By the order of Abraha, King of Habasha, one of his army commanders launches an attack on Mecca in order to destroy the Kaaba. He leads a well-equipped force of thousands of soldiers, horses and elephants. As the army approaches Mecca, the elephants respond to divine order by halting and refusing to continue. Millions of small birds then release a hail of stones onto Abraha's forces and the army is annihilated. A month later, Muhammad is born. The film depicts pre-Islamic Arabia as seen through the eyes of Muhammad from birth to the age of 13.[1]

The time before Muhammad’s revelation is known in Arabic as the Jahiliyya, usually translated as the Age of Ignorance. According to Fred Donner, a historian at the University of Chicago, “The Islamic account of the Jahiliyya is a saga of unrelieved paganism, which emphasizes the difference between the darkness of unbelief and the light that Islam brought to Arabia.”