سيدنا محمد

Abrahah, who came from Abyssinia-a country in Africa-
conquered Yemen and was made vice-regent there. Later, he
noticed that at a certain time of the year large numbers of
people would travel from all over Yemen and the rest of Arabia
to Mecca. He asked the reason for this and was told that they
were going on pilgrimage to the Ka'bah. Abrahah hated the
idea of Mecca being more important than his own country, so
he decided to build a church of colored marble, with doors of
gold and ornaments of silver, and ordered the people to visit it
instead of the Ka'bah. But no one obeyed him.
Abrahah became angry and decided to destroy the Ka1bah.
He prepared a large army led by an elephant and set off
towards Mecca. When the Meccans heard that he was coming
they became very frightened. Abrahah's army was huge and
they could not fight it. But how could they let him destroy the
Holy Ka'bah? They went to ask the advice of their leader, 'Abd
al-Muttalib. When Abrahah arrived outside Mecca, 'Abd al-
Muttalib went to meet him. Abrahah said, 'What do you want?'
Abrahah had taken Abd al-Muttalib's camels, which he had
found grazing as he entered Mecca, so ‘Abd al-Muttalib replied,
'I want my camels back.' Abrahah was very surprised and said,
'I have come to destroy your Holy Ka’bah, the holy place of
your fathers, and you ask me about some camels?' 'Abd al-
Muttalib replied calmly, ‘The camels belong to me; the Ka’bah
belongs to Allah and He will protect it.' Then he left Abrahah
and went back to Quraysh and ordered them to leave Mecca
and wait for their enemies in the mountains.
In the morning Abrahah prepared to enter the town. He put
armor on his elephant and drew up his troops for battle. He
intended to destroy the Ka'bah and then return to Yemen. At
that moment, however, the elephant knelt down and refused
to get up, no matter how much the soldiers tried to get it to
move by beating it.