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3. When Al-Muttalib died, Nawfal usurped ‘Abdul-Muttalib of his charges, so the latter asked for
help from Quraish but they abstained from extending any sort of support to either of them.
Consequently, he wrote to his uncles of Bani An-Najjar (his mother’s brothers) to come to
his aid. His uncle, Abu Sa‘d bin ‘Adi (his mother’s brother) marched to Makkah at the head
of eighty horsemen and camped in Abtah in Makkah. ‘Abdul-Muttalib received the men and
invited them to go to his house but Abu Sa‘d said: “Not before I meet Nawfal.” He found
Nawfal sitting with some old men of Quraish in the shade of Al-Ka‘bah. Abu Sa‘d drew his
sword and said: “I swear by Allâh that if you don’t restore to my nephew what you have
taken, I will kill you with this sword.” Nawfal was thus forced to give up what he had
usurped, and the notables of Quraish were made to witness to his words. Abu Sa‘d then
went to ‘Abdul-Muttalib’s house where he stayed for three nights, made ‘Umra a nd left back
for Madinah. Later on, Nawfal entered into alliance with Bani ‘Abd Shams bin ‘Abd Munaf
against Bani Hashim. When Khuza‘a, a tribe, saw Bani An-Najjar’s support to ‘Abdul-Muttalib
they said: “He is our son as he is yours. We have more reasons to support him than you.”
‘Abd Munaf’s mother was one of them. They went into An-Nadwa House and entered into
alliance with Bani Hashim against Bani ‘Abd Shams and Nawfal. It was an alliance that was
later to constitute the main reason for the conquest of Makkah. ‘Abdul-Muttalib witnessed
two important events in his lifetime, namely digging Zamzam well and the Elephant raid.
In brief, ‘Abdul-Muttalib received an order in his dream to dig Zamzam well in a particular
place. He did that and found the things that Jurhum men had buried therein when they were
forced to evacuate Makkah. He found the swords, armours and the two deer of gold. The
gate of Al-Ka‘bah was stamped from the gold swords and the two deer and then the
tradition of providing Zamzam water to pilgrims was established.
When the well of Zamzam gushed water forth, Quraish made a claim to partnership in the
enterprise, but ‘Abdul-Muttalib refused their demands on grounds that Allâh had singled only
him out for this honourable job. To settle the dispute, they agreed to consult Bani Sa‘d’s
diviner. On their way, Allâh showed them His Signs that confirmed ‘Abdul-Muttalib’s
prerogative as regards the sacred spring. Only then did ‘Abdul-Muttalib make a solemn vow
to sacrifice one of his adult children to Al-Ka‘bah if he had ten.
The second event was that of Abraha As-Sabah Al-Habashi, the Abyssinian (Ethiopian)
viceroy in Yemen. He had seen that the Arabs made their pilgrimage to Al-Ka‘bah so he built
a large church in San‘a in order to attract the Arab pilgrims to it to the exclusion of Makkah.
A man from Kinana tribe understood this move, therefore he entered the church stealthily at
night and besmeared its front wall with excrement. When Abraha knew of that, he got very
angry and led a great army – of sixty thousand warriors – to demolish Al-Ka‘bah. He chose
the biggest elephant for himself. His army included nine or thirteen elephants. He continued
marching until he reached a place called Al-Magmas. There, he mobilized his army, prepared
his elephants and got ready to enter Makkah. When he reached Muhassar Valley, between
Muzdalifah and Mina, the elephant knelt down and refused to go forward. Whenever they
directed it northwards, southwards or eastwards, the elephant moved quickly but when
directed westwards towards Al-Ka‘bah, it knelt down. Meanwhile, Allâh loosed upon them
birds in flights, hurling against them stones of baked clay and made them like green blades
devoured. These birds were very much like swallows and sparrows, each carrying three
stones; one in its peak and two in its claws. The stones hit Abraha’s men and cut their limbs
and killed them. A large number of Abraha’s soldiers were killed in this way and the others
fled at random and died everywhere. Abraha himself had an infection that had his fingertips
amputated. When he reached San‘a he was in a miserable state and died soon after.
The Quraishites on their part had fled for their lives to the hillocks and mountain tops. When
the enemy had been thus routed, they returned home safely.
The Event of the Elephant took place in the month of Al-Muharram, fifty or fifty five days
before the birth of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) which corresponded to late
February or early March 571 A.D. It was a gift from Allâh to His Prophet and his family. It
could actually be regarded as a Divine auspicious precursor of the light to come and
accompany the advent of the Prophet and his family. By contrast, Jerusalem had suffered
under the yoke of the atrocities of Allâh’s enemies. Here we can recall Bukhtanassar in B.C.
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