“Alam tara” means “didn’t you see”. Notice that in this ayat the singular form is used (“didn’t you see”). The “you” here refers to Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam).
“Kaifa fa’ala rabbuka bi ashaabil feel” means “how did your master deal with the people of the elephant”.
Going by historical facts, Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) wasn’t born at that time, so how could he have physically seen?
Some scholars have said that this means “didn’t you contemplate or visualize”. This is likely true because it is certainly the case in other places too in the Quran where Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) is asked to contemplate or visualize what happened even hundreds of years ago.
Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam), till the age of 40 was engaged in a lot of trade and he traveled quite a bit for the purpose of trade. He was a beneficiary of those trade routes opening up that Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) did in the year of the elephant. So Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) has seen the trickle effect of what Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) had done because for the generation just before his, those doors were closed. Those doors opened up as Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) got into his adulthood and engaged in trade. Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) is having him contemplate this.
Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) is being asked to contemplate something that happened a generation before his, that facilitated his life. There is a timeless lesson here. If we really want to understand our place in this world i.e. why people, communities, economics, politics, circumstances etc. are a certain way, then we need to understand what happened a generation ago. A lot of times we think of Islamic history as the life of Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam), the life of Nuh (alaihissalam), the life of Isa (alaihissalam) etc. but it’s really important to understand the last couple of centuries in the Islamic history, what has actually been going on in the Ummah, who were the “ashaabil feel” for us etc. If we don’t understand how we found our Islam, who did we learn from, which influences did we come across, which Masjids we learnt in, where did those Masjids come from, what were the struggles of the people that opened those doors etc. we won’t understand where we have to head and certainly we won’t be grateful for the doors that Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) has opened.
The trickle effect that resulted in gaining the reputation of “sadiq al-amin”:
Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) was doing trade on behalf of Khadija (radi allahu anha) and it is in this role of trader that Khadija (radi allahu anha) got impressed with the work ethic of Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) which ultimately led to their marriage. Khadija (radi allahu anha) is extremely important because she was the only person that was able to calm Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) down, comfort him and be his rock after he got his first exposure to Wahiy. But Khadija (radi allahu anha) would have no place to do trade if the trade routes weren’t opened. And if those trade routes weren’t opened Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) wouldn’t have met Khadija (radi allahu anha). He wouldn’t have learnt the things that he learnt from his journey and thus he wouldn’t have been able to gain the reputation of “sadiq al-amin”.
Meaning of Kaifa
Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) used the word “kaifa” which translates to “how”. This is because he wanted Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) to contemplate on the “how” i.e. how did it happen, the trickle effect etc. and not just contemplate on what happened.
There is a profound lesson in contemplating history just in the word “kaifa”. When we learn history, we usually learn a lot of dates, or the sequence of events (for example, sequence of battles in the seerah). But the questions we don’t ask are how did it affect the coming events. We usually focus on the knowledge of events but we don’t really look at analysis of events (how did it impact etc.), the deeper questions.
Meaning of Ayat #1
Didn’t you (Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam)) contemplate on how did your master deal with the people of the elephant?