The first thing you should know is that Abyssinia was located in Ethiopia with its capital in Addis Ababa, and Abyssinia included countries such as Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan and Kenya, all of this area was called Abyssinia, and it was the third most powerful kingdom on earth after the Romans and Persians.
Another thing is that the word Najashi means king, meaning that Najashi is a title for the king of Abyssinia.
Abraha was a soldier of the army of Abyssinia who came to Yemen in the campaign sent by the Negus King of Abyssinia, led by Aryat, to invade Yemen and avenge the death of Christians in the incident of the groove by King Dhu Nuwas.
After the success of that campaign Yemen became a vassal of Abyssinia, and Aryat took over the rule there.
I advise you to check out Douth Dhu Tholoban article first to understand the full story.
Abraha becomes king
After Yemen became a dependency of the Negus, "Al-Samyafa" was made king of Yemen to be under the command of Najashi and Aryat remained the commander of the army.
After the strength shown by Abraha in the battle, he became the second man in the Negus Army after Aryat, but he coveted the position of army commander.
Then Abraha disputed Aryat in the matter of Yemen, and a duel took place between them in which Aryat cut Abraha's eye and nose, so he was nicknamed Abraha AL-Ashram.
Ashram is a masculine proper name of Arabic origin and its meaning is the man that the tip of its nose is cut
but Aryat was killed by a boy for Abraha and Abraha became the commander of the army.
And after Abraha formed a very strong army, he overthrew "Al-Samyafa" and Abraha became the king of Yemen and he became independent from the Negus in 531 AD ad and refrained from sending tribute to the Negus and called himself the king of Yemen.
Reconciliation with Najashi
Najashi vowed not to let Abraha be king of Yemen., so he sent two army battalions to him, and Abraha was able to inflict one defeat after another on them.
In order to calm the situation between them, Abraha wrote to the Negus a book in which he courted and apologized to the Negus, so he confirmed him for his work in the land of Yemen, so Abraha became an independent king, even if he nominally recognized the authority of the Negus and paid tribute to him, which made the situation stabilize between them.
There were several revolts against Abraha in Yemen during his reign which lasted about forty years, he was able to put them all down, either by force or by concluding peace treaties with some of them.
Delegations from Abyssinia, Persia, Byzantium and the Levant flocked to him to support trade and political relations with him, which indicates the status and power that Abraha reached.
Abraha's Kaaba
Abraha was able to reintroduce Christianity in Yemen, and built several churches, and Abraha was interested in urbanization, so he restored the Marib Dam and built the Al-Qalis Church in Sana'a, which was one of the wonders of construction in its grandeur, magnitude and decoration in that era.
Abraha wanted to connect Yemen to the Levant, but he found a very big obstacle in his way, which is the Arabian Peninsula, especially the honorable Kaaba, which is revered by the Arabs because of its religious status among the Arabs.
Abraha wanted to make all those pilgrims who flock to Mecca in order to visit the Kaaba to flock to Al-Qalis Church instead of the Kaaba, And in order to satisfy the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula and around, he placed idols like the ones worshiped by the Arabs at that time around Al-Qalis Church and provided them with everything they needed from worship around Al-Qalis Church, and he had an idea that later led to the destruction of him and his army, which is to demolish the Kaaba and thus achieve what he wanted, on the one hand the road from Yemen to the Levant becomes under his command and on the other hand he has diverted people from the Kaaba and Al-Qalis Church becomes their shrine, which brings him money, agriculture, trade, and religious value, which could make Abraha the most powerful king in the world, and His ego drove him to prepare a huge army and go to Mecca with only one goal in front of his eyes : the destruction of the Kaaba.
Quraysh
Fihr ibn Malik is the one to whom all the tribes of Quraysh are attributed, and Quraysh had a very great place among the Arabs, and that is because of their fame in trade, and thanks to their intelligence and their fame in poetry and literature, they were able in their very clever way to be in contact with the major countries at that time, such as Roman, Abyssinia, Persians, and Ghassanids, so caravans would go out once in winter and another time in summer to those kingdoms to sell them dates, ivory, incense, and ebony, Quraysh also had the right to take care of the Kaaba, clothe it, clean it and take care of all its affairs.
Abd al-Muttalib bin Hashim was the master of the Quraysh, its chief and leader, and his body and image were very majestic ,and he was a man with a thick white beard, good-looking, and Abd al-Muttalib was a conservative of covenants, well-mannered, loved the poor, and based on serving pilgrims, and fed the needy in crisis, until he fed the beasts and birds at the head of the mountains,and he was honorable and obedient generous, and Quraysh called him Al-Fayyad which means a very generous man, Abd al-Muttalib is the grandfather of the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him.
Moving towards Mecca
Abraha ordered his armies to prepare to head towards the Kaaba to demolish it, and he left with his armies riding a huge elephant brought from the jungles of Abyssinia heading towards Mecca. The news spread among the people of Mecca that Abraha was coming in a crushing army led by a great elephant, and they prepared to face him and sacrifice themselves in order to protect the Sacred House of God and prevent Abraha from destroying the Holy Kaaba.
While Abraha's army was on the way, all the Arab tribes he passed through tried to oppose him, but he defeated them all and captured their masters, until he reached Khath'am on the outskirts of the Arabian Peninsula and they tried their best to resist him but in vain with this large army, so Abraha defeated them and captured their leader Nufail bin Habib.
Abraha continued his way until he reached Taif and reached Thaqif,and once he saw their leader Masoud bin Moatab, he said to him : O king, we are your slaves, we are obedient to you, we have no disagreement, You don't want our houses. What you want is the Kaaba in Mecca, and we will send with you whoever will be your guide to the Kaaba, so he sent Abu Raghal with him to show them the location of the Kaaba, because Abraha's army did not know the location of the Kaaba and Whenever they brought a guide from the Arabs to show them the path to the Kaaba, he refused no matter how much money they offered him.
Arabs and Muslims consider Abu Raghal to be an example of treachery and betrayal, so that when the Arabs saw someone's treachery or betrayal, they called him Abu Raghal, and all Arabs remained for many years whenever someone passed by Abu Raghal's grave, they stoned his grave with stones.
The Kaaba has a God who protects it
When Abraha's army reached the outskirts of Mecca in 571 AD he found 200 camels that belonged to Abd al-Muttalib, so he took over them and camped with his army on the outskirts of Mecca and sent a messenger to Abd al-Muttalib called Hanata, and when Hanata arrived, he told Abd al-Muttalib that King Abraha came only to destroy the Kaaba and has no need to fight you, so come with me to King Abraha to negotiate if you do not want war, so Abd al-Muttalib went with him to meet Abraha.
When Abraha saw Abd al-Muttalib in front of him, he straightened in his council from the prestige of Abd al-Muttalib, and the first thing Abd al-Muttalib said to Abraha, "I want my camels that you took," and Abraha said, "I respected you when I saw you, but That respect for you went away when you spoke", you came to negotiate with me about your camels and I am here to destroy the house you revere, and here Abd al-Muttalib said his famous saying,"I am the owner of the camels and I came to ask for them, but the Kaaba owned to Allah and He is able to protect it".
Abraha said to his guards, “Give him his camels.” Abd al-Muttalib took them and left, then Abraha, the huge elephant, and the entire army prepared to demolish the Kaaba.
Abraha stood behind the army on a high hill looking at the Kaaba from afar and watching his army led by the huge elephant on its way to destroy the Kaaba.
The entire Quraysh stood in front of the Kaaba, praying to God not to demolish the Kaaba, and they were all certain that God would protect it from Abraha’s attack.
When the army approached the Kaaba, a strange thing happened. Sometimes the elephant walked to the right and sometimes to the left and did not advance towards the Kaaba until the elephant sat on the ground and the soldiers tried to stop it again in all ways until they started hitting it with hammers on its head to advance towards the Kaaba, but the elephant did not respond to them.
While the army was preoccupied with the elephant, flocks of birds covered the sky of Mecca, and each bird had three stones the size of a lentil, two in the bird's leg and one in its beak, and the birds kept throwing these stones at Abraha's army, and not a single stone reached the body of any of Abraha's soldiers but destroyed him.
Abraha and his soldiers tried to flee in panic from these birds coming from hell itself, but not a single soldier was spared from those stones, which hit them all until they destroyed the entire army, except Abraha fled to Yemen, and his skin continued to fall off and his fingers were cut by the effect of the stones that were thrown by the birds until he reached Yemen and died there in a very emaciated form, his skin wounded, worn and sore, his limbs falling off, and his head resembling the skulls of the dead.
This is how God protected the Kaaba from the evil of Abraha.
God Almighty has mentioned The story of the elephant owners in the Holy Quran in the 105th chapter of the Holy Quran " AL-Fil ".
The year 571 AD was called "Year of the Elephant" by the Arabs, which is the year in which the Messenger of God and the master of creation, Muhammad (peace be upon him), was born.
