown you that you have not yet drawn the lesson from?
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Question 1 of 1
Why does the surah open with a rhetorical question?
Their plot was made to go astray
Allah declares that He made the scheme (kayd) of the People of the Elephant fall into confusion and failure — a plan that seemed powerful and well-resourced came to nothing against the House.
Drawn fromAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
أَلَمْ يَجْعَلْ كَيْدَهُمْ فِى تَضْلِيلٍ
Tajwīd markup unavailable for this āyah — text shown uncoloured
Did He not make their plan into misguidance?
From the tafsīr
Kayd here is their design and effort to demolish the Kaʿbah; Allah describes it as taḍlīl — He set it upon a path of ruin and futility.
Cited toAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān
The verse affirms that no matter how organized or militarily superior a plot against Allah's sanctities may appear, its outcome is in His hand, not in the planner's.
Cited toIbn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Key takeaways
- Worldly strength — an army with elephants — is no guarantee of success against Allah's decree.
Drawn fromAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- 'He made their plan go astray' shows that even the planning itself, not just its execution, was undone.
Drawn fromAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- The verse offers no praise of Quraysh's own strength; the credit is placed entirely with Allah.
Drawn fromAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Reflect
Where have you seen an apparently unstoppable plan unravel for reasons beyond anyone's control?
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Question 1 of 1
How does the surah describe the fate of Abraha's scheme?
Flocks of birds sent against them
Allah sent ṭayran abābīl — birds in flocks or successive groups — against the army, a means of defense that owed nothing to human power or Quraysh's own preparation.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
وَأَرْسَلَ عَلَيْهِمْ طَيْرًا أَبَابِيلَ
Tajwīd markup unavailable for this āyah — text shown uncoloured
And He sent against them birds in flocks,
From the tafsīr
Abābīl describes the birds coming in successive groups from different directions, following one another; their exact species is not defined precisely in the text, though reports describe them as small, dark birds.
Cited toIbn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Some early philologists held abābīl has no true singular in Arabic, being used only in this plural form for 'in droves' — underscoring how unexpected and overwhelming the means of destruction was.
Cited toAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān
Key takeaways
- The instrument of defense was deliberately unmilitary — birds, not warriors — to make plain whose doing it was.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- Allah's help can come through means that are small in appearance yet devastating in effect.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- Quraysh had no army capable of resisting Abraha; the rescue was entirely outside their own power.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Reflect
Consider a time help came to you through a means too small or unlikely to have been your own doing.
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What does the word abābīl describe in āyah 3?
Stones of baked clay
The birds struck the army with stones of sijjīl — hardened, baked clay — a precise and deliberate means of destruction rather than a natural calamity like a storm of ordinary stones.
Drawn fromAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ مِّن سِجِّيلٍ
Tajwīd markup unavailable for this āyah — text shown uncoloured
Striking them with stones of hard clay,
From the tafsīr
Sijjīl is explained as clay that had been baked hard, similar to the stones mentioned in the story of the people of Lūṭ (11:82), signaling a targeted, decreed punishment rather than a random disaster.
Cited toIbn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Reports describe each bird carrying stones — in beak and claws — of a size no larger than a chickpea or lentil, yet piercing through those they struck; the potency lay in the decree behind them, not the stones' size.
Cited toAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān
Key takeaways
- The means need not be large to be lethal when Allah decrees it.
Drawn fromAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- The parallel with the punishment of the people of Lūṭ links this event to a pattern of divine response to those who transgress against His signs.
Drawn fromAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- Precision, not scale, marks this as a directed act rather than a coincidence of nature.
Drawn fromAl-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Reflect
How does knowing the 'size' of the means (small stones) change how you read the scale of the outcome (destroying an army)?
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How is sijjīl explained by the commentators?
Like eaten straw
The final image: Allah made them like ʿaṣf maʾkūl — straw or crop-husks that have been eaten and chewed through by livestock, hollow and worthless. A great army is reduced, in one verse, to agricultural refuse.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
فَجَعَلَهُمْ كَعَصْفٍ مَّأْكُولٍۭ
Tajwīd markup unavailable for this āyah — text shown uncoloured
And He made them like eaten straw.
From the tafsīr
ʿAṣf is the husk or leaf of crops; maʾkūl means eaten through — as when cattle chew stalks and leave them hollow and crumbled. The simile captures utter disintegration, not an ordinary death.
Cited toIbn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
The comparison lowers the army, in the space of a single word-picture, from a besieging military force to the least noteworthy and cheapest of things.
Cited toAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān
Key takeaways
- The surah ends not with a description of battle but with a plain image drawn from farm life — accessible to every listener.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- Total reversal: those who came to destroy the House were themselves destroyed, and reduced to something used and discarded.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- The economy of the surah — five short verses — mirrors its message: Allah needed no great effort to finish a matter that looked unstoppable.
Drawn fromAl-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
Reflect
What does the shift from 'an elephant-led army' to 'eaten straw' teach about how Allah measures power?
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How does the surah's final simile describe the army's end?
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Roots from this surah
Learn the three-letter root and you unlock every word built from it — across the whole Qur'an, not just this surah.
ر أ ي
āyāt 1to see, to perceive, to consider
- رَأَىٰhe saw
- رُؤْيَةa seeing, a vision
- رَأْيan opinion, a view
ر ب ب
āyāt 1to nurture, raise, own and sustain something to completion
- رَبّlord, sustainer
- رَبَّىٰhe raised, nurtured
- رُبُوبِيَّةlordship
ص ح ب
āyāt 1to accompany, keep company with
- صَاحِبcompanion, owner
- أَصْحَابcompanions, people of
- صُحْبَةcompanionship
ك ي د
āyāt 2to plot, scheme, devise a stratagem
- كَيْدplot, scheme
- كَادَhe schemed, plotted
- مَكِيدَةa stratagem
ض ل ل
āyāt 2to go astray, lose the way
- ضَلَّhe went astray
- تَضْلِيلleading astray, causing to fail
- ضَلَالmisguidance
ط ي ر
āyāt 3to fly; a bird
- طَيْرbird(s)
- طَائِرa bird, one who flies
- طَيَرَانflight
ر م ي
āyāt 4to throw, cast, hurl
- رَمَىٰhe threw
- رَمْيthrowing
- مَرْمِيّthrown, cast
أ ك ل
āyāt 5to eat, consume
- أَكَلَhe ate
- مَأْكُولeaten, consumed
- طَعَامfood (related concept)
Carry this with you
- Allah's sanctities are defended by Him, not by the strength of those who love them.
- A rhetorical question can be the strongest argument when the fact is already shared knowledge.
- No scheme, however well-resourced, succeeds against what Allah has decreed to fail.
- The means of victory or defeat need not be proportionate to the power on either side.
- Trusting the outcome to Allah, as ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib did, is not passivity but recognition of true ownership.
- Total reversal — from besieging army to eaten straw — is a recurring pattern in how Allah deals with arrogance against His signs.
- History that a community already knows can be the very evidence the Qurʾān calls it to reflect upon.
- Where an occasion of revelation is not independently established by sound report, the Qurʾān's own reference to shared memory is sufficient without needing an invented backstory.
Where this surah connects
Cross-surah threads
Parts of the Qurʾān explain other parts. Each thread below opens the same subject as it is argued across every other surah you have studied, in revelation order.
All threads →Sources behind Sūrah Al-Fīl
Every line of context, tafsīr and takeaway on this page traces back to one of these references. Ḥadīth numbers open on sunnah.com and āyah references open on quran.com, so you can check the claim rather than take it on trust. The Arabic text itself is fetched live from a verified public corpus.
Tafsīr14
- Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān
- Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān on 105:3
- Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān
- Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān on 105:2
- al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh
- al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-Rusul wa-l-Mulūk
- Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa-l-Nihāyah and Tafsīr on Sūrat al-Fīl
- Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
- Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm on 105:4
- Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm on 105:5
- Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, introduction to Sūrat al-Fīl
- Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, on 105:1
- Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr on 105:1–2
- Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr on 105:3–5
Seerah & history3
- Ibn Hishām, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah
- Ibn Hishām's recension of Ibn Isḥāq, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah
- Ibn Isḥāq, as preserved in Ibn Hishām, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah
Full exam — the whole surah, from memory
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Al-Fīl — full exam
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Al-Fīl · Flocks of birds sent against them
What does the word abābīl describe in āyah 3?
Arabic (Uthmānī script) and the Ṣaḥīḥ International translation are fetched live from the Quran.com API (v4), sourced from the King Fahd Complex muṣḥaf — api.quran.com API docs · Translation: Ṣaḥīḥ International · Integrity & testing protocol