The Year of the Elephant (Arabic: عام الفيل, ˤĀmu l-Fīl) is the name in Islamic history for the year approximately equating to 570 AD. According to Islamic tradition, it was in this year that Muhammad was born. The name is derived from an event said to have occurred at Mecca: Abraha, the Christian ruler of Yemen, which was subject to the Aksumite Empire of Ethiopia, marched upon the Kaaba with a large army, which included one or more elephants, intending to demolish it. However, the elephant is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter. The year came to be known as the Year of the Elephant, beginning a trend for reckoning the years in the Arabian Peninsula used until it was replaced with the Islamic calendar during the rule of Umar.
Recent discoveries in southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568, as the Sassanid Empire overthrew the Axumite- and Byzantine-affiliated regimes in Yemen around 570. However, historians today believe that this event occurred at least a decade prior to the birth of Muhammad.
The year is also recorded as that of the birth of Ammar ibn Yasir.
Read more about Year Of The Elephant: Events, Other Historical Sources
Famous quotes containing the words the elephant, year and/or elephant:
“The elephant sneezed
And fell on his knees,
And that was the end of the monk,
the monk, the monk.”
—Unknown. Animal Fair. . .
New Treasury of Children’s Poetry, A; Old Favorites and New Discoveries. Joanna Cole, comp. (1984)
“We are playing with fire when we skip the years of three, four, and five to hurry children into being age six.... Every child has a right to his fifth year of life, his fourth year, his third year. He has a right to live each year with joy and self-fulfillment. No one should ever claim the power to make a child mortgage his today for the sake of tomorrow.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)