Have you not considered, [O Muḥammad], how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant?1
Allah opens this surah with a question that hits like "you already know this story, right?" He's asking the Prophet (and by extension, all of us) to reflect on what happened to the People of the Elephant — an army led by a ruler named Abraha who marched with war elephants to destroy the Ka'bah in Makkah. This event happened the same year the Prophet was born, and it was so well-known in Arabia that everyone had heard about it firsthand. The rhetorical question style is basically saying: this isn't myth or legend — this really happened, and the proof was everywhere.
Ayah 2
أَلَمْ يَجْعَلْ كَيْدَهُمْ فِى تَضْلِيلٍ
Did He not make their plan into misguidance?1
Abraha had a massive army of around 60,000 soldiers, war elephants, and a detailed plan to demolish the Ka'bah stone by stone. He even planned to chain the elephants to the Ka'bah's pillars and have them rip it apart. But Allah turned all of that into nothing. Their grand scheme completely fell apart — the lead elephant literally refused to walk toward Makkah (it would move in any other direction, but knelt down every time they pointed it at the Ka'bah). When Allah decides to protect something, no amount of military power or planning can override that.
Ayah 3
وَأَرْسَلَ عَلَيْهِمْ طَيْرًا أَبَابِيلَ
And He sent against them birds in flocks,
Here's where it gets wild — Allah sent flocks of birds against this entire army. These weren't eagles or hawks; they were small, unusual birds that nobody had ever seen before, smaller than pigeons with red claws, arriving in wave after wave from the direction of the sea. The word "Ababil" means swarms or successive flocks, emphasizing that they came in overwhelming numbers. Allah chose the most unlikely weapon imaginable to show that His power doesn't depend on conventional means.
Ayah 4
تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ مِّن سِجِّيلٍ
Striking them with stones of hard clay,
Each of these tiny birds carried three small pebbles — one in each claw and one in its beak — made of baked clay (the Arabic word "Sijjil" literally comes from the Persian words for stone and clay). These weren't boulders or heavy rocks; they were about the size of lentils. But when they struck, each pebble tore straight through a soldier's body with more force than a bullet. Allah made the most ordinary, insignificant objects devastatingly powerful — a reminder that it's not about the size of the weapon, it's about who's behind it.
Ayah 5
فَجَعَلَهُمْ كَعَصْفٍ مَّأْكُولٍۭ
And He made them like eaten straw.1
By the end, this massive, intimidating army was left looking like chewed-up straw — completely hollowed out and scattered. The word "Asf" means chaff or husk, and "Ma'kul" means eaten or devoured, so picture dried-out crops that animals have chewed through and spit out. That's what became of Abraha's forces. The survivors fled in every direction but many died horrible deaths on the way back, including Abraha himself whose body literally fell apart piece by piece. The lesson is timeless: when you go up against what Allah has chosen to protect, it doesn't matter how powerful you think you are — you will be reduced to nothing.