The Year of the Elephant and the Prophet's birth

The Prophet was born in the clan of Banu Hashim in Mecca on the morning of Monday, the ninth of Rabi' al-Awwal, in the first year of the Elephant event, forty years into the reign of Khosrow Anushirvan ^{1 2 3}. In the author's reckoning this corresponds to the 20th or 22nd of April 571 CE, as verified by Muhammad Sulayman al-Mansurfuri and Mahmud Pasha al-Falaki. The difference over the day arises from differing Gregorian calendars ¹. Some fifty days before the birth came the Elephant event, which the author regards as a prelude to this birth ⁴.

When his mother Amina gave birth to him, she sent word to his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib with the good news of his grandson. He came rejoicing, took him into the Kaaba, prayed to God and gave thanks ^{1 5}. He chose for him the name Muhammad, a name not known among the Arabs, and circumcised him on his seventh day, as the Arabs used to do ^{1 5 2}. The author mentions in a footnote a view that he was born circumcised ¹.

Ibn Sa'd relates that his mother said that when she gave birth to him, a light came out from her by which the palaces of Syria were lit for her. Ahmad relates something similar from al-Irbad ibn Sariya ^{1 6 7}. It is also reported that portents of the prophethood occurred at his birth: fourteen balconies of Khosrow's palace fell, the fire worshipped by the Magians went out, and the churches around the lake of Sawa collapsed after it had dried up. This was narrated by al-Bayhaqi, and Muhammad al-Ghazali does not endorse it ^{1 8 9}. The museum relays these reports as the author gives them: as reports, not as verified history. Their details are set out in the reports of the portents at Khosrow's palace.

The first to nurse him after his mother was Thuwayba, the freedwoman of Abu Lahab, with the milk of her son Masruh. She had nursed Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib before him, and she nursed Abu Salama ibn Abd al-Asad of Banu Makhzum after him ^{10 11 12}. Then his grandfather sought a wet nurse for him among Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr. Halima bint Abi Dhu'ayb took him to her desert homeland, following the custom of city-dwellers of wet-nursing in the desert. There the incident of the opening of the chest took place, and she returned him to his mother ^{10 13}.

The author describes the Elephant event as one of the matters of the House that befell Abd al-Muttalib. Abraha al-Sabbah the Abyssinian, the governor-general of the Negus over Yemen, saw the Arabs making the pilgrimage to the Kaaba. He built a great church in Sana'a (al-Qullays) and wanted to divert the Arabs' pilgrimage to it. A man from Banu Kinana heard of this, entered the church by night and smeared its qibla with excrement. When Abraha learned of it, his anger flared up, and he marched on the Kaaba with a vast army of sixty thousand soldiers to demolish it. He chose for himself one of the largest elephants; the army had nine or thirteen elephants in all ^{14 15 16}.

He continued his march until he reached al-Mughammas, where he drew up his army and readied his elephant. When he reached Wadi Muhassir, between Muzdalifa and Mina, the elephant knelt and would not rise to advance on the Kaaba. Whenever they turned it toward the south, the north or the east, it rose and trotted; but when they turned it toward the Kaaba, it knelt ¹⁴. While they were in this state, God sent against them birds in flocks, like swallows and the small birds called al-balsan. Each bird carried three stones, like chickpeas, and they pelted the army with stones of sijjil and made them like eaten chaff. The stones struck no one without his limbs being cut off and his death following, and not all of them were struck. They fled and fell along every road. As for Abraha, God sent upon him an illness by which his fingers fell off; he did not reach Sana'a except like a chick, and then he perished ¹⁴. Quraysh had scattered into the ravines and taken refuge on the mountain tops, for fear of the harm the army would do. When what befell the army had befallen it, they returned to their homes in safety ¹⁴.

This event took place in the month of Muharram, fifty or fifty-five days before the Prophet's birth according to most accounts, which matches late February or early March 571 CE ^{14 17}. The author sees it as a prelude that God offered to His Prophet and to His House. He compares the Kaaba, which the Christians did not seize although its people were polytheists, with Jerusalem, which Nebuchadnezzar dominated in 587 BCE and the Romans in 70 CE. He judges that the event occurred in circumstances whose news reached most of the civilised world, given Abyssinia's ties with the Romans and Persian watchfulness, so that it drew the world's attention to the honour of God's House. In his view, one of its people claiming prophethood was exactly what this event called for ¹⁷.

• The army's numbers, the elephants and the other details come from Ibn Hisham and from Tafhim al-Quran, as the author cites. The date (Muharram, fifty or fifty-five days before the birth, that is late February or early March 571 CE) is the author's own calculation. It differs from the earlier dating for Abraha's campaign that researchers draw from inscriptions. Both views are recorded in the entry's data.
• The last paragraph is the author's interpretation, not a description.