The Qur'ân, part II (Sacred Books of the East volume 9), Palmer edition [1880]; at sacred-texts.com
IN the name of the merciful and compassionate God.
Hast thou not seen what thy Lord did with the fellows of the elephant 2?
Did He not make their stratagem lead them astray, and send down on them birds in flocks, to throw down on them stones of baked clay, [5] and make them like blades of herbage eaten down?
341:2 Abrahat el Asram, an Abyssinian Christian, and viceroy of the king of Sanaa in Yemen in the year in which Mohammed was born, marched with a large army and some elephants upon Mecca, with the intention of destroying the Kaabah. He was defeated and his army destroyed in so sudden a manner as to have given rise to the p. 342 legend embodied in the text. It is conjectured that small-pox broke out amongst his men.