واقعہء عام الفیل اور رسولِ اکرم ﷺ کی ولادت
Authors: ڈاکٹر اسماعیل احمد ادہم  , عمر فاروق  
Published: December 2024

This is the translation of an article by an Egyptian scholar of Turkish origin Dr. Ismail Ahmad Adham (d. 1940), who was essentially a mathematician and physicist for having doctorate in both the subjects. In addition, he was fully adept in literary criticism, history and theology, having direct access to the basic sources in as many as eight languages of the East and the West. This article probes into an important historical incident ofpre-Islamic era marked by Arab historians as Safar-ul-Fil (the journey of the elephants). But, the narratives of this incident put by them in black and white date back only to the third century A.H., relying upon the oral tradition passed on from olden Arabs. These narratives were diffused with imagination by the transmitters who got influenced by a sort of instinctive inclination of man toward storytelling, which took them astray to weave a fabric of alluring tales around what the Quran has related in a precise manner. On the other hand, the historical sources contemporary to the incident, which are Greek ones, clearly narrate that the Abyssinians (Ethiopians), who ruled Yemen at that time (i.e. 540 A.D.), did not send their forces to Hejaz in order to attack Mecca and demolish the Kaaba for its so-called rivalry to the temple they had erected in the capital of Yemen. Instead, the Abyssinian army advanced under the command of Abraha al-Ashram to attack Persia in her borders with Arabian lands to help out the Roman Empire in its war with the rival Empire of Persia on the request of the Emperor Justinian who had earlier facilitated the occupation of Yemen for the forces of Negus, king of Abyssinia. The long natural passage leading to Persia from Yemen goes by Hejaz ending up in the valley of Rumma, a tributary to the Euphrates in Iraqi soils bordering Persia. The Abyssinians took that path of necessity. But, their march came to an end near Hejaz, for being hit by a severe attack of the epidemical disease of smallpox (as told by the Arab historians as well who used the exact Arabic word: Judri for that) which destroyed most of the Abyssinian army. The remaining came under the assault of simoom (hot sandstorm) which they were not used to. (Be kept in mind that Arabs also used the word Waba [epidemic] for the sand-ladenhot desert wind [ar-Rih as-Samum]). Whatsoever be, the Arabs of Hejaz took the Abyssinian advancement towards Persia as an attack on Hejaz and especially on the Kaaba of Mecca, their sacred centre. But, when they saw the Abyssinians devastated by the hot sandstorm or smallpox (or by the both), they thought it to be the Divine Providence worked in their favour. This was all what gave the impulse to the imagination of later transmitters and they laid stories of rivalry to the Kaaba. The Arab historians also relate this incident to the birth of the Prophet of Islam, which took place in 570 A.D. as the researchers clearly assert. While the year of the incident ('Am-ul-Fil) is 540 A.D. as indicated by the Arab historians themselves. So, there is no link found between 'Am-ul-Fil and the birth of the Prophet that occurred some thirty years aftter the incident of Safar-ul-Fil