ENTITLED, THE ELEPHANT; REVEALED AT MECCA.
IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.
HAST thou not seen how thy LORD dealt with the masters of the elephant?o
Did he not make their treacherous design an occasion of drawing them into
error;
m Is one of the names of hell, or the name of one of its apartments;2
which is so called because it will break in pieces whatever shall be thrown
into it.
n And therefore shall not be extinguished by any.3
o This chapter relates to the following piece of history, which is
famous among the Arabs; Abraha Ebn al Sabâh, surnamed al Ashram, i.e., the
Slit-nosed, king or viceroy of Yaman, who was an Ethiopian,4 and of the
Christian religion, having built a magnificent church at Sanaa with a design
to draw the Arabs to go in pilgrimage thither, instead of visiting the temple
of Mecca, the Koreish, observing the devotion and concourse of the pilgrims at
the Caaba began considerably to diminish, sent one Nofail, as he is named by
some of the tribe of Kenânah, who getting into the aforesaid church by night,
defiled the altar and walls thereof with his excrements. At this profanation
Abraha being highly incensed, vowed the destruction of the Caaba, and
accordingly set out against Mecca at the head of a considerable army, wherein
were several elephants, which he had obtained of the king of Ethiopia, their
numbers being, as some say, thirteen, though others mention but one. The
Meccans, at the approach of so considerable a host, retired to the
neighbouring mountains, being unable to defend their city or temple; but GOD
himself undertook the protection of both. For when Abraha drew near to Mecca,
and would have entered it, the elephant on which he rode, which was a very
large one, and named Mahmûd, refused to advance any nigher to the town, but
knelt down whenever they endeavoured to force him that way, though he would
rise and march briskly enough if they turned him towards any other quarter:
and while matters were in this posture, on a sudden a large flock of birds,
like swallows, came flying from the sea coast, every one of which carried
three stones, one in each foot, and one in its bill; and these stones they
threw down upon the heads of Abraha's men, certainly killing every one they
struck. Then GOD sent a flood, which swept the dead bodies, and some of those
who had not been struck by the stones, into the sea: the rest fled toward
Yaman, but perished by the way; none of them reaching Sanaa, except only
Abraha himself, who died soon after his arrival there, being struck with a
sort of plague or putrefaction, so that his body opened, and his limbs rotted
off by piecemeal. It is said that one of Abraha's army, named Abu Yacsûm,
escaped over the Red Sea into Ethiopia, and going directly to the king, told
him the tragical story; and upon that prince's asking him what sort of birds
they were that had occasioned such a destruction, the man pointed to one of
them, which had followed him all the way, and was at that time hovering
directly over his head, when immediately the bird let fall the stone, and
struck him dead at the king's feet.5
This remarkable defeat of Abraha happened the very year Mohammed was
born, and as this chapter was revealed before the Hejra, and within fifty-four
years, at least, after it came to pass, when several persons who could have
detected the lie, had Mohammed forged this story out of his own head, were
alive, it seems as if there was really something extraordinary in the matter,
which might, by adding some circumstances, have been worked up into a miracle
to his hands. Marracci6 judges the whole to be either a fable, or else a feat
of some evil spirits, of which he gives a parallel instance, as he thinks, in
the strange defeat of Brennus, when he was marching to attack the temple of
Apollo at Delphi.7 Dr. Prideaux directly charges Mohammed with coining this
miracle, notwithstanding he might have been so easily disproved, and supposes,
without any foundation, that this chapter might not have been published till
Othman's edition of the Korân,1 which was many years after, when all might be
dead who could remember anything of the above-mentioned war.2 But Mohammed
had no occasion to coin such a miracle himself, to gain the temple of Mecca
any greater veneration: the Meccans were but too superstitiously fond of it,
and obliged him, against his inclinations and original design, to make it the
chief place of his new invented worship. I cannot, however, but observe Dr.
Prideaux's partiality on this occasion, compared with the favourable reception
he gives to the story of the miraculous overthrow of Brennus and his army,
which he concludes in the following words: "Thus was GOD pleased in a very
extraordinary manner to execute his vengeance upon those sacrilegious wretches
for the sake of religion in general, how false and idolatrous soever that
particular religion was, for which that temple at Delphos was erected."3 If
it be answered, that the Gauls believed the religion, to the devotions of
which that temple was consecrated, to be true (though that be not certain),
and therefore it was an impiety in them to offer violence to it, whereas
Abraha acknowledged not the holiness of the Caaba, or the worship there
practised; I reply, that the doctor, on occasion of Cambyses being killed by a
wound he accidentally received in the same part of the body where he had
before mortally wounded the Apis, or bull worshipped by the Egyptians, whose
religion and worship that prince most certainly believed to be false and
superstitious, makes the same reflection: "The Egyptians," says he, "reckoned
this as an especial judgment from heaven upon him for that fact, and perchance
they were not much out in it: for it seldom happening in an affront given to
any mode of worship, how erroneous soever it may be, but that religion is in
general wounded hereby, there are many instances in history, wherein GOD hath
very signally punished the profanations of religion in the worst of times, and
under the worst modes of heathen idolatry."4
2 See the Prelim. Disc. Sect. IV. p. 72. 3 Al Beidâwi.
4 See the Prelim. Disc. p. 8.
5 Al Zamakh., al Beidâwi, Jallalo'ddin, Abulf. Hist. Gen. &c. See Prid. Life
of Mahomet, p. 61, &c., and D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. Art. Abrahah. 6
Refut. in Alcor. p. 823. 7 See Prid. Connection, part ii. book i.
p. 25, and the authors there quoted. 1 See the Prelim. Disc. Sect.
III. p. 45. 2 Prid. Life of Mahomet, p. 63, 64. 3 Prid.
Connection, in the place above cited. 4 Ibid. part i. book iii. p.
173.
and send against them flocks of birds,
which casts down upon them stones of baked clay;p
and render them like the leaves of corn eaten by cattle?
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