- Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant?
- Did he not make their scheme go astray?
- And he sent against them birds in swarms.
- The pelted them with stones of baked clay.
- Then he made them like eaten straw.
5. “Straw” is also a “husk,” so anything eaten up with the waste left behind.
Surah Ordering
I seem to remember (though I can’t find it now) that Muhammad told this story when he assembled the Quraysh to preach to them 3 years after coming into his prophecy. The traditional Egyptian chronology puts the revelation of this surah decidedly earlier, but Muhammad (of course) recited surat over and over after they were revealed, so there’s no reason both can’t be true.
