The Year of the Elephant and the birth

The Year of the Elephant

Abraha, who governed Yemen for the Negus, had built a church in San’a, al-Qullays, to draw the pilgrimage of the Arabs away to it. A man of the Banu Kinana defiled it (Ibn Hisham, I, 43-45); he was one of those who postponed the sacred months, a practice the Qur’an condemns (9:37). Abraha marched on Mecca.

Before him, Abd al-Muttalib asked only for his two hundred camels: “I am the master of the camels, and the House has a Lord who will protect it.” Quraysh withdrew into the mountains (Ibn Hisham, I, 49-51). The Qur’an tells what followed:

The Prophet ﷺ recalled it: “God held back the elephant from Mecca” (Bukhari 2434). At Hudaybiya, he said of his she-camel when she knelt down: “She has been held back by the One who held back the elephant” (Bukhari 2731). Ibn Ishaq gives the details: the elephant, named Mahmud, refused to advance on Mecca; each bird carried three stones; the army was routed, and Abraha died in San’a, “so they claim” (Ibn Hisham, I, 52-54).

After the Elephant, the Arabs honoured Quraysh and called them “the people of God” (Ibn Hisham, I, 57). Right after the account, Ibn Ishaq quotes the sura of the Elephant, then Surat Quraysh (106), in which God reminds Quraysh of His favour (Ibn Hisham, I, 54-55):

Born in the Year of the Elephant

The Prophet ﷺ was born in that year. Several scholars state that there is agreement on it, among them Khalifa ibn Khayyat, and Ibrahim ibn al-Mundhir, for whom “none of our scholars doubts it” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 201, 203; al-Salihi, I, 335). A hadith of Ibn Abbas says so, judged authentic by al-Hakim and al-Dhahabi (al-Salihi, I, 335). Qays ibn Makhrama bears witness to it: he and the Prophet ﷺ were both born in the Year of the Elephant (Ibn Hisham, I, 159; Tirmidhi 3619).

The birth came fifty days after the Elephant, according to the “best-known” view (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 203), and anywhere from a month to fifty-five nights after it according to others (al-Salihi, I, 336). The views that place it years before or after are isolated; Ibn Kathir calls the one that puts it fifteen years earlier “singular, objectionable and weak” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 203).

A Monday

Asked about fasting on Mondays, the Prophet ﷺ replied: “That is the day on which I was born, and on which revelation came down to me” (Muslim 1162). “On this there is no disagreement,” writes Ibn Kathir; the view that it was a Friday is a mistake (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 199).

The month and the day of the month

Most place the birth in Rabi’ al-Awwal, and differ over the day of the month. Two views prevail:

• the 12th, the view of Ibn Ishaq (Ibn Hisham, I, 158), also reported by Ibn Abi Shayba from Jabir and Ibn Abbas: it is “the best known among the majority”, writes Ibn Kathir (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 199);
• the 8th, the view of Ibn Hazm, also reported by al-Zuhri from Muhammad ibn Jubayr: according to Ibn Abd al-Barr, the historians hold it to be correct (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 199), and Ibn Hajar saw in it what most of the reports imply (al-Salihi, I, 334).

Other days are cited too, and other months, such as Ramadan, a view Ibn Kathir finds “very singular” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 199-200; al-Salihi, I, 334-336). The hour of the birth and its date in the solar calendar are not established (al-Salihi, I, 333-336).

The place

He ﷺ was born in Mecca, “the correct view, that of the majority” (al-Salihi, I, 338), in the shi’b of the Banu Hashim, in the house on the lane known as “zuqaq al-Mawlid”, which al-Khayzuran, mother of Harun al-Rashid, later made into a mosque (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 33; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 200; al-Salihi, I, 338).

The light his mother saw

Only one wondrous account of the birth rests on a saying of the Prophet ﷺ. He said of himself that he was “the prayer of my father Abraham” (2:129) and “the good tidings of Jesus” (61:6), and that his mother saw a light come out of her that lit up the palaces of Syria, or of Busra according to the versions. Ahmad and Ibn Sa’d report it from Abu Umama “with a good chain” (al-Salihi, I, 342). Ibn Ishaq has it from Thawr ibn Yazid, from Khalid ibn Ma’dan, from Companions, through a chain that is “good and strong” according to Ibn Kathir (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 228-229). The same hadith is reported from al-Irbad ibn Sariya (Mishkat al-Masabih 5759).

Amina saw it during her pregnancy according to Ibn Ishaq (Ibn Hisham, I, 158), at the birth according to al-Waqidi; for Ibn Kathir, the vision of the pregnancy came true at the birth (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 206-207).

The name

The Prophet ﷺ said: “I have five names: Muhammad, Ahmad, al-Mahi, through whom God erases unbelief, al-Hashir, in whose wake mankind will be gathered, and al-Aqib” (Bukhari 3532). A gloss in Muslim’s version specifies: al-Aqib is the one after whom there is no prophet (Muslim 2354). Ahmad ﷺ is the name by which Jesus announces him in the Qur’an: “a messenger who will come after me, whose name is Ahmad” (61:6), an announcement that the page on the Paraclete sets beside the Gospel.

Who named him ﷺ? Amina, following the command she had received, according to Ibn Ishaq (Ibn Hisham, I, 158). According to others, Abd al-Muttalib named him on the seventh day, “so that God would praise him in heaven, and His creatures on earth” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 210). Al-Suhayli counts three Arabs named Muhammad before him, and Iyad six, whose fathers had learned that a prophet of that name would come; and none of them, Iyad notes, ever claimed to be a prophet (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 39).

The stories of the night of the birth

The other wonders told of that night have no such foundation, and the biographers say so. Ibn Ishaq, the earliest of them, reports nothing wondrous but the light and a voice.

• The voice. During her pregnancy, a voice is said to have told Amina that she was carrying the master of this community, that at his birth she should place him under the protection of the One, then give him the name Muhammad ﷺ. Ibn Ishaq himself adds: “so they claim, as people tell it, and God knows best” (Ibn Hisham, I, 157).
• The light from east to west. The horizon lit up, the child taking a handful of earth, the necks of camels seen as far as Busra: this account was put together by al-Waqidi from several chains, “the report of some merged into that of others” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 207; al-Salihi, I, 342). What Ibn Ishaq reports from Amina is more sober: “he fell with his hands on the ground, his head raised toward the sky” (Ibn Hisham, I, 165).
• The stars. “What is reported about the stars coming down is weak,” writes Ibn Dihya (al-Salihi, I, 333).
• Chosroes. The palace of Chosroes shaking and losing fourteen of its battlements, the fire of the Persians going out after a thousand years, the lake of Sawa running dry, the dream of the high priest: all of this comes from a single chain, that of Makhzum ibn Hani’, from his father, who had reached the age of a hundred and fifty (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 215). Al-Bayhaqi and Abu Nu’aym report it as well, but none of the four books calls it authentic (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 218; al-Salihi, I, 354); and the version of Ibn Jarir places the breaking of the palace arch under a different king from the one reigning at the birth (al-Salihi, I, 353, 356).

These accounts are traditions, most of them late, not established facts: to repeat them without the biographers’ reservations would be less careful than the biographers themselves.

Two testimonies, and the circumcision

Two accounts report that Jews recognised, that very night, the birth of a prophet. In Mecca, a Jew announced it and recognised on the child the mark between the shoulders: “prophethood has gone out from the children of Israel”. Ibn Sa’d, al-Hakim and Abu Nu’aym report it from Aisha, with a chain Ibn Hajar judges good (al-Salihi, I, 339; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 212). In Yathrib, Hassan ibn Thabit, a boy of seven or eight, heard a Jew cry out: “the star of Ahmad, under which he is born, has risen tonight” (Ibn Hisham, I, 159; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 213); but the chain of Ibn Ishaq passes through men his informant does not name.

That he ﷺ was born circumcised, as Anas and others report, remains disputed. Al-Diya’ al-Maqdisi authenticated the chain of Anas, but al-Dhahabi writes: “I do not know it to be authentic” (al-Salihi, I, 347), and Ibn Kathir judges it “open to question” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 209). According to others, his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib circumcised him and gathered Quraysh for a meal (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 210); al-Dhahabi specifies: “following the custom of the Arabs” (al-Salihi, I, 347).

How this page connects to the others

• The prayer of Abraham and the good tidings of Jesus: The prayer of Abraham and The Paraclete.
• The Jews of Yathrib and the other witnesses: The witnesses of the expectation.
• Abd al-Muttalib, Zamzam and the death of Abd Allah: page 1, Lineage and family.
• The Monday of the first revelation: part 3, The revelation.

Sources for this page

• Qur’an: Tanzil text (Uthmani); translation of the meaning by the site.
• The elephant held back: Bukhari 2434; Bukhari 2731.
• The Monday: Muslim 1162.
• Qays ibn Makhrama: Tirmidhi 3619.
• “The prayer of my father Abraham”: Mishkat al-Masabih 5759.
• The five names: Bukhari 3532; the gloss on al-Aqib: Muslim 2354.
• Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. al-Saqqa, al-Abyari and Shalabi, al-Babi al-Halabi, 1955, vol. I, pp. 43-54, 157-159, 165.
• Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, Uyun al-athar, Dar al-Qalam, 1993, vol. I, pp. 33-39.
• Ibn Kathir, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. Mustafa Abd al-Wahid, Dar al-Ma’rifa, 1976, vol. I, pp. 199-218, 228-229.
• al-Salihi al-Shami, Subul al-huda wa-l-rashad, ed. Abd al-Mawjud and Mu’awwad, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1993, vol. I, pp. 333-356.
• Research file “His birth and life before the message”, v1.0, 2 November 2026, sections 3 to 6.