Desecration of Abrahah’s Church:

Abrahah decided to force the Arabs to make their pilgrimage to this magnificent church, just as they had performed pilgrimage to the Ka’bah in Makkah. It was rejected by the Arab tribes. They were so infuriated by it, that some Arabs journeyed to the church and entered it one night. They defecated there and ran away (escaping the people). Other narrations say they set a fire in it. The point is they desecrated the place. 

For Abraha it was going to create a new way of enticing people, it was going to be selling a new religion. He believed that as the people were bought into the idols of Makkah, buying them into new idols was going to be much easier. When that failed and the place he built was desecrated, he saw that there was no way to give legitimacy to that place as long as the Ka’bah existed. The Ka’bah needed to be destroyed for the economic route to come to an end.

March towards Ka’bah:

So, in the name of preserving the religion and taking vengeance, Abrahah gathered an army that had 12-13 elephants. The chief elephant was called “Mahmud”. Other narrations say that it was just one elephant and an army of 60,000 strong. 

Mahmud was a great, powerful elephant that had a huge body the likes of which had never been seen before. It was sent to Abrahah from An-Najashi, the king of Abyssinia, particularly for this expedition.

Abrahah’s intention was to use this big elephant to demolish the Ka’bah. They planned to do this by fastening chains to the pillars of the Ka’bah and placing the other ends around the neck of the elephant. Then they would make the elephant pull on them in order to tear down the walls of the Ka’bah all at one time.

Response from the Arabs:

When the Arabs heard of Abrahah’s expedition, they considered it an extremely grave matter. They held it to be an obligation upon them to defend the sacred house and repel whoever intended a plot against it. Thus, the noblest man of the people of Yemen and the greatest of their chiefs set out to face him (Abrahah). His name was Dhu Nafr.

He called his people, and whoever would respond to his call among the Arabs, to go to war against Abrahah and fight in defense of the sacred house. He called the people to stop Abrahah’s plan to demolish and tear down the Ka’bah. So the people responded to him and they entered into battle with Abrahah, but he defeated them. 

This was due to Allah’s (subhanahu wa ta’ala) will and his intent to honor and venerate the Ka’bah.

The army continued on its way until it came to the land of Khatham where it was confronted by Nufayl bin Habib Al-Kath’ami along with his people, the Shahran and Nahis tribes.

They fought Abrahah but he defeated them and captured Nufayl bin Habib. Initially he wanted to kill him, but he forgave him and took him as his guide to show him the way to Al-Hijaz.

Betrayal from the People of Taif:

Abrahah’s army marched from Yemen and took over one Arab region after another. These Arab regions were mainly bedouin people, so they just caved and made deals. For example, when he made all the way to Taif, the people of Taif said he could go on and crush Ka’bah even though their God, “Al-Lat” was there. The people of Taif didn’t want to fight. So, they gave the explanation that they had their own temple in Taif and Abrahah could continue ahead. In fact one of them, Abu Righal, even helped Abrahah to navigate to Makkah. Abu Righal died on the way and was buried there. Later on, after Abrahah and his army were defeated, the Arabs would as a ritual go to his grave and spit there because he was a traitor.