Elephant’s refusal to attack
When morning came, Abrahah prepared to enter the sacred city of Makkah. He prepared the elephant named Mahmud. He mobilized his army, and they turned the elephant towards the Ka’bah. At that moment Nufayl bin Habib approached it and stood next to it, and taking it by its ear, he said, “Kneel, Mahmud! Then turn around and return directly to whence you came. For verily, you are in the Sacred City of Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala).” Then he released the elephant’s ear and it knelt, after which Nufayl bin Habib left and hastened to the mountains.
Abrahah’s men beat the elephant in an attempt to make it rise, but it refused. They beat it on its head with axes and used hooked staffs to pull it out of its resistance and make it stand, but it refused. So they turned him towards Yemen, and he rose and walked quickly. Then they turned him towards Ash-Sham and he did likewise. Then they turned him towards the east and he did the same thing. Then they turned him towards Makkah and he knelt down again.
Attack from the birds
According to some narrations this incident took place in the Arafat region. Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) sent birds (vultures) from the sky and they pelted stones at the Elephant and the armies. Each bird carried three stones the size of chickpeas and lentils, one in each claw and one in its beak. Everyone who was hit by them was destroyed, though not all of them were hit. While there are opinions that stones came and everytime a stone hit, things blew up, it is likely possible that it was actually a virus that took over them everytime a stone hit and they died of the disease.
Some historians say that some of the 60,000 made their way back. They fled in panic along the road asking about the whereabouts of Nufayl so that he might point out to them the way home. Nufayl, however, was at the top of the mountain with the Quraysh and the Arabs of the Hijaz observing the wrath which Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) had caused to descend on the people of the elephant. The ones that made it back also died because of the disease.
Death of Abrahah
Some of them were destroyed immediately as the stones crushed them and turned them into eaten up hay (like when an animal chews some grass and spits some of it out). Others were gradually broken down limb by limb while trying to escape. Abrahah was of those who was broken down limb by limb until he eventually died in the land of Khatham.
Abrahah’s body was afflicted by the pestilence of the stones and his army carried him away with them as he was falling apart piece by piece, until they arrived back in San’a. When they arrived there he was but like the baby chick of a bird. And as they claim he did not die until his heart fell out of his chest.
Allah’s (subhanahu wa ta’ala) hidden mercies to the Quraysh:
When Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) sent Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) with the Prophethood, among the things that he used to recount to the Quraysh as blessings that Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala) had favored them with of his bounties, was his defending them from the attack of the Abyssinians. Due to this they (the Quraysh) were allowed to remain safely in Makkah for a period of time.