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 and 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. 587 and the Romans in 70 A.D. Al-
Ka‘bah, by Divine Grace, never came under the hold of the Christians – the Muslims of that time
– although Makkah was populated by polytheists.
News of the Elephant Event reached the most distant corners of the then civilized world.
Abyssinia (Ethiopia) maintained strong ties with the Romans, while the Persians on the other  hand, were on the vigil with respect to any strategic changes that were looming on the sociopolitical  horizon, and soon came to occupy Yemen. Incidentally, the Roman and Persian Empires  stood for the powerful civilized world at that time. The Elephant Raid Event riveted the world’s  attention to the sacredness of Allâh’s House, and showed that this House had been chosen by
Allâh for its ho. It followed then if any of its people claimed Prophethood, it would be congruous  with the outcome of the Elephant Event, and would provide a justifiable explanation for the  ulterior Divine Wisdom that lay behind backing polytheists against Christians in a manner that