Abraha was the governor of Yemen for the Najashi, the Christian king of Abyssinia. He built a great cathedral in Sana'a and wanted the Arabs to make their pilgrimage there instead of to the Ka'bah. A Bedouin went to the cathedral and relieved himself in it as an insult. Abraha was furious and decided to destroy the Ka'bah in revenge.
Abraha marched on Makkah with an army that included several elephants. The lead elephant was named Mahmud. It is said that an Arab named Abu Rughal guided the army to the Ka'bah. When the army reached Makkah, it seized the livestock of Abdul Muttalib, the chief of Makkah, including over 200 camels. Abdul Muttalib went to meet Abraha and asked only for his camels back. He told Abraha that the House had its own Lord who would defend it.
The Quraysh then left the city for the surrounding mountains, after Abdul Muttalib had prayed at the Ka'bah for Allah to defend it. When Abraha's men turned the lead elephant Mahmud toward the Ka'bah, he refused to move. However much they beat him, he would not go forward, yet he walked readily in any other direction.
While the army was stuck, Allah sent flocks of birds, the Ababil. They pelted the army with stones of baked clay (sijjil). In front of the eyes of the Quraysh, every stone struck a man or an animal, and his flesh dissolved. Abraha himself suffered the worst of it. His men carried him back toward Yemen as his skin dissolved along the way, and he died just before reaching home.
This was the Year of the Elephant, the year the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was born. His mother Aminah was pregnant with him in Makkah when Allah defended the sanctuary. Years later, a man named Qubath proved he was older than the Prophet ﷺ by recalling that, as a young boy, his mother had shown him the elephants' droppings, withered and turned yellow.
Outcome: Abraha's army was destroyed before reaching the Ka'bah. Abraha himself died of his wounds on the way back to Yemen.
The Ka'bah was miraculously defended, commemorated in Surah al-Fil, in the same year the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was born (the Year of the Elephant), while his mother Aminah was pregnant with him in Makkah.
Other events recorded around the same time. Their order within the year is not established; use the storyline above for the sequence.
O Allah, we cannot fight this army. They are too strong for us: they have these elephants, they have these thousand men. You take care of it.
Prayed at the Ka'bah after the Quraysh withdrew to the surrounding mountains, unable to face Abraha's army.
I didn't come to you to talk about the House. I didn't come to you to talk about the Ka'bah. I came to you to talk about my camels.
Abraha had just told him he held nothing against the Quraysh personally and only wanted him to leave the city so his army could destroy the Ka'bah.
I have come to destroy your Holy House, and you are coming to talk to me about your camels.
It is not my business. The House has a Lord who will protect it. And the camels have a lord, and it is my job to protect the camels.
I remember one of the guides of the elephants who had come from Yemen, blinded, and living as a beggar. He must have been a young man at the time; when I saw him he was old and near death, still begging for any morsel of food.
A later recollection from her childhood in Makkah.
هو أكبر مني ، وأنا ولدت قبله
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ is bigger than me, though I was born before him. I remember my mother taking me and showing me the dung of the elephants, withered and turned yellow, when I was a young boy.
A later recollection, given in answer to an early Umayyad caliph's question over which of the two of them was older.
وَأَرْسَلَ عَلَيْهِمْ طَيْرًا أَبَابِيلَ
Describes the birds (Ababil) Allah sent against Abraha's army.
تَرْمِيهِمْ بِحِجَارَةٍ مِنْ سِجِّيلٍ
Describes the stones of baked clay (sijjil) the birds bombarded Abraha's army with.