Stories in the Quran 4 min read
The People of the Elephant (Ashab al-Fil) are an army that set out against Makkah and was destroyed by Allah, as told in Surah al-Fil, the 105th surah of the Quran. The story takes only five verses, yet it reminds the reader that the Sacred House is under Allah's protection and that no power, however large, can stand against His will.
The story appears in Surah al-Fil (Quran 105), a short Makkan surah of five verses. It is named after the elephant mentioned in its first verse.
The surah opens with a question addressed to the Prophet ﷺ: have you not considered how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant? It then recalls the event in a few words and does not stop to explain who the army was or where it came from.
The surah is short enough to follow in order. This is the meaning of its verses, in simple words:
Notice how the surah describes the whole event as Allah's own action: "how your Lord dealt with them". The army had a plan, and Allah turned it into misguidance for them.
The surah gives no name for the army's leader and no year. It gives no number of soldiers or elephants, no description of the road they took, and no details of how the birds looked or how many there were. It does not even mention the Kaaba by name; it speaks only of "their plan".
Books of Islamic history and biography (sira) give names and describe the march toward Makkah. Those accounts are historical reports rather than the text of the Quran, and they differ in some details, so this page keeps to what the surah says.
Many biographers also report that the Prophet ﷺ was born in the same year, which the Arabs came to call the Year of the Elephant. This is reported in the books of sira; the surah itself does not say it.
The event is also mentioned in two authentic reports. In the year of Hudaybiyyah, the Prophet ﷺ was travelling toward Makkah when his she-camel al-Qaswa sat down and would not go on. The people said she had become stubborn, but he said that this was not her nature; rather, the one who had restrained the elephant had restrained her. He then said that Quraysh would not ask him for any plan that honoured the sanctities of Allah except that he would grant it (Sahih al-Bukhari 2731).
On the day Makkah was opened, the Prophet ﷺ stood among the people and reminded them of the sanctity of the city. He said that Allah had restrained the elephant from Makkah and had given His Messenger and the believers authority over it (Sahih Muslim 1355).
These reports connect the surah to the honour of Makkah and show how the Prophet ﷺ himself remembered the event.
General information for learning, not a fatwa. For your own situation, ask a qualified scholar.
Updated 6 October 2026
They were an army that set out against Makkah with an elephant, and Allah destroyed their plan, as told in Surah al-Fil. The Quran does not name their leader or give their number; those details come from books of history, not from the surah.
No. Surah al-Fil mentions neither a name nor a date. The commander's name and the title Year of the Elephant come from the books of biography and history, which are not the text of the Quran.
The surah says Allah sent birds in flocks (ababil) that struck the army with stones of sijjil, understood as hard baked clay. It gives no further description of the birds or the stones, and we should not add details that the text does not state.
