Talk:Year of the Elephant

Recent discoveries about Year of the Elephant
the article states "Recent discoveries in southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568, as Persians overthrew the Abyssinian regime in Yemen around 570" and cites page 7 of Watt's book ("Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets"?). I am very curious as to what these discoveries are? I can't remember Watt explaining it in "Muhammad". Are these archaeological discoveries or historical references from other texts? I am very much interested in finding what discoveries these are. It would be nice if someone could elaborate on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.151.176 (talk) 00:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I second this objection. I can hardly think of any archaeological discovery to substantiate that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568. Azd0815 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Azd0815 (talk • contribs) 18:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

many scholars believe the Year of the Elephant is represented by the Murayghan Inscription dated 552 CE. against this, is Irfan Shahid in Encycplaedia of the Qur'an, "People of the Elephant." those who make a case for 552 CE as the year of the Elephant also make a case for Muhammad being born 23 years after the Year of the Elephant, or there is tradition that he was born 20 years after the Year of the Elephant. see

http://www.mnh.si.edu/EPIGRAPHY/e_pre-islamic/fig04_sabaean_img.htm also: "The campaign of Ḥulubān - A New Light on the Expedition of Abraha" M.J. Kister, Le Muséon, LXXVIII, no. 3-4, p. 423-436) (1965)

Ybgursey (talk) 07:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

please include Kister's article as the "verification needed" reference to the Year of the Elephant being possibly earlier. Ybgursey (talk) 07:18, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The whole passage is hard to understand.
 * Recent discoveries in Southern Arabia suggest that Year of the Elephant may have been 569 or 568, as the Sasanian Empire overthrew the Axumite-affiliated regimes in Yemen around 570.undefined
 * What does "recent" mean? The sentence is cited to Watt (1974). However, if the book talks about "recent" discoveries (which apparently it doesn't), "recent" would mean something like the 1960s or early 1970s, which is definitely not recent anymore by 2018.
 * However, the sentence might refer to discoveries that were recent when it was originally added, in 2007, precisely 11 years ago. What was recent in 2007, however, is hardly recent anymore by 2018.
 * However, historians today believe that this event
 * Which event? The overthrow? Or the elephant incident?
 * occurred at least a decade prior to the birth of Muhammad.undefined
 * Huh? So the elephant incident really occurred in 560 AD or even earlier? Or is the intended meaning that Muhammad was actually born in 580 AD or later? Or that the overthrow happened in 560 AD or earlier? But how is this possible if the overthrow is correlated with the elephant incident? Or is that not necessarily the case? But how to explain the facts then? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:06, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Relevance to Muhammed PBHN
Is the sheik al-Sulami referred to Mohammed's father or what? Lycurgus (talk) 12:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Presume not, see family tree. 71.186.172.82 (talk) 01:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Stray Comment
Mr. Wikipedia, I would like to know Who is Halemah, this lady took care of Muhamad ,( in actual facts This Muhamad is Halimah's son not Aminah's Son ..................please clarify.

References: http://www.islamawareness.net/Muhammed/saw.html --Striver 15:15, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Earliest Post
I dont get it. Muhammad became Prophet in 10 BH, and was forty years old. Then, this date most have been on 50 BH. Then why does everybody say it happened on 570 or 571 CE? 571 Ce is 53 BH!--Striver 15:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't get it, according to the reference listed by yourself above 570 = birth, 610 = prophethood, 622 = hijrah 632 = death. 40+23, both numbers seem to add up not sure where you got the 10BH for prophecy check the AH date for his death 12th Rabi' al-Awwal, 11AH, prophethood 23 years so 12 BH at best for revelation at hira, even the first Hijrah to abyssinia is only 7 AH. Anyway I beleive the date is usually back calculated (hence the source says estimated at 570 in the article and 571 on the webpage), and is there is some variation due to corrections in the length of years due to the variability of the transition of months so you have to be careful if the narrator is a historic muslim source and referring to and counting years and months in AH or a western source attemptin to translate the years into CE which creates the error in the dating between sources. Hope that helps, I think your error arises from fixing 10 BH as hijrah or mixed usage of "years" interchangeably between muslim and gregorian calendars.--Tigeroo 19:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Abraha wasn't Chrsitian
According To the histrocial Islamic and non-islamic books, Abraha wasn't chrsitian becuase when he joined to invade mecca he was seek to Destroy the kaaba ( what was been worishpped ) and build an other Kabaa for himself and he was telling the people that he is God in human body and they must worship him and his kabaa and leave ther religions  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.139.210.34 (talk) 08:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Abraha was Christian, not only do Islamic tradtions say he was, it is attested in inscriptions. No scholarly source claims he was pagan. see http://www.mnh.si.edu/EPIGRAPHY/e_pre-islamic/fig04_sabaean_img.htm

Ybgursey (talk) 07:03, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

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Introductory Paragraph Bias
I removed a bizarre paragraph in the introductory section which contained a reference to an Aremnian Church father and chronicler (Sebeos), alluding to his recount of one of many conflicts the Persians had against the Byzantines and used elephants in, however citing a book which was non-congruent with the sentence written with no page number. Another sentence at the beginning states Procopius and others dispute the event, however no evidence was given and a false citation to a page that also did not dispute the event was given. The second part of the paragraph was written in a casual prose and talked about Meccans terrain being hostile to elephants - This should not be in the intro, and is unacademic and silly (Hannibal Barca marched elephants through Spain, to Rome). The final part of the paragraph removed had a reference.

If there's going to be criticism of the validity of the fact that there was a "Year of the Elephant" it shouldn't be in the intro, and should have some reasonably scholarly sources. LuckyDukeSeven (talk) 03:25, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

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