Alam yajAAal kaydahum fee tadleel (surah Al Fil: 2)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(105:2) Did He not bring their plan *3 to naught? *4

Alam yaj`al kai dahum fee tad leel

*3) The word kayd is used for a secret plan meant to harm somebody. The question is, what was secret in this case? Sixty thousand troops together with several elephants had openly come from Yaman to Makkah, and they had kept no secret that they had come to destroy the Ka`bah. Therefore, there was nothing secret about this plan. However, what was secret was the motive of the Abyssinians. They by destroying the Ka`bah, crushing down the Quraish and intimidating the Arabians, wanted to take control of the trade route that led from south Arabia to Syria and Egypt. This motive they kept hidden, and instead proclaimed their intent that they wanted to destroy the Ka`bah., the principal House of Arab worship, in retaliation for the pollution of their cathedral by the Arabs.
*4) Literally, fi tadlil means: "led their plan astray", but idiomatically leading a plan astray means bringing it to nought and rendering it fruitless. At one place in the Qur'an, it has been said: "But the disbelievers' plot (kayd) ended' in vain." (AI-Mu'min: 25), At another: "And that Allah does not lead to success the plan (kayd) of deceivers." (Yusuf: 52). The Arabians described Imra' ul-Qais by the epithet of "al-malik ad-dalil " (the king who lost and wasted), for he had lost the kingdom left by his father.