# Surah Al-Fil Meaning, Word by Word

> Surah Al-Fil meaning word by word, with Arabic, transliteration and a plain English rendering of all five verses.

Source: https://surahkids.site/blog/al-fil/
Published: 3 September 2026

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Surah Al-Fil is the 105th surah of the Quran, five verses and twenty-three words long, and the whole of it is one question with its answer attached. It takes its name from the last word of verse 1, ٱلْفِيلِ (*l-fīli*, "(of the) Elephant").

It is a step up from the very shortest surahs without being a long one. Twenty-three words, of which twenty-two are distinct forms — only أَلَمْ (*alam*) occurs twice — so there is very little internal repetition to lean on, which is the one thing that makes Al-Fil slightly more work than its length suggests. In the SurahKids learning order it is the tenth surah, which puts it in the group most children reach once An-Nas, Al-Ikhlas and the three-verse surahs are solid.

The word-by-word breakdown below uses the Arabic exactly as it appears in the mushaf. The English is a plain rendering, one among many. Translations are interpretations, and two or three of the words in this surah are ones English handles only approximately.

## Surah Al-Fil word by word

### Verse 1

| Arabic | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| أَلَمْ | alam | Have not |
| تَرَ | tara | you seen |
| كَيْفَ | kayfa | how |
| فَعَلَ | faʿala | dealt |
| رَبُّكَ | rabbuka | your Lord |
| بِأَصْحَـٰبِ | bi-aṣḥābi | with (the) Companions |
| ٱلْفِيلِ | l-fīli | (of the) Elephant |


*alam tara kayfa faʿala rabbuka bi-aṣḥābi l-fīli* — Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the Companions of the Elephant?

### Verse 2

| Arabic | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| أَلَمْ | alam | Did not |
| يَجْعَلْ | yajʿal | He make |
| كَيْدَهُمْ | kaydahum | their plan |
| فِى | fī | go |
| تَضْلِيلٍۢ | taḍlīlin | astray |


*alam yajʿal kaydahum fī taḍlīlin* — Did He not make their plan go astray?

### Verse 3

| Arabic | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| وَأَرْسَلَ | wa-arsala | And He sent |
| عَلَيْهِمْ | ʿalayhim | against them |
| طَيْرًا | ṭayran | birds |
| أَبَابِيلَ | abābīla | (in) flocks |


*wa-arsala ʿalayhim ṭayran abābīla* — And He sent against them birds in flocks.

### Verse 4

| Arabic | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| تَرْمِيهِم | tarmīhim | Striking them |
| بِحِجَارَةٍۢ | biḥijāratin | with stones |
| مِّن | min | of |
| سِجِّيلٍۢ | sijjīlin | baked clay |


*tarmīhim biḥijāratin min sijjīlin* — Striking them with stones of baked clay.

### Verse 5

| Arabic | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| فَجَعَلَهُمْ | fajaʿalahum | Then He made them |
| كَعَصْفٍۢ | kaʿaṣfin | like straw |
| مَّأْكُولٍۭ | makūlin | eaten up |


*fajaʿalahum kaʿaṣfin makūlin* — Then He made them like straw eaten up.

## The surah in plain English

Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the Companions of the Elephant? Did He not make their plan go astray? And He sent against them birds in flocks, striking them with stones of baked clay. Then He made them like straw eaten up.

## What the words tell you

**It is a question, and it is asked twice.** Verse 1 opens with أَلَمْ تَرَ (*alam tara*, "Have not / you seen"), and verse 2 opens with أَلَمْ again, glossed the second time as "Did not". Neither expects information; both point at something the listener already knows and ask them to look at it properly. And it is a singular "you": تَرَ (*tara*) and رَبُّكَ (*rabbuka*, "your Lord") both carry the singular ending, so the surah is addressing one person at a time rather than a crowd.

**One doer, all the way through.** The verbs of the surah are فَعَلَ (*faʿala*, "dealt"), يَجْعَلْ (*yajʿal*, "He make"), وَأَرْسَلَ (*wa-arsala*, "And He sent") and فَجَعَلَهُمْ (*fajaʿalahum*, "Then He made them"), and the subject of every one of them is the same: your Lord. Verse 2 and verse 5 are the same verb, *jaʿala*, at the opening of the answer and at the close of it — He made their plan go one way, He made them go another.

**Four words that end in "them".** كَيْدَهُمْ (*kaydahum*, "their plan"), عَلَيْهِمْ (*ʿalayhim*, "against them"), تَرْمِيهِم (*tarmīhim*, "Striking them") and فَجَعَلَهُمْ (*fajaʿalahum*, "Then He made them") all carry the same attached pronoun. That is one thing to learn and four of the surah's twenty-three words unlocked — worth pointing out to a child working through it.

**A phrase split across two cells.** فِى تَضْلِيلٍۢ (*fī taḍlīlin*) is glossed above as "go" and "astray" — the two words carry the sense together, not separately. فِى (*fī*) on its own is one of the most common words in the Quran, and you will see it in the recurring list below.

**Verses 3 and 4 hold the surah's own vocabulary.** طَيْرًا أَبَابِيلَ (*ṭayran abābīla*, "birds (in) flocks"), بِحِجَارَةٍۢ (*biḥijāratin*, "with stones") and سِجِّيلٍۢ (*sijjīlin*, "baked clay") belong to this surah rather than to the general vocabulary of Juz Amma. *Abābīla* in particular is a word English handles in more than one way; "(in) flocks" is a reasonable rendering, not an exhaustive one.

**It ends on an image, not a statement.** كَعَصْفٍۢ مَّأْكُولٍۭ (*kaʿaṣfin makūlin*, "like straw eaten up") — the *ka-* on the front is "like", which makes the last line a comparison. The surah draws no lesson: it shows the outcome and stops.

**The event behind it.** The traditional account attached to this surah is of an army that came against the Kaaba with an elephant in its ranks, in a year remembered as the Year of the Elephant. That is the received account the commentaries give; the surah itself names no person, place or date, and this page's job is the vocabulary rather than the history.

## Al-Fil and Surah Quraysh

In the order of the mushaf, Surah Quraysh (106) follows immediately after Al-Fil, and the two are very commonly read as a continuous passage. The reason sits in Quraysh's first word: لِإِيلَـٰفِ (*liīlāfi*, "For (the) familiarity"), which begins with a *lām* that reads most naturally as attaching to something already said. Many commentators take that something to be Al-Fil — He dealt with the Companions of the Elephant, and made their plan go astray, for the familiarity of Quraysh — and some reciters read the two surahs together for that reason.

That is how the pair is commonly read and taught rather than a ruling on either surah: both are counted separately in every copy of the Quran, and each is recited alone perfectly normally. The connection is still a real help when you are learning them. If you have Al-Fil, [Surah Quraysh word by word](/blog/quraysh/) is four verses and seventeen words, and it will feel like the second half of something you already started.

## Words you already know

Al-Fil sits tenth in the learning order, so the honest overlap figure is small: 3 of its 22 distinct word forms, 14 per cent, have already appeared in a surah you would have met before it. That is a function of position rather than difficulty — not much has come before it yet.

The more useful number runs the other way. Across the 37 surahs of Juz Amma, these forms from Al-Fil turn up in three or more of them:

- مِّن (*min*, "of") — in 22 surahs
- فِى (*fī*) — in 21 surahs. Glossed here as half of "go astray"; on its own it is the preposition you will meet on nearly every page.
- رَبُّكَ (*rabbuka*, "your Lord") — in 12 surahs
- عَلَيْهِمْ (*ʿalayhim*, "against them") — in 8 surahs
- أَلَمْ (*alam*, "Have not") — in 7 surahs
- كَيْفَ (*kayfa*, "how") — in 3 surahs

Look at what those six words are: prepositions, a pronoun, a negative particle, a question word. Not one is a noun you could draw. That is the pattern behind [the most common words in the Quran](/blog/most-common-quran-words/) — the vocabulary that repeats is the connective tissue, and learning it inside a surah you are memorising anyway is the cheapest way to pick it up.

## How long it takes to learn

Five verses and twenty-three words is a two-or-three-sitting job for the sound, if the shorter surahs are already steady. Verses 3, 4 and 5 are four, four and three words each, and they run on from one another as one sequence, which helps.

The meaning takes longer, and longer here than in a surah of comparable length, because twenty-two of the twenty-three words differ from one another. A verse a day for five days, then a whole-surah pass, then a return a week later and again a month later is a realistic pace — the return visits are what actually decide whether it stays, which is what [spaced repetition for Quran memorisation](/blog/spaced-repetition-quran-memorization/) is about. SurahKids has Al-Fil with per-word audio, flashcards and quizzes on the words themselves, alongside the other 36 surahs of Juz Amma.

In the learning order, Al-Fil comes straight after [Surah Quraysh](/blog/quraysh/) — the reverse of the mushaf order, because Quraysh is the shorter of the pair — and before [Surah Al-Humazah](/blog/al-humazah/), which is nine verses and a change of subject. [The order to learn the short surahs](/blog/order-to-learn-short-surahs/) sets out the sequence and the reasoning, and [Surah Al-Asr](/blog/surah-al-asr-meaning/) is a good shorter companion to it.

## FAQ

### What is the meaning of Surah Al-Fil?

Surah Al-Fil asks whether you have seen how your Lord dealt with the Companions of the Elephant: He made their plan go astray, sent birds against them in flocks, striking them with stones of baked clay, and then made them like straw eaten up. Five verses, and all of it one question followed by its answer.

### What does "al-Fil" mean in English?

*Al-fīl* means "the elephant". The surah takes its name from the word ٱلْفِيلِ (*l-fīli*, "(of the) Elephant") at the end of verse 1, in the phrase "the Companions of the Elephant". The elephant is not mentioned again after that first verse.

### How many verses does Surah Al-Fil have?

Five, made up of twenty-three words in total. It is the 105th surah of the Quran and sits in the last section, Juz Amma, among the short surahs that are usually learned first.

### Why are Surah Al-Fil and Surah Quraysh read together?

Because Quraysh follows Al-Fil in the mushaf and opens with لِإِيلَـٰفِ (*liīlāfi*, "For (the) familiarity"), whose initial *lām* reads as connecting back to what came before. Many commentators therefore read Quraysh as continuing the sense of Al-Fil, and some reciters recite the two together. Both are still counted as separate surahs, and reciting either on its own is entirely ordinary.

### Is Surah Al-Fil easy to memorise?

It is one of the easier surahs, though not the easiest. Its five verses are short — the longest is seven words — but almost every word in it is different from every other, so there is less repetition to carry you than in An-Nas or Al-Asr. Most people get the sound of it quickly and need a few more passes for the meaning to settle.