Ababil (mythology) VS Abath

Ababil (Arabic: أبابيل‎, romanized: abābīl) means a flock of birds. It refers to the miraculous birds in Islamic belief mentioned in Sura 105 of the Quran that protected the Kaaba in Mecca from the Aksumite elephant army of Abraha, then self-styled governor of Himyar, by dropping small clay stones on them as they approached. In the translation of sahih international, the phrase "tayran abābīl(a)"(طَيْرًا أَبَابِيلَ) is translated as "Birds in flocks" that is mentioned in the verse 105:3. The event is said to have occurred in 570, the year that the Islamic prophet Muhammad was born.

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An Abath is a legendary creature resembling a unicorn, first appearing in records in the 16th century. Accounts of the Abath were brought back by 16th-century European travellers to the Malay Peninsula. Described as female, with a single horn growing from its forehead, it is speculated that these were probably the result of a half-glimpsed Javan or Sumatran rhinoceros. Like the unicorn, a powder made from this horn supposedly served both as an aphrodisiac and as an antidote to poison. However, since the unicorn was invariably represented as male, and since there was only ever one in existence at any time, the Abath seems to have developed independently from the European myths of the one-horned creature.

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