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One of the greatest points of difference between Islam and Sikhism is the Islamic doctrine of al-Khatum an-Nabiyeen, or The Finality of Prophethood, which establishes that direct divine guidance from God came to a permanent end with the cessation of Muhammad’s (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) prophetic tenure.
This doctrine also distinguishes Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) from his prophetic predecessors in that, while their respective mission was restricted to their designated community, his was universally meant for the whole of mankind. For this reason, his message was, as mentioned in the following verse of the Qur’an, finalised and perfected by God:
In spite of this difference, however, Muslims believe that the fundamental tenets of Islam, revealed to and taught by all of God’s chosen emissaries, has consistently been one and the same, i.e. the oneness and true worship of Allah (Tawheed in Arabic).
But what differentiates a true prophet of God from a false one, i.e. one said to have actually spoken on God’s behalf via divine inspiration or revelation? One way in which we intend to hazard an answer, is by comparing the pre-prophetic life of Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak to that of Muhammad’s, and exploring any influence that might have contributed towards their eventual prophetic declaration.
One of the great scholars of Islam, Ibn Tamiyyah (d. 728 AH), mentioned the following distinction between a true Prophet and a false one:
Of course, all prophetic claims are predicated on some type of supernatural experience. In the case of the founders of Islam and Sikhism, respectively, these experiences are said to have been manifested as verbalisations of a personal communion with God, before being preserved as scripture of divine origin.
Unlike any other scripture we know of, the Qur’an contains the following unique falsification test, which seeks to prove its divine origin: The Challenge of Inimitability, where sceptics are simply asked to produce a chapter, in Arabic of course, exceeding the perfect structure of any of its 114 chapters (al-Kawthar, chapter 108, being the shortest with 3 verses and 10 words!). Historically speaking, even the most accomplished poets, who at the time of revelation were considered the apex of Arabic eloquence, failed to meet said challenge – a challenge which, we might add, remains unmet to this day!
Similar claims of inimitability have also been forwarded by some Sikhs, especially those who consider their scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib (GGS), to be ipsissima verba, or the very words of God; though nowhere near as systematically presented or as forcefully as the Muslims.
Hence, what this approach seeks to determine, is whether there exists a plausible naturalistic explanation for the prophetic ministries affirmed by both parties, and, by extension, how this might impact on the divine origin of each respective scripture.
Prophet Muhammad’s Unprivileged Educational Upbringing
When we look to the historical accounts of both men, what we find is that Nanak received a very good education during his formative years at the hands of a number of local religious teachers of some prominence, and all during a time when illiteracy was an established norm.
In contrast, it is well known that Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) had no formal education to speak of, and was, thus, in the strictest definition of the word, an illiterate.
Literacy though was not the only significant difference of note; it was also the company they kept and were exposed to that requires exploring. In Muhammad’s (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) case, his interaction with those who might have had a perceived influence in this respect seems to amount to only two incidents in recorded history:
- The first involved his wife Khadeejah, who took him to see her Christian cousin, Waraqa bin Nawfal.
- The second occurred 27 years before Prophethood at the early age of 13 when, while on his way to Syria with his uncle Abu Talib, the party of two (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) unexpectedly encountered a monk by the name of George (often referred to in weak narrations as Buhaira), who is said to have recognised certain signs of Prophethood on the boy, which compelled him to successfully persuade the uncle to turn back home out of fear of a potential threat the community of Syrian Jews there might have posed his nephew’s safety.
Aside from this, we know of no other authentic reports that might serve as evidence of circumstances said to be conducive in sparking and shaping any pre-prophetic ideas. Now, if we can conclude anything at this early stage, it is that such encounters were an extreme rarity.
So Prophethood is comprised of various aspects of knowledge and action in which the Messenger must be characterized within them, for they are the most noble aspects of knowledge as well as the most noble of actions. – Ibn Taymiyyah
However, when sticking to the facts as they stand, what also becomes apparent is that these two incidents could hardly be less compelling in proving said contention.
Take the first report for instance. Not only was Waraqa a man of such advanced age that he had lost his sight, but also one who passed away a few days later. [2] More significantly, since this encounter occurred very soon after the Prophet’s first revelatory experience, it stands to reason that any suggestions of short-term nurturing, let alone long-term, would, of course, have been entirely out of the question.
As for the second, then there is no evidence of any further interaction between the two parties, or any credible reason to infer that such a brief encounter, 27 years before Muhammad’s prophecy (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him), had any lasting influence.
Yet, let us just say, for argument’s sake, that this could have influenced him. In such a case, the crucial question would be: what sort of impact would this have had on any future aspirations of prophecy? The answer is that no matter how insignificant, it simply would not be able to explain how a man of Muhammad’s (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) education could have produced a literary masterpiece as the Qur’an.
To put things as accurately as possible, this is a man who pointed all sceptics and adversaries directly to the Qur’an as both a divine miracle and the primary evidence of his prophetic claims. With the Qur’an’s self-referential perfection and its prophesying abject failure in meeting its challenge of inimitability, the implication would be: what is a plausible naturalistic explanation for this being a product of an illiterate?
Nanak’s Privileged Educational Upbringing
Comparing this to Nanak’s life, then here we have a man who, from an early age, attended school, while apparently being formally taught by experts (at least by the standards of his social class and milieu) of both Hinduism and Islam. Regarding the latter, then the accounts seem to suggest a coordinated and progressive form of learning. Hence, according to Harjinder Singh Dilgeer:
Though Kirpal Singh says “Nanak was of 7 years” [5] when the pandha (teacher) he was sent to “wrote for him landa alphabets, [6] which were then called sidhojnaia… [h]e completed his studies before long and acquired CONSIDERABLE knowledge of Hindu religion about which we learn from various allusions made in his hymns”. [7] (bold, capitalisation ours) Moreover, Harban Singh says that it was under this same “Pandit, Brijnath Shastri, the village scholar of classical lore”, that Nanak not only learned Sanskrit, but also “read with him the religious texts”. [8]
Now, believe it or not, Nanak was placed, thereafter, under the wing of a Muslim imam! Harban reveals:
While Kirpal adds:
It can be seen then, that Nanak, with all his suggested natural ability, was receiving a comprehensive education in a disciplined and well-organised schooling environment to the extent, says Dilgeer, that:
But, another factor, which would arguably be one of the most important in this context, given the major impact it would invariably have on Nanak’s perception of the world during those early formative years, is the strange company he chose to keep at such an age. In this regard, Kirpal reveals:
Harbans makes a similar observation:
This proclivity did not diminish either, even after his marriage, for so enamoured was he by these so-called holy men that, according to Kirpal, when not in their precious company, he became melancholy to the point of negligence in his role as breadwinner:
If these historical records are reliable, then not only was Nanak a naturally gifted boy and an exceptionally bright student who took full advantage of his privileged education to excel and surpass all others, but also appears to have been obsessed with the extracurricular activity of frequenting the gatherings of the “holy men” to obsessively engage in dialogue and learning.
For all intents and purposes, therefore, there is very good grounds in arguing for an entirely naturalistic explanation when it comes to Nanak, given that his formative years appear to have been tailor-made for anyone with Prophetic ambitions, in a way which cannot be attributed to Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him).
Divinely Inspired or Humanly Inspired Scripture?
There, then, exists the question of scriptural inimitability as mentioned above, which seems to further widen what already appears to be a gaping chasm between these two men’s claim of prophecy.
We have already stated how, despite zero formal education, Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) produced a literary masterpiece of unsurpassed excellence. This is not to say that attempts were not made in meeting the Qur’an’s challenge of inimitability; but, in light of the historical evidence before us, these attempts were dismissed out of hand. [17]
The same, however, is not true of Nanak and, for that matter, the subsequent Gurus who, in spite of all their prodigious collective learning, had their scripture replicated sufficiently well enough by rivals contemporaneous to them, and with similar such extensive education, to mount a serious challenge to their status as leaders (read out article: Gurus’ Family Feuds, for more information).
Conclusion
What good reasons, then, are there for believing in Nanak’s alleged supernatural experience, when everything from his early life points towards an entirely plausible naturalistic explanation? After all, for all his natural gifts, Nanak received, from a very early age, the best education his social status could afford him which, in conjunction with the exclusive life lessons he acquired interacting with “holy men” from across the religious spectrum of Punjab, would have provided him with all the necessary tools for fulfilling his prophetic objectives. Under such circumstances, should it come as any surprise to learn that after having gone missing for three days, Nanak eventually reappears claiming to have been in communion with God?
Before answering, let us briefly recall and contrast his pre-prophetic life against that of Muhammad’s (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) – a man who, contrary to Nanak, had not only received absolutely no formal education whatsoever, but, despite being nurtured in an environment where pre-Islamic poets were recognised and celebrated for their literary brilliance and achievements, was not known for having any interest in such things, let alone displaying any such literary aptitude.
In fact, while his reputation as an honest and truthful man was universally acknowledged by his people, academically it was entirely the opposite. On these grounds alone, a naturalistic explanation simply fails to adequately explain how such an individual could have produced a verbal source articulated piecemeal over 23 years, whose sum total undermined the entire institution of Arabic poetry and anything the poets had managed until then, before setting a benchmark of absolute eloquence that would remain unmatched and unchallenged.
Despite his opponents being left flummoxed over the origin of his hitherto unfathomable new abilities, it did not stop them from speculating. Following the initial stage of crude ad hominem attacks employed by some of his more vitriolic foes, which included name calling, such as “mad-man” and “sorcerer”, more refined, though no less desperate, accusations began to materialise, including one allegation that Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) was receiving instructions and being coached by a complete outsider. The Qur’an defends against this allegation by arguing that “the tongue of the man they” – these antagonists – “refer to is foreign, while this (Qur’an) is clear, eloquent Arabic speech” (Qur’an 16:103). In other words, the very argument itself, which to our mind is the strongest argument they levelled against the Prophet re the sources of the Qur’an, was self-defeating, since it fully undermined the eloquence of the very poetry they were so proud of, by contending that a non-Arab had bested it, while all the while tacitly recognising the eloquence of their rival.
As for Nanak, then there appears to be very little mystery surrounding the high literary language used by him in formulating the hymns now found in the GGS. As eloquent as he evidently was, there appears to be nothing otherworldly about his rhetorical, oratorical and literary skills. Instead, we have very good grounds for believing that he was a highly intelligent individual who took full advantage of his exceptional educational circumstances to eventually carve out and portray a role he connected to the divine.
[1] A.H.M. Farooq (2015), Ibn Taymiyyah’s Discussion on the Genuine Nature of the Prophet, (The Salafi Masjid; accessed: Mar 12, 2016).
[2] Narrated ‘A’isha:
– Bukhari, vol. 1, 1.3.
[4] H.S. Dilgeer (2010), Sikh History – 1 Ancient Punjab & Guru Period (1000 O.E. – 1708 C.E.), (Singh Brothers, Amritsar), p. 109.
[5] Fn. 12: The Vilayatvali, the Miharban and the Bala janamsakhis say that Nanak was sent for schooling at the age of 7. Mani Singh janamsakhi refers to child Nanak being of 5 years then. The age of seven years to begin schooling seems more correct.
[6] Fn. 16: It was the general practice to learn Sharda in the hilly region of Punjab and landa script in the plains of Punjab. Some traders make use of this script even in modern rimes. Mani Singh janamsakhi says that the padha taught the Guru.
[7] K. Singh (2004), Janamsakhi Tradition – An Analytical Study, (Singh Brothers, Amritsar), pp. 57-8.
[8] H. Singh (1969), Guru Nanak and Origins of the Sikh Faith, (Asia Publishing House, Bombay), p. 74.
[9] H. Singh (1969), Guru Nanak and Origins of the Sikh Faith, (Asia Publishing House, Bombay), pp. 74-5.
[10] K. Singh (2004), Janamsakhi Tradition – An Analytical Study, (Singh Brothers, Amritsar), p. 58.
[11] H.S. Dilgeer (2010), Sikh History – 1 Ancient Punjab & Guru Period (1000 O.E. – 1708 C.E.), (Singh Brothers, Amritsar), p. 110.
[12] Fn. 23: The Vilayatvali Janamsakhi says: “he held discourses with the faqirs.” The Puratan (p. 8, App. 4) and the Mani Singh (p. 47, App. 331) versions say: “as a saint came, he would bring him home and warmly serve him.”
[13] K. Singh (2004), Janamsakhi Tradition – An Analytical Study, (Singh Brothers, Amritsar), p. 60.
[14] H. Singh (1969), Guru Nanak and Origins of the Sikh Faith, (Asia Publishing House, Bombay), p. 80.
[15] Fn. 33: Vilayatvali Janamsakhi records: “he felt interested in nothing, cared not for home.” “Members of the family said that he goes about with the faqirs” (Puratan Janamsakhi, p. 8 of App., J.S.P.). The Miharban account (p. 70 of App.) says: “as he got married, he maintained silence, spoke nothing.” “Then he stopped talking and developed indifference towards household life. The mind of Guru Nanak did not show concern for worldly matters.”
[16] K. Singh (2004), Janamsakhi Tradition – An Analytical Study, (Singh Brothers, Amritsar), p. 62.
[17] The exegete Ibn Kathir records:
Musaylamah said: “Woe unto you ‘Amr. What was revealed unto your friend – meaning Allah’s Messenger – during this period”
‘Amr replied: “I heard his companions reading a short but great Surah.”
He asked, “And what was that?”
He recited: (By Al-‘Asr (the time). Verily, man is in loss.) (103:1-2) until the end of the Surah.
Musaylamah thought for a while and then said: “Something similar to that was also revealed to me.”
‘Amr asked: “And what is it?” He then recited: “‘O Wabr, O Wabr! You are only two ears and a breast. The rest of you is hollow.’ What do you think ‘Amr?”
‘Amr then said: “By Allah, you know that I know that you are a liar.”
This was a statement made by an idolator in judgment of Musaylamah. He knew Muhammad and his truthfulness. He also knew Musaylamah and his tendency toward falsehood and lying. People who think and have insight know even better. (bold ours)
– S. Abdul-Rahman (2012), Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Part 11 of 30: at-Tauba 093 to Hud 005, (MSA Publication Ltd, London), p. 70.
These tricks are still used by christian evangelist, liberal seculars and spiritualists etc. They are never willing to discuss very core of reality. Straightaway they jump to moral values and present issues of society . Not willing to discuss who the creator is , why He created and wat does He want from mankind. Even if u go to school first they build the foundation of kids. Without foundation there is no knowledge, it’s all feelings and guesswork. Philosophy is the weapon of insincere and scammer. Outward respect shown is just a marketing strategy
Satwinder Singh, so nice of you to try and divert attention away from Nanak. Given that you haven’t done anything to respond to the arguments I’ve put forth above, do you concede that there was nothing remotely supernatural about Nanak’s alleged divine inspiration/ revelation?
In any case, let’s move on to addressing your arguments for what they’re worth…
Why dont you write an article about the naturalistic supernatural origins of prophet Muhammad which explores his contact with the devil as stated in your tasfirs and hadith – https://sunnah.com/bukhari/58/17
https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=1&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=22&tAyahNo=52&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2
And what’s the actual argument you’re putting forth here?! Why should we explore that? What are you trying to say? What are you trying to prove?
In any case, as a human being, our Prophet (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) was susceptible to trials and tests as any other human being. In fact, Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) informed us that the most severely tested among mankind were the Prophets – https://sunnah.com/urn/1291230. But, not only did they pass the test with flying colours, they came out stronger as a result, and set an example for their followers to follow if encountering any similar tests.
Also, you mention Muhammad’s minimal influence from Waraqa after the so called revelation. Why dont you explain how a so called prophet needed guidance from a Christian rather from God Himself or his angel?
Well, you haven’t demonstrated HOW he needed this guidance at the expense of God. After his encounter with Waraqah, did the angel never appear to him thereafter; and if he did, was the angel ignored in favour of Waraqah? No!
Explain how Gabriel instructed Muhammad to read when as an angel he should have known this and would not have to advise him to do so due to prior knowledge (let me guess, iqra means recite, not read hahahaha)?
Well, rather than just taking things out of context, perhaps the answer lies in the Surah itself from which this word belongs, i.e. rather than just reading or reciting, he is told to recite in the name of his Lord, and not just read for the sake of reading. In other words, there exists a plausible alternative explanation to the one you’re intimating.
Explain how according to Bukhari (link below), Muhammad was so grieved by Waraqa’s death that he seriously contemplated suicide on more than one occasion – https://sunnah.com/bukhari/91/1
Why did Gabriel “reveal” itself to Muhammad during when he had the intention of jumping off the top of a mountain?
And finally, how can a man become suicidal when he has just been told by a Christian kuffar that his “revelations” involved contact with Gabriel (same as Moses) and should not be of concern? Surely, if any other religious person heard this, they would be inspired rather than suicidal.
Ah; the old suicide argument. To cut a long refutation short, you can refer to the following links:
1) https://islamqa.info/en/answers/152611/the-reports-which-suggest-that-the-prophet-blessings-and-peace-of-allah-be-upon-him-contemplated-suicide-are-flawed-in-both-their-chains-of-narration-or-their-texts
2) https://www.call-to-monotheism.com/does_prophet_muhammad_s_contemplation_of_suicide_disprove_his_prophet_hood__assuming_he_did__
Looking forward to your response as usual.
Satwinder, you really need to do better than that. How about defending your Guru now. Looking forward to your response to that (though not holding out much hope)!
Mohammed if enlighten by God why don’t write his verses by himself. Even his works were compiled by Muslims two centuries afterwards. How we are sure that kuran is same as revealed by Mohammed. He after visiting many Christian cities and meetings Christian people brought almost the same thing to Arab. What is extraordinary in that. Anyone at his place could have done that
Thanks for your message.
Firstly, assuming you’re referring to the Qur’an when you say “his works”, then it is simply false Sandip to claim that the Qur’an was compiled two centuries afterwards. Sikhs, like yourself, really have to understand that no serious scholar, Muslim or otherwise, entertains such an idea, with the volume of manuscript evidence we possess that dates from the early first century. If you’d like to learn more about how overwhelming the evidence is for this, then I’d refer you, as a start, to the following section: The Qur’anic Manuscripts.
Now, we are as certain that the Qur’an we have in our hands is the same that was revealed to and dictated by Prophet Muhammad (saw) to his many followers for 20 years – a Qur’an that was recited by 1000s every day, 5 times a day, in congregation at the communal mosque – as we are that if this same question was posed to you Sikhs to prove that the SGGS you have today is the same as was revealed to your Gurus, you would not be able to prove it anywhere near as convincingly as us Muslims. The secret to our claim, you ask? Mutawaatir. Mutawaatir is the mass transmission of information by so many people that the chances of them coming together to create a lie or just make things up is virtually zero.
Unlike the SGGS, the Qur’an, from the very beginning, was committed to both memory not just by Prophet Muhammad himself, but his followers too, who themselves were ordered to commit what they had heard and memorised in the form of writing. They were encouraged to learn and memorise and utilise the Qur’an in their 5 daily prayers. The Qur’an was fully written down BEFORE the Prophet’s death. It was then COMPILED into a single folio within barely two years after his death, when Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, ordered the Qur’an to be compiled through both oral witnesses and through written material, by a committee of learned companions that was headed by Zaid ibn Thabit. Nothing like this process exists in Sikhism. You know it, we know it, and anyone else who has looked into both religion’s history, knows it.
As for your claim that he “brought almost the same thing” from the Christians to the Arabs, then where’s your evidence for this claim? Did he copy the Christians in their belief in the Trinity? No! How about in their claim that Jesus died and was resurrected? No! How about in St. Paul? No!
What is extraordinary is how Sikhs like yourself can make empty claims and believe such fanciful ideas.
We would recommend that you put aside your life long prejudice, be sincere in your pursuit for the truth, and ask Allah to guide you to it. Insha’Allah, He is the all-Hearing, the One who guides the sincere.
Thanks again.
The original Damdami Bir(sri guru granth sahib) was written in front of and checked by sri guru gobind singh himself, sikhs had it in their possession until 1984, where it was stolen or destroyed by indian army during attack on holiest Sikh gurudwara Sri Darbar Sahib Harmandir sahib.
The Qur’an was checked by Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace) himself before he passed away. The Muslims didn’t have to wait two centuries later for someone claiming to contain his light/soul (jyot) to check the veracity of the scripture he left behind. It was sealed and delivered to them during their Prophet’s life time.
This comment of your show your ignorance about Islam. The Holy Quran was indeed written during the time of companions and it was memorised by them during the time of our Beloved Holy Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu’alaihi’wassalam)!
Biggest garbage website in the world. You should thank your Muslim ancestors for having a small statue of Guru Nanak in Mecca.
Really? Where?! This’ll be world news!
Salaam bro how to counteract sikhs saying guru nanak turned the kabah, they said that makkah was under ottoman rule following hanafi fiqh and it was allowed then for nanak to enter. How to counteract this? They also say there was historical evidence of nanak shrine in jeddah and his shoes in makkah but the whabbis came and destroyed it. They also say it was tajuddin eye witness who recorded this and ruknuddin and one more, can’t remeber. They say it was found by pritipal singh (a syed who converted to sikhi) . Please answer this .
JAZAKH ALLAH KHAYR
Wa ‘alaikum asalaam,
Mohammad, some of what you’ve mentioned has been partly covered in our refutation of the Qadianis:
– Refuting Faruq’s ‘Janab Guru Nanak Ji awr Islam’
– Uncloaking Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Guru Nanak
Let’s split your question up into two parts: 1) miracle, 2) Nanak’s entry into Makkah.
1) As for this miracle, then this rests upon a claim. So the first thing to do, before looking at anything else, is to look at the person this miracle is being attributed to. Does this person possess the characteristics of being truthful and reliable? Well, in this case, we have shown that Guru Nanak’s belief in God is established upon falsehood, since he attributed logical contradictions to Him. Since logical contradictions are false, he cannot be a man approved of God.
From the beliefs of Ahlus Sunnah is that, while a mu’jizah (miracle) can only occur at the hands of Allah’s true Messengers and Prophets, this means that this type of divine intervention ceased after Prophet Muhammad’s death (sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam), because he was the last of the Prophets.
However, extraordinary events can happen for some people thereafter. But there’s a distinction to be made. We know that there are two types of such events: 1) ones that take place at the hands of Allah’s awliyya (Allah’s righteous servants), which are true karamaat (miracles); 2) those that take place at the hands of awliyyah ash-shaytaan (servants of the devil), e.g. the extraordinary events that will take place at the hands of al-Masih ad-Dajjal – the anti-Christ.
In the case of Nanak, who we’ve been told did these extraordinary events, we don’t need to look into the historical veracity of the claim, because we have demonstrable evidence that he attributed falsehoods to God; thus, he’s from the awliya ash-shaytaan; and thus, any extraordinary events attributed to him do not absolve him of his lies against Allah.
2) As for Nanak’s entry into Makkah, then historically it’s possible that he did tour the Middle East. There’s no way of disproving that he, or any other non-Muslim for that matter, could NOT have entered Makkah, especially when he was disguised, which, according to the Janam Sakhis (biographies attributed to Nanak), he apparently was; and when there was no strict border controls. Hence, there’s no reason for us to argue that he couldn’t have. The more important question is: So what if he did?
Even if, for arguments sake, we grant that he went to Iraq/ Iran, and managed to influence a few gullible ones along the way, does that prove he’s a person upon the truth? No.
As such, this should not be our primary focus when giving da’wah to Sikhs. If it was, we would have published articles against the Sikhs questioning the historical veracity of these claims. But we haven’t, because there’s very little wisdom in giving this approach any type of real legitimacy when it comes to da’wah. The only time we have is only against the Qadianis, in order to that the sources they rely upon in claiming Nanak was a Muslim do not so much support them as expose them.
Allahuta’ala ‘alam wa barakAllahu feek.
Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh akhi. I belong to a Sikh family but do not consider myself as a part of the religion anymore. I’ve just came across your website some time back but I’ve been doing my best to gain the best knowledge of the Deen of ALLAH (subhanau wa’tala) since a very very long time. I myself was wondering about how can a man displace the Ka’ba (even in an illusion as the Sikhs claim it to be) so after pondering a lot my mind halted on some questions:
1. How can a man who claims to be a man of GOD tell people that he was able to move the Ka’aba by the direction of his feet, the beloved place to GOD?
2. Who was the eye-witness of this so-called miracle of Nanak?
3. As the Sikhs claim that it wasn’t real but an illusion made by Nanak that was only apparent to Nanak and the Muslim man who was moving his feet to the other directions, so by this claim can we say that:
i) Nanak wasn’t really a man of GOD because no man of GOD would put anyone into a delusion.
ii) What’s the proof that Nanak hadn’t used Sihr [magic] on that man to think that the Ka’ba was moving in those directions?
iii) Where was Mardana (the so-called Muslim disciple of Nanak at that time)? And why wasn’t he offended by the fact that Nanak was putting another fellow Muslim into such a nonsensical [state of] illusion?
As I said I’m still learning about Islam, so I’ve came up with the upcoming questions, according to what I’ve read and researched from notable sites like IslamQA and other websites known to be Sahih.
4.
i) It isn’t Haram in Islam to point the feet or turn the back towards Qibla i.e., the direction of Ka’ba.
ii) Muslims literally use to touch the roof and walls of Ka’ba with their feet when climbing on its roof to give Adhan (a notable example would be Bilal radiALLAHU ‘anahu) and even today when changing the Qiswa of Ka’ba it does get touched by the feet of many.
iii) I’ve read somewhere that Hakim ibn Hizam (radiALLAHU ‘anhu) was born inside the Ka’ba. Even though it was before Islam but there was no objection raised against his mother as to why she gave birth inside the Ka’ba. When:
A. The Pagans of that time also considered Ka’ba as the house of their deities. So they could’ve easily stopped her from birthing inside, yet they did not.
B. There were people present in those times who knew that Ka’ba was built by Ibrahim (‘Alheyi salam), was a holy site and was the house of ALLAH (azzwajal). Yet no one stopped her.
C. Even after Islam came, no one raised a single word against the mother of ibn Hizam (radiALLAHU’anahu) for birthing her son inside Ka’ba.
So keeping in mind the above facts, we can conclude that IT IS NOT HARAM TO POINT THE FEET TOWARDS THE K’ABA, OR EVEN TOUCH THE K’ABA WITH THE FEET (obviously without any evil intention) OR TO TURN THE BACK AGAINST IT.
Why wouldn’t a Muslim man, literally in Saudi and that too in Mecca, be aware of all these things and go to a man who’s sleeping far away from the Ka’ba and throw his feet to all directions instead of just minding his own business like everyone else there?
Last but not the least. If it was really blasphemous to do that, why didn’t a huge crowd gather around Nanak and that man, and then decide to throw him out of the city (there’s no mention of anyone else except Nanak and that man in the whole story)? And why didn’t that man also become a devotee of Nanak and roam around the planet with him if he really experienced a miracle from a man of GOD?
If you found this to be helpful for the sake of ALLAH (azawajal) please make du’a for me and both of my parents to be guided to the Deen of THE LORD OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTHS AND WHATEVER IS BETWEEN THEM, to the Siraatal Mustaqeem and become HIS sincere slaves.
Wa ‘alaikum asalaam wa rahmathullahi wa barakatuhu,
What a wonderfully insightful comment, mash’Allah.
I ask Allah to make this heavy on your scales on the Day of Judgement. I also ask the Lord of Ka’bah to guide your parents to the truth of al-Islam and open their hearts to the truth.
Wa salaam
Any pdf of guru granth??
Not that we’re aware of.