Surah al-Fil and modern empires

Surah al-Fil (Qur'an 105) is five verses long. It recalls how Abraha, a ruler who led an army with elephants against the Ka'bah, was brought down not by a rival power but by an unexpected act of God, his army left “like eaten straw”. The authors read the surah as a lesson about imperial arrogance: the belief that weapons, planning and wealth make a power untouchable.

They place this reading alongside writers on imperialism, from J. A. Hobson and Lenin to Edward Said and David Harvey, who in different ways describe empire as a matter of military force, economic interest and the stories powers tell to justify themselves. Today, the paper argues, empire often works without using the name, through military bases, alliances, sanctions and occupation as well as direct conquest.

The paper then applies this lens to present-day cases, focusing on the United States and Israel, with Iraq, Iran and Venezuela as supporting examples. The authors cite official reviews that found the Iraq war rested on flawed intelligence, human-rights reports and International Court of Justice orders on Gaza, and the contrast between international scrutiny of Iran's nuclear programme and Israel's estimated arsenal outside the non-proliferation treaty. In their reading, these cases show the overconfidence the surah describes, and powers that apply rules to others while exempting themselves. They add that the surah does not predict particular modern states, that not every conflict fits one template, and that disputed claims should be attributed to the bodies that make them.

The surah's “birds”, the authors suggest, may today take the form of legal challenges, public conscience, economic strain or a people's refusal to disappear. They also connect it to the teaching, drawn from hadith, that the return of Isa (Jesus) and the appearance of Imam Mahdi will finally end oppression. Their conclusion is that domination is never permanent and no power escapes divine justice.