Al-Fil

The Elephant · verses 1–5

Makkan5 verses

بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

أَلَمْ تَرَ كَيْفَ فَعَلَ رَبُّكَ بِأَصْحَٰبِ ٱلْفِيلِ

105:1Have you not regarded how your Lord dealt with the army of the elephants?^*

أَلَمْ يَجْعَلْ كَيْدَهُمْ فِى تَضْلِيلٍۢ

105:2Did He not make their stratagems go awry,

وَأَرْسَلَ عَلَيْهِمْ طَيْرًا أَبَابِيلَ

105:3and send against them flocks of birds^*

تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍۢ مِّن سِجِّيلٍۢ

105:4pelting them with stones of shale,^*

فَجَعَلَهُمْ كَعَصْفٍۢ مَّأْكُولٍۭ

105:5thus making them like chewed-up straw?

Tafsir

Commentary on this passage

Verse 1

3.This Surah has given three great lessons to the believers : (i) Do not be attracted by any super power. (ii) Allah is going to foil all the evil plans. (iii) There is no limit to the means of Allah’s help. He can make an army out of Ababeels (flock of birds) and incidentally this is also clarified that even the birds sent by Allah cannot make a mistake and cannot throw stones on any innocent.

Footnotes

Explanations of words and phrases in these verses

*
Ashaabul Feel - The Abbyssinian army which had arrived under the command of Abraha to demolish the Ka'ba.
*
Ababeel - It is a collective noun which does not have a singular.
*
Sijjeel - It is desinentially inflective. It denotes pebbles of baked clay.
Benefit
Islam has considered wealth to be the best goodness. But it denounced greed, misery and intoxication as the worst traits. Miserliness is lack of faith in the promise of Allah and on the day of Qiyamat it is a cause of sorrow. That others have achieved Paradise from the same wealth and the owner is subjected to punishment. Shaitan has made the love for wealth as his best tool.