Uncloaking Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Guru Nanak

Contents

Introduction

The boldest and most grotesque lie uttered by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiani (1839-1908CE), the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, was undoubtedly his claim to being the promised messiah of the Jews, Christians and Muslims. Of course, this and similar such claims, including his proclamation of Prophethood, were incontrovertibly rejected by Muslims the world over who excommunicated him from the folds of Islam and unanimously declared him to be a Dajjal, literally ‘an imposter’ or false Prophet. [1]

Ghulam Ahmad, however, paid little mind to these reactions. Instead, as he forged ahead to fabricate ever more elaborate arguments to desperately prove his stance and maintain his hold on the gullible few who had fallen victim to his falsehoods, Ahmad himself fell victim to the proverb ‘a lie begets a lie’. It was in this context that he concocted one particular argument which alleged that the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, was never a Sikh, but a Hindu who converted to Islam and lived his life as a devote Muslim. To corroborate this, Ahmad managed to scrape together artefacts attributed to Nanak which he would later present as tenuous evidence in support of his case. Ever since then, the Ahmadiyya, who are also called Qadianis/ Qadiyanis or Qadianiyya, have been obsessed in defending and promoting this argument as positive evidence of their messiah’s claim to prophethood.

This entire line of inquiry was summed up below by Ahmadiyya apologist, Naeem Osman Memon:

But there are problems with this argument that warrant highlighting. The first involves his use of the ambiguous terms “allegiance” and “close association” which are simply too vague for arguing that having “allegiance to Islam” or “close association with Islamic institutions” proves Nanak’s Muslim identity.

Secondly, the word “Islam” is also too loose a term for the author to convincingly assert that Nanak’s allegiance to Islam and close association with Islamic institutions has been accepted by historians the world over. The term represents such a plethora of inter- and intra-sectarian beliefs and ideologies – many of which are diametrically opposed – that to claim allegiance to the religion of Islam requires that one firstly determine the type of Islam being referred to. This can only be done by firstly defining the term carefully.

Thirdly, it is important to understand why Memon curiously references (Fn. 6) a late nineteenth century work titled: Dictionary of Islam, as evidence as opposed to one that is more up-to-date. The reason is because this dictionary was first cited for the very same reason by none other than Ghulam Ahmad himself in his treatise, Satt Bachan (Seven Statements). But, as we shall come to show, had the pair read this source with due care and diligence, they would have realised that it actually stands as evidence against them rather than for them.

There is then the occasion of Nanak’s apparent pilgrimage to Mecca that is repeated ad nauseam. Take, for instance, The Official Website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as an example:

Finally, there is the “careful study of Sikh traditions”, which the Qadiani Prof Abdul Jaleel assures, “lead to an irrefutable conclusion that Guru Nanak discarded the Hindu doctrines and assimilated the teachings of Islam to such an extent that Sikhism, in its pristine form, can be looked upon as a sect of Islam”. [10]

In short then, the Ahmadiyya’s claim rests essentially on two grounds:

The purpose of this paper will, therefore, not be to disprove Nanak’s Muslim identity from a theological perspective (this has been achieved in our article: Guru Nanak was NEVER a Muslim), but critically dissect this century-old argument from an historical point of view so as to determine whether it rests on empirically well confirmed assumptions or mere conjecture.

Guru Nanak’s Hagiographies (Janam Sakhis)

Before this, it will be helpful to provide an historical overview of what are known as Janam Sakhis (henceforth abbreviated JS) in the Sikh tradition that Ghulam Ahmad relied so heavily on as proof. Prof William Hewat McLeod, a man who has courted significant controversy despite being described as “the leading scholar of Sikh history and religion in the Western world” by some, [11] defined these as follows:

The janam-sakhis are properly defined not as biographies of Guru Nanak, but as hagiographic accounts of his life. They are tradition in precisely the same sense as the Hadith, and although they lack some of the features associated with their Muslim counterpart they have nevertheless developed in response to the same impulses, and in a less formalized manner they have fulfilled much the same role within their parent community. [12]

It is important to highlight, however, that unlike the hadith tradition in Islam, which developed and perfected from a very early period a robust and airtight methodological system for authenticating traditions attributed to Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him), the janam sakhi tradition was recorded with far less care and attention to veracity.

In any case, for what they are worth, then Dr Kirpal Singh, who published a number of works on these hagiographic accounts, stated:

The Janamsakhis are of four kinds:

According to Kirpal, while the Bala JS is the “most popular”, the Puratan is evidently older. [14] Moreover, like the Bala version, the Puratan too has a number of manuscripts associated to it. As Jagpal Tiwana delineated, these include:

Specifically regarding the Colebrooke JS, Kirpal believed its compilation date to be 1634CE:

McLeod on the other hand was slightly more hesitant than Kirpal vis-á-vis its date. In his estimation:

And though Tiwana also held the Puratan tradition to be “older than the Bala Janamsakhi”, he too acknowledged “some dispute about the origin of the puratan janamsakhi date. Kirpal Singh insists that it was written [in] 1634, but Kahn Singh Nabha followed by Khushwant Singh and Gopal Singh claim that it was written in the last quart of the 16th century (1588) by Sewa Das. McLeod does not give an exact date, but puts it in time of Guru Arjan, ‘Its language and gram[m]atical constructions show that this janam sakhi must have bee[n] written around the time of the compilation of Adi Guru Granth Sahib.’ This was also the time when Meharban Janamsakhi and Bhai Gurdas’s first Var were written”. [18] Despite his reluctancy in hazarding a guess at an exact date, McLeod not only believed the Bala version to have “first emerged during the middle decades of the seventeenth century”, but emphatically declared that “there can be no doubt that they represent an intermediate stage in the evolution of the form, and that others are accordingly more significant in terms of age and simplicity of structure”. Yet, even “the ‘Sceptical’ historian in McLeod” [19] was forced to concede: “The claim that the Puratan version represents the oldest of all extant accounts may perhaps be accurate. It is certainly disputable, but the possibility must be acknowledged.” [20]

More recently, western-based scholar, Prof Gurinder Singh Mann, has contested the currently accepted mid-seventeenth century date of the Puratan version. Toby Braden Johnson has noted that Mann “presented evidence of Puratan manuscripts dating from the late 1580s at a conference in 2009 at the University of California, Santa Barbara, which call into question the full extent of Guru Nanak’s travels in the second stage of the janam-sakhi narrative”. [21] In this respect, Mann offers the following chronological sequence for these janam sakhis:

On the whole, while it is true that research on the janam sikhi tradition is far from finalised, there nonetheless exist a significant number of Sikh and non-Sikh academics who hold the Puratan tradition to be older than Bala’s. Moreover, despite Bala’s popularity, the former slowly but surely gained ascendency over the latter, at least among scholars, as the most authoritative and credible version. As McLeod recognised:

There, then, exists an additional problem with the Bala version highlighted by the prominent non-Sikh historian, Hari Ram Gupta:

This claim requires scrutiny since it is on this basis that some have boasted of it being the “original janam-sakhi”. [27] In this regard, McLeod revealingly elaborates:

However, Kirpal, McLeod and other academics almost all dismiss any notion of the Bala JS having been written BEFORE the compilation of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS) in 1604 CE. As Kirpal explained:

And as cited above, not only did McLeod hold that this tradition “first emerged during the middle decades of the seventeenth century”, but also reached the same conclusion as Kirpal observing:

What is more, in Kirpal’s opinion: “Compared to the Vilayatwali text, its [Bala’s] language is of [a] much later period.” [34] Gupta agreed mentioning: “Its language is not the Panjabi of Guru Nanak’s time, but of the later period.”

In fact, Gupta went further by giving several reasons why said hagiography could not have been penned down during Guru Angad’s Guruship (1563-1606 CE). For one, he argued that it was not possible for it to have been recorded at the behest of and read out to Angad in 1525 CE, 14 years before Guru Nanak’s death, because significantly: “At that time Guru Angad had not come into contact with Nanak.” [35] McLeod made similar allusions: “The date of the alleged encounter between the two (A.D. 1525) must also arouse some suspicion. Nanak died in A.D. 1538 or 1539.” [36] Gupta additionally furnishes three strong reasons to further support his contention of it having been written “after 1650”:

Notwithstanding these persuasive arguments, there exists an equally compelling reason, proposed and accepted by a number of scholars, which raised serious doubt over its traditionally accepted authorship. McLeod explained:

This becomes all the more convincing when one pairs it with Kirpal’s equally compelling argument which maintained that although it was “written in the Bala text that Bhai Bala … was the Guru’s friend of childhood”, not only was such a claim “not supported by any other source”, but more significantly while Bhai Gurdas made mention of Nanak’s very well-known bard and life-long companion Mardana, “Bhai Bala does not figure anywhere”. Kirpal further points out:

Thus, based on the evidence currently available to them, many Sikh and non-Sikh scholars have given much less importance to the Bala JS in comparison to the Puratan. McLeod astutely recognised:

As such, he considered the Bala version to be “the least trustworthy of ALL the janam sakhi traditions. Errors of fact occur with considerable frequency and the fabulous material which it incorporates far exceeds that of the other janam sakhis, both in quantity and in degree” (bold, capitalisation ours). [42] While Kirpal collated:

With a more nuanced understanding of where we stand vis-á-vis the Bala JS and its historical standing within the scholarly circles, we are now in a better position to continue with our evaluation.

Ghulam Ahmad’s Infatuation with Nanak

Ghulam Ahmad was essentially a product of an environment during “[t]he last two decades of the nineteenth century”, which, says Aslam Syed, “witnessed some of the most violently contested debates on religion between Hindus and Muslims”. [45] In this respect, Iqbal Singh Sevea states:

In addition, it was “under the British regime [that] the Christian missions strongly attacked indigenous religions with the support of the colonial power”, observes Munir Ahmed. To counter these missionary activities, Ghulam Ahmad, “emulating the methods and strategies of the Western missionaries, [] challenged his opponents to open debates and published numerous prophesies in order to prove the superiority of Islam over other religions”. [47]

As to the threat of the Hindus, then in Syed’s view, this was no better exemplified than by Dayanand Saraswati (1824-1883), a man who “emerged as the champion of the Vedic traditions”; founded the extremist group “Arya Samaj”; and published his Satyarth Prakash (1875), a tract that “denigrated other religions, especially Islam”. Syed also highlights an example of interreligious violence that involved a devotee of Ahmad who killed Pandit Lekh Ram, [48] a follower of Saraswati who “started dharm yudh (religious war) against Muslims”, for using “abusive language” against his prophet during a debate. Syed further divulged: “Many times such events led to widespread violence.” [49]

Sevea also noted a threat towards Muslims “[w]ithin the context of the Punjab” where “Arya Samaj publications critiqued aspects of Islam and promoted the ‘reconversion’ of Muslims to Hinduism”. [50] And though “Ghulam Ahmad’s reliance on reasoned argument becomes especially apparent in his detailed attack on the Vedas and Arya Samaj teachings”, in Spencer Lavan’s view he employed an altogether different strategy against the Sikhs:

Yet, in his endeavour to counter the missionary activities of his opponents, Ahmad ended up taking extreme measures that rightly earned him the ire of the very religious community he apparently sought to defend after announcing his prophethood and pronouncing himself to be the long-awaited Messiah. Hence, of all the outlandish theories Ahmad invented in his desperate attempt at proving his heresies, arguably his most absurd was predicated on the assumption that the major religions had a divine origin while their respective founders were all true emissaries of God. He thus said:

As one would expect, the Ahmadiyya continue to propagate their messiah’s assertion that “Baba” Nanak was a Muslim. The problem is that there are two reasons why the term Muslim loses any real value and meaning when used by the Ahmadiyya.

The first is that despite there being only one valid model of Islam, its adherents, who represent the second largest religious community on the planet, comprise a diverse range of socio-cultural and -ethnic backgrounds made up of a plethora of sects and parties. Hence, Muslims are anything but a single monolithic bloc.

The second reason is that although they have shamelessly usurped and identified theselves as Muslims, Ghulam Ahmad and his movement were declared non-Muslims for rejecting Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) as the final Prophet of God and refusing to believe that divine revelation permanently ended with him.

Hence, if the term Muslim is being understood and applied in this case as a synonym for a Qadiani, then Nanak certainly cannot be called a Muslim in the orthodox sense of the word. And if, arguendo, Nanak is being identified with orthodoxy, then the question of what type of Muslim he was still remains to be answered. This question becomes all the more relevant when one realises that not only is this what the Ahmadiyya are contending, but also some naÏvely mistaken and arrogantly deluded Muslims too.

The Sufi Side of Guru Nanak

In fact, the Ahmadiyya’s contention in this respect has been altogether too ambiguous in that they either consider Nanak to be “a holy and pious man”, [53] as Ahmad did, or allude to him being a “Sufi”. For instance, Saleem Ahmad Malik proposed:

While Abdul Jaleel alleged:

But the problem now is that the term Sufi is just as loose as the term Muslim precisely because Sufism as a group is, like the rest of the Muslim world, far from being monolithic and uniform. Thus, labelling Nanak a Sufi does nothing to answer the question of what type of Muslim he was except shift the problem back one step to what kind of a Sufi he was.

Those who have endeavoured to study the varied opinions expressed vis-á-vis the possible source(s) of and potential influences on Nanak’s socio-political, -religious and ideological worldview, will know that the Ahmadiyya were neither the first nor the last in suggesting Sufism as an answer. In our case, however, it is imperative to identify any philosophical and ideological similarities between Nanak and any Sufi sects not just to ascertain the degree of influence had, but to also determine any degree of conformity with orthodox Islam.

Scholars are agreed that Nanak spent a considerable length of time during his early years of childhood in the company of Sufis including suggestions that he may have even been taught by one. For example, Prof Abdul Haq Ansari stated:

Prof Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi similarly advances:

The most convincing evidence, however, of a shared philosophy between Sufism and Nanakian thought is via the well-known thirteenth century Sufi, Khwaja Fariduddin Mas’ud Ganjshakar (d. 1265CE). Better known as Baba Farid or Sheikh Farid, this so-called mystic resided in the Punjab region of South Asia and belonged to the popular Sufi order called the Chishtis, or Chishtiyyah. What set him apart from other celebrated Sufi mystics, who shared similar beliefs and practices, was that 134 of his hymns (shabads) were chosen by Nanak for inclusion in what would later become the Adi Granth – Sikhism’s first compilation of a scriptural canon prepared by the fifth Guru, Arjan.

But what convinced Nanak to honour Baba Farid in this way? Was the reason as straightforward as a shared Islamic identity or is there more to this than the simplistic narrative so often parroted by the Ahmadiyya and some Muslims?

To correctly answer this question, including determining the true theological relationship between Nanak and his apparent predecessor Farid, it is essential to accurately understand not only the general introduction of Islam into Indian society and culture, but also more specifically the establishment and spread of Sufism throughout the country and especially the region of Punjab from where the pair originated.

Sufism’s Introduction to India

The introduction of Islam, or more accurately a particular version of it, into the rich and diverse society of India led to an inevitable syncretic fusion of socio-religious and -cultural norms. According to Prof Romila Thapar:

In the words of Prof Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, these “Indian Sufis followed, broadly speaking, the pattern of development that had evolved in Persia”. [59] And what evolved in Persia was, again broadly speaking, a form of heterodoxy that was clearly at odds with orthodoxy.

Hujjat Allah Javani delineates a number of prominent Sufi mystics below who were responsible for said introduction:

These controversial Sufis – from Bastami, Mansur Al-Hallaj, to Kaziruni, Hujwiri and other such characters – were all Persians in origin. It is, therefore, entirely understandable why Frederic Pincott, when discussing this subject in his entry on Sikhism in the Dictionary of Islam, correctly called the mystical and spiritual beliefs of “[t]he Persian conquerors of Hindustan” as “the Islamo-Magian creed” (bold, underline ours) before repeating:

Another important figure who influenced, to a smaller or larger extent, practically all Sufi orders was arguably the most controversial of them all – the Andalusian Sufi, Ibn ‘Arabi, of whom Prof Ira Lapidus said: “Apart from the Quran and hadith, the most important religious influence on Indian Islam was the teaching of Ibn al-‘Arabi and the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud, the unity of being.” [62] While in Burhan Ahmad Faruqi’s view:

When these heretical ideas came into contact with those of India, a mutation occurred whereby “[t]he amalgamation of Indian and Islamic mysticism evolved into new schools of Sufism different from those in Persia”. [64] This, continues Thapar, led to the following:

Consequently, this accretion not only led to the already considerable gap with orthodoxy to widen even further, but also opened the doors for these Sufi groups to justify compromising on and accommodating those theological beliefs of Hinduism that would, under normal circumstances, have necessarily been rejected by orthodox Islam. Prof Mushirul Haq gives an example of just such a compromise:

As for the region of Punjab, then Majid Ali Khan explains:

And while not forgetting the Chishtiyyah to whom Baba Farid Ganjshakar belonged, these groups were then guilty, to a greater or lesser degree, of slowly but surely spreading their poison across the region. Lapidus says in this regard:

There is then Baba Farid’s Sheikh, Khwaja Qutb-u’d-din Bakhtiyar Kaki (ob. 633 A.H./1235 A.D.), who, Prof Khaliq Ahmad Nizami says, “was a native of Aush which was a great centre of the Hallajis [69] and was considerably influenced by the Wujudi [70] doctrines”. [71]

Nizami further adds:

As Rizvi highlights, “the confrontation of the tantrics, sadhus and siddhas, represented in Persian works by the general term Yogis, and the Sufis became a familiar phenomenon in the thirteenth-century religious life in India” to the point that these lively day-to-day interactions invariably affected the thoughts and ideas of both parties:

In addition, he speaks of the “influence of Sufism on the various regional languages and dialects of northern India, then collectively known as Hindawi, [as] far-reaching” explaining:

Rizvi continues:

In light of all the above, what becomes apparent is that Sufism eventually carved out a unique identity for itself by successfully managing to adapt to its peculiar surroundings. In the northern region of the country where Nanak had entered his formative years during the latter half of the fifteenth century, Sufism had, as a collective order, firmly established itself as an influential religious movement.

Having, thus, provided a brief overview of Sufism’s introduction into India, the next stage is to better understand the specifics of the heresies that were taught by the likes of Baba Farid and many other Sufis, and how this relates back to Nanak.

The Heresies of the Sufis of India

In order to ascertain the type of Muslim Nanak is alleged to have been, it is vitally important to pinpoint the major doctrinal strands of Sufism that were carried over and propagated by those said to have been associated with the founder of Sikhism. In this respect, the most obvious person to begin with would have to be Baba Farid and the Chishtiyyah Sufi order he belonged to. As stated earlier, this order, similar to other parallel strands of Sufi orders in and around the vicinity of Punjab, was guilty of entertaining the Wujudi concept made famous by Ibn ‘Arabi. Ibn ‘Arabi himself was merely a cog, albeit a large one, in a movement that first arose a few centuries earlier and whose origin and evolution Rizvi details below:

To put it more lucidly, what Rizvi has outlined above only supports the contention that by the time Sufism found its way to India, it had already undergone radical and significant changes from the pure and pristine message originally presented by Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him); and Ibn ‘Arabi, of course, was a major contributor for said change:

Faruqi elucidates further on Ibn ‘Arabi’s innovated (bid’ah) concept of Wahdat-al-Wujud, which is also referred to by many Sufis as Tawheed al-Wujudi:

Rizvi thus concludes:

Again, reading between the lines, what Rizvi is implying by suggesting that Sufism passed beyond the range of the ordinary Muslim’s understanding is that it reached a state that bared little resemblance to the original. Hence, concepts alien to Islam à la the so-called Tawheed al-Wujudi were unsurprisingly denounced by the orthodox, as Rizvi acknowledges:

In fact, it is worth noting, as Faruqi does, that the concept of Tawheed al-Wujudi is so far removed from the realms of Islamic acceptability that even the famous Sufi jurist of the heterodox Naqshbandi Sufi order, Ahmad al-Sirhindi (d. 1624 CE), condemned it as blasphemy:

Thus, Faruqi concludes: “Wahdat-i-Wujud or unityism is not true, wujud or Being is not one, insists the Mujaddid.” [89]

Faruqi adds that even the celebrated Pakistani poet and philosopher, “Sir Muhammad Iqbal [90] also protested against Wahdat-i-Wujud of the mystics, gave Islamic morality a new spirit and preached life of Effort and Activity”. [91], [92]

It is also worth nothing Dr Adwaita Ganguly’s observation of the famous English novelist, E.M. Forster, who recognised, while reviewing Iqbal’s The Secrets of the Self (Asrar-I- Khudi), that “in broad terms” the “religious temperament” of the Muslims in India “has been influenced since the eleventh century onwards by two theories about the nature of God”. These included:

This last point regarding the pantheistic side of Sufism originating in Persia is also supported by Pincott who stated:

Hence, what ought to be beyond doubt is that Sufism cannot be traced as much back to the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as it can to Persia where Zoroastrianism once predominated. More specifically, the concept of pantheism and the notion of man’s potential of achieving spiritual union with God on a par with, or worse yet, greater than (as some Sufis have contended) the Prophets, has zero grounding in orthodoxy. And as Faruqi points out, it was this latter belief that dominated the spiritual pursuits of the Sufis and served as their modus operandi:

Their pantheistic conception of God and nature coupled with the belief that direct experience of the divine was not limited to the Prophets alone, but open to all and sundry – what Ganguly called “the doctrine of Divine universality” – and which ultimately led to them rejecting the fundamental dichotomy affirmed by the orthodox of dividing the world into the two basic categories: Muslims (believers) and non-Muslims (disbelievers). As indicated above, the sole reason for this dissolution was entirely down to the process of social accretion that saw the Sufis slowly assimilated into their surroundings, i.e. Hinduism. As Rizvi grants:

While Ganguly accurately opines:

Haq was, therefore, entirely correct in succinctly concluding: “The Sufis were of the opinion that the truth was found in every religion.” [104]

As to the shared idea of God’s universal love, then in this respect Hanif identifies a correspondence between Sufism and the Bhakti movement:

As a matter of fact, these “new trends”, as Rizvi designates them, went so far that “despite the opposition of the orthodox sections”, these Sufis “made Thakur, Dhani and Kartar”, non-Islamic names of the Deity, “synonymous with Allah. The sant and the Sufi terminologies became interchangeable and the term Sufi became coeval and coexistent with the term sant“ (bold ours).

Rizvi then makes mention of another figure closely associated to Sikhism:

Kabir is another saint whose writings (the authenticity of which are disputed) were included in the SGGS. In the above citation, it is not the question of Kabir’s Muslim identity that is of concern, but rather the irregular use of the very particular and concretised title muwahhid. The same term, reveals Ashraf Mirani, is used by “Khwaja Ya’qub, a son of Baba Farid, [who] defined it as follows:

What is apparent is that the fusion of beliefs, ideas and terminologies of the sants and Sufis inexorably led to the conceptual corruption of the term muhwahhid until it acquired a peculiarly odd definition that necessarily involved an affirmation of the notion of Tawhid al-Wujud.

Given that this title was applied to both Farid and Kabir, it is unsurprising to learn that some, including Rizvi, [109] held that “Guru Nanak belonged to this group of distinguished muwahhids, whose spiritual experience transcended the orthodox Hindu and Muslim idiom” [110] (bold, underline ours).

The conceptual comparisons are, in fact, so distinct that some Sikh academics openly accept, as Dr Manjit Singh Ahluwalia does, that not only had Sufism “profoundly influenced the Indian society and culture”, but also “influenced Sikhism more on practical side than on the side of its theoretical teachings”.

Ahluwalia also makes mention of the cultural crosspollination that occurred which included the interchangeable terminologies adopted by the Bhaktis and the Sufis:

He additionally notes:

Before quoting fellow Sikh, Tara Chand, who declared:

Western academics have also identified said syncretic relations. According to Prof Paul Courtright, “the origins of Guru Nanak’s thought and religious approach are a part of the Bhakti renaissance which swept Hindu India from the ninth to seventeenth centuries”. In this context, while he identifies, “in the broad sense, Sikhism … [to be] a syncretistic religion, because it stands geographically and historically in the running together of the rivers of Hinduism and Islam”, he nonetheless “dispel[s] the simplistic notion that Sikhism is a conscious syncretism or that it is primarily an attempt to reconcile Hinduism and Islam”.

In answering “the question of how and where Islam feeds into the development of Guru Nanak’s thought and the Sikhism of the Guru”, he turns to McLeod who “argues that Guru Nanak’s religion and that of Sikhism as a whole ‘is firmly embedded in the Sant tradition of Northern India in the beliefs of the so-called Nirguna Sampradaya’.” [112] Whether McLeod’s contention that Nanak and the Bhaktas, whose writings were included in the SGGS, were part of the Sant tradition or not is not relevant to our discussion. [113] What is of importance, however, is McLeod’s opinion that not only were “certain Muslim influences … mediated through the Sants”, but any “syncretism as there was with Islam, specifically Punjabi Sufism, had already gone on before Guru Nanak’s appearance”. As such:

The highlighted text is significant in accurately answering the underlying question that naturally arises when faced with any claim of Nanak’s alleged Muslim identity. Courtright adds:

Here again a distinction has been made by McLeod between conventional Islam, i.e. orthodoxy, and the Sufism that dominated in the region of Punjab. Courtright continues:

However, to “push this question farther and ask about the apparent similarities between Sufism and Guru Nanak”, Courtright suggests that according to McLeod, Sufi terminology for the ideas of “oneness of God, revelation in creation, God’s transcendence yet immanence, and the rejection of needless asceticism [which] can all be found both in Sufism and Guru Nanak”, and which “persuaded some scholars to think that Guru Nanak got these ideas from the Sufis… is conspicuously absent in Guru Nanak. Whenever a Sufi concept seems to be obvious in Guru Nanak, the language expressing the concept is not Sufi” (bold ours). McLeod is, thus, quoted as saying:

As a result: “Since we have already rejected Guru Nanak’s closer ties with Islamic tradition, it is a more convincing argument to see even the Sufi influences themselves mediated back through Bhakti sources into Guru Nanak’s thought.” [115]

Rizvi elaborates more specifically on the interconnected beliefs of the two groups stating:

Furthermore, resemblance between Nanak’s pursuit of the divine and the Sufis’ has again been acknowledged by Sikh scholars. In spite of McLeod’s reservations, Prof Surinder Singh Kohli, for example, provides a detailed comparison of not just key concepts, but also synonymous terminological titles for each one:

It is interesting to note that these two stages, viz. Nasut and Lahut, are an integral part of the Hallajiya (named after the Persian heretic, Mansur al-Hallaj) Sufi order’s mystical search for the divine. As Nizami reveals:

The doctrines of the Hallajiya order may be thus summarised:

As for the similarities between Nanak’s conception of God and the Sufi-Sants’, then Rizvi highlights:

But while Rizvi overlooks the peculiar beliefs of these so-called muwahhids vis-á-vis God, Prof Amritlal Shah better identifies these by stating that “almost all the Sufis have emphasised the essential unity of the universe and thereby questioned one of the most fundamental beliefs of Islam regarding the transcendent nature of God”. [121] What makes this point of vital importance is that orthodox Islam never expressed God’s essential nature as being both “immanent and transcendent”, but wholly transcendent.

Yet, despite the many strands of doctrines shared by both the Sufis and the sants, there remains the question of how to reconcile between claims of Sufism’s influence over Nanak and beliefs attributed to him that were unquestionably unIslamic. In fact, it is precisely this doubt that Courtright presents as “[a]nother reason for arguing against direct Sufi influence i[n] that some of Guru Nanak’s key concepts are in conflict with Sufism”. In this case:

Similarly, Anil Chandra Banerjee succinctly declares that “Nanak’s acceptance of the doctrines of Karma and transmigration separated him from the Sufis”. [122]

And while Rizvi too raises this issue, he proposes a somewhat vague reconciliation by suggesting:

The crucial point to grasp here is that Rizvi draws a clear line between those who affirm the doctrine of transmigration, which include the Sufis of this unknown “unorthodox school”, and those who do not – presumably the Sufis of the orthodox school. However, Rizvi’s attempt at associating transmigration to Rumi’s description of the spiritual ascent of man is a highly contested issue and far from settled. As a matter of fact, not only does Hanif disagree with such an assessment in his extensive Biographical Encyclopaedia of Sufis [in] South Asia, but only recognises a handful of Sufis in the region. [124]

Nevertheless, perhaps it is this obvious divide between the two belief systems that forces Rizvi to paradoxically assert that his “analysis of Guru Nanak’s teachings in the light of Sufi thought should not be construed as an assertion that the great Guru borrowed his thought from the Sufis. It indicates that Guru Nanak, through his own deep meditation, arrived at the same conclusions as had already been reached by Sufis, such as Rumi, Sa’di, ‘Iraqi, Jami and Hafiz”. [125] Yet, such an explanation seems to negate any possibility of social context having influenced Nanak’s conclusions, a factor Rizvi certainly seems to acknowledge elsewhere:

It is too simplistic an explanation to restrict Nanak’s conclusions to mere meditation alone when he was known to have frequently interacted with and been exposed to a variety of sources and materials that would have invariably had a profound impact in shaping his final thoughts and experiences.

It is, therefore, entirely understandable why McLeod rejected any unqualified assertion of a direct influence of Sufism over Nanak including something as simple as “the argument Toynbee articulates that Guru Nanak got his monotheism from Islam”. Courtright posits instead: “Had Guru Nanak drawn his monotheism from Sufism we would expect to find Sufi terminology. The fact is that we do not find such terminology.” He, thus, concludes:

Hence, it was not Sufism that had a direct influence on Nanak, but rather Bhaktism whose religious doctrines are at such odds with orthodox Islam as compared to Sufism that one hopes even the Ahmadiyya would not be so foolish as to suggest the Bhaktis were Muslims.

When critically evaluating the evidence before us then, it should be obvious to any fair and critically minded individual that if Nanak was in anyway remotely associated to Islam, it certainly could not have been orthodox. Hence, all unqualified assertions of Islam’s influence on this so-called Guru cannot and should not be given any consideration.

Of course, the irony is that while the Ahmadiyya went to extremes in brazenly rejecting the prophethood of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), they also went to the opposite extreme by insisting that Nanak was a bona fide Muslim, albeit a Sufi.

In all then, if one is to insist that Nanak was a Sufi or was directly influenced by Sufism, which as we have shown is a very big ‘if’, then in light of the heretical beliefs of the Sufis of his time and especially his locale, Nanak would have to be classified as an extreme Sufi who affirmed beliefs and doctrines entirely alien to the original message preached by Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). As to whether such a person could strictly be classed a Muslim would stretch the boundaries of acceptability to the limit.

Although this may seem to be a tentative conclusion to some, this is only because we have yet to evaluate the historical evidence that will help us better understand Nanak’s religious beliefs. The strongest arguments forwarded in support of Nanak’s Muslim identity rests on historical grounds – arguments conceived by Ghulam Ahmad that have managed to fool his gullible flock to this day.

As we highlighted above, Ahmad’s Nanakian proposition rests on two grounds:

It is these evidences we will now deconstruct and critically examine in detail.

Exhibit A – The Relics of Guru Nanak

The strength of this first argument rests entirely on the premise that the relics attributed to Nanak were indeed his. But how valid is this assumption and on what evidential basis does this rest?

The two relics in question are: 1) a chola, or cloak, often referred to as the Chola Sahib; 2) a Qur’an said to be a personal copy of his. Notwithstanding the fact that the former is given far more prominence and importance than the latter, the approach in analysing the purported facts and supportive arguments is effectively the same for both. We can begin by asking the simple question: what good reasons are there for accepting such assertions?

No doubt, the first person we turn to in answering this is Ghulam Ahmad who, in reply to a one Sardar Raj Indar Singh, revealed:

In staking his claim upon divine revelation, Ahmad essentially put all his eggs into one basket. As the Qadiani, Maulana Muhammad Ali, candidly puts it, since “the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement had already come to the conclusion that Guru Nanak was in fact a true Muslim, he also thought of solving the mystery enshrouding the chola“. [129] This “most convincing piece of evidence which the Promised Messiah discovered and recorded in his book is the Chola Sahib“, explains Ali’s coreligionist Syed Hasanat Ahmad, “is a cotton cloak and held very sacred by the Sikhs. So, the Promised Messiah sent a deputation to the custodian of the Chola Sahib in Dera Baba Nanak, the deputation reported that they had seen written on the Chola verses from the Holy Quran”. [130]

This approach at magnifying the historical worth of the cloak amongst the Sikhs is one that is repeated ad nauseam by the Ahmadiyya. In their periodical, Review of Religions, for instance, the author uses this broadbrush to say that “the chola has been honored and respected and often worshipped by the followers of Nanak continually during the four hundred years which have elapsed since it came into existence. Annual fairs and gatherings have also been always held in connection with it, and the coverings that have been offered from time to time by Rajas and Raises are a standing testimony to the honor in which the chola has always been held by people of all classes among the followers of Nanak”. Whether the Sikhs collectively held the chola in such high regard or whether its importance and status was more restricted is difficult to guage. Nevertheless, what can be asserted with confidence is how the Ahmadiyya have glorified its status to support their stance. As they boast:

In any case, it ought to be obvious that the historical import of this relic cannot be measured by the degree of importance given to it by a community, and yet this is precisely what the Ahmadiyya have done. Rather than objectively determining the truth of the historical tradition surrounding the chola, they have conveniently accepted it a priori before opportunistically presenting it as fact to serve their agenda. In addition, Howard Arnold Walter noted while making extensive recourse to said periodical:

No one, of course, save Ghulam Ahmad!

Hasanat Ahmad confirms that the “custodians of the Chola did not know what was written on it. The custodians found it unusual that one should be so interested to see the Chola in original [sic]. The keeper, who was paid fourteen rupees by the people who accompanied the Promised Messiah, allowed the writings on the Chola to be copied out. It openly declared that ‘Islam was the only true religion and Muhammad was the Messenger of God.'”. [134]

Maulana Ali expands:

If it is, indeed, the case that “the truth of its statements concerning the chola has never been questioned”, then it gives us pleasure to be the first.

To continue, an account in the Review of Religions elaborates further still:

At this point, a few observations need to be made. The first is that despite tradition recording “that verses from the sacred scriptures of all religions had been written upon it [the chola] by the hand of God” (bold ours), the Ahmadiyya have reported that only verses of the Qur’an were found “refuting the false doctrines of other faiths with regard to Divine Unity and attributes”. The second is the origin of the cloak which the Ahmadiyya accept as having been presented to Nanak by none other than God Himself. Ahmad relates a tradition in which Nanak is given this robe during his trek with sidekick Mardana through Arabia:

Ahmad references this to “a tradition related in the Sakhi of Bhai Bala, more commonly known as Angad’s Sakhi”, [138] or as Maulana Ali repeats more fully:

While the Review of Religions attempts to rationalise the supernatural nature of the story as follows:

Incidentally, this supernatural origin is not accepted by everyone. H.S. Singha, for example, relates that it was “presented to Guru Nanak by a Muslim devotee of Baghdad”. [141] This view is also held by Gurbachan Singh Sidhu who, in his published discourse with a Qadiani, argues:

In other words, it is premature to conclude that Nanak’s utilisation, or anyone else’s for that matter, of a religiously-oriented gift serves as indisputable evidence of his religious identity.

Notwithstanding such a discrepancy, the same source is also relied upon in determining what became of the attire after Nanak’s death and how it came into the hands of the custodians. Maulana Ali relates:

Ghulam Ahmad added:

Once again, the Ahmadiyya accept Sikh tradition a priori when highlighting the purpose of the cloak by insisting that it was donned by Nanak to help identify him as a Muslim. The Review of Religions maintains:

All this, however, raises some considerable problems that require addressing. Consider, for example, why anyone would have been “deceived as to the religion he professed” if “[t]he evidence of the unity of God and of the Divine mission of the Holy Prophet was … uttered by his lips”? This question becomes all the more acute when taking into consideration Ahmad’s insistence that Nanak “was actually a Muslim [who] performed Hajj, married into a Muslim family, and lived a pious life”. [147] If all this were true, then there should never have been any inkling towards his Muslim identity; certainly not to the extent reported. But the fact that there was suggests that there must have existed sufficient doubt that forced him into wearing such elaborate attire with said purpose. If we assume, arguendo, that Nanak was considered by some to be nominally Muslim, then it is more than likely, as we have argued, that this highly remote connection probably stemmed from his association to the Bhakti movement.

Such nuances of interpretation are, of course, wholly ignored by the Ahmadiyya who opt for an approach that not only gives greater concern towards achieving their agenda than with historical accuracy, but also better explains some of the tendentiously simplistic conclusions expressed by their academics. For example, Abdul Jaleel contends:

There is then the important issue of whether the cloak’s history extends uninterrupted from the current custodians all the way back to the person of Nanak. There appears to be a tradition which, if uncritically accepted, as the Ahmadiyya have done to suit their agenda, suggests that this robe was at one point in time unaccounted for before its apparent rediscovery by a one Baba Kabli Mal. The story goes that Guru Arjan awarded the robe passed down to him via the four Gurus to Bhai Tota Ram, a resident of the town of Balakh-Bokhara in northern Afghanistan, who “before his death, [] anticipated that his children might not look after the Holy Robe (Chola Sahib) properly. So he put it in a cave and closed the opening with a Big Rock”. Much later, it came into the hands of Baba Kabli Mal as follows:

The Sikh Encyclopedia is more specific regarding the date of its rediscovery:

This account essentially casts doubt over the Ahmadiyya’s assertion that “the chola has been honored and respected and often worshipped by the followers of Nanak continually during the four hundred years which have elapsed since it came into existence”. [151] Instead, what can be derived is that although a death date of Tota Ram is unknown, it can safely be estimated that since he was a contemporary of Arjan, who died in 1606 CE, this chola would have been unaccounted for for at least two centuries. In light of this, what credible evidence is there to corroborate both this fantastical tale and, most importantly, the authenticity of this chola?

In the end, the entire argument surrounding the cloak’s historical association to Nanak can be said to rest on two grounds: 1) The reputation afforded the chola by the Sikh community, viz. the Dera Baba Nanak custodians; 2) and the historical traditions of Sikhism. The only evidence the Ahmadiyya have in lending any credibility to the former is via the latter. Other than this, nothing else is offered that might objectively support their case. Hence, what is required is to determine the historical veracity of the sources relied upon by Ghulam Ahmad and his ilk.

Exhibit B – The Bala Janamsakhi

A defining characteristic of the Ahmadiyya is their selective sourcing of historical materials to achieve their end goals. And though they are as guilty of cherry picking from the sources of Sikhism as they have been with Islam’s, we will demonstrate below that this approach is wholly self-defeating which only serves to further expose their founder’s lies and hypocrisy.

Take, for instance, the following standards of verificationism adhered to by Ahmad himself:

Notice how unquestioning he was towards any doubts expressed against the authenticity of the Sikh scripture, including the presence of interpolations, presumably because it supported his overall contention. As a matter of fact, so certain was he of its reliability that he considered this tradition to be more authentic than the four Biblical Gospels:

Ahmad deduced that the arguments derived from a contemporary source would be far more compelling than those recorded much later after the fact. Hence, the Bala JS, which he understood to be recorded circa Nanak’s lifetime, was for him virtually indisputable vis-á-vis its authenticity. Such an assumption is understandable given that evidence falsifying it being a contemporary Nanakian source were yet to be adduced. However, are such considerations applicable or even appropriate for a true Prophet of God? To put it another way, would God stand by and allow a mistake of such magnitutde, which would threaten to disprove the claims of Prophethood, to occur by one of His emissaries without intervening to protect his status and honour?

A tactic commonly employed by the Ahmadiyya to dismiss the many anti-Islamic concepts attributed to Nanak in the Sikh scripture is to undermine its authenticity by arguing that it was compiled and standardised well after his death. This ad hoc approach is mentioned by the Qadiani Muhammad Barkatullah below:

It should be noted that this and similar such arguments all stem from the presupposition that since Ahmad was infallible in matters of the religion, any and all evidence to the contrary would ipso facto have to be spurious and, thus, rejected as false.

But, such an approach places the Ahmadiyya between a rock and a hard place. Qadianis like Abdul Jaleel are quick to cast aspersions against the compilers of the Sikh scripture:

They are equally quick to acknowledge the faifthful transmission of the chola from Guru to Guru, all of whom, they assert, were involved in the robe being “honored and respected”. They further posit that said robe was “often worshipped by the followers of Nanak continually during the four hundred years which have elapsed since it came into existence”. [156] This is precisely inline with Ahmad’s teachings “that upon Nanak’s death, the sacred chola passed to his first successor Angad …. This ceremony was duly gone through by every succeeding Guru until the time of the fifth Guru, Arjan Das. At the time of succession they wore it on their heads and on great occasions sought blessing from it”. [157] But a robe decidedly covered in the Arabic language, as alleged in sketchs made by the Ahmadiyya (see left), opens a Pandora’s Box of questions that simply cannot be ignored. If we take the plausible assumption that the writing inscribed over the entire front was unmistakably recognisable for what it was, then the first and most obvious question is whether this provoked any reaction from the Sikhs, in particular the four Gurus – Angad, Amar Das, Ram Das and Arjan? After all, how could Arabic as ubiquitously well-known as the first pillar of Islam (inscribed on the left sleeve), and which stood to entirely negate Sikhism as a religion: “Laa ilaaha il-Allah Muhammad ar-Rasullulah – There is none worthy of worship save Allah and there is none worthy of being followed accept Muhammad the Messenger of Allah” not elicit a response? It would be completely implausible to entertain the notion that people as well educated as the Gurus would have been oblivious of the damning implications of their founder having proudly donned a robe which taught that Allah alone was worthy of worship only in accordance to Islamic orthopraxy; that Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) was the last and final recipient of divine revelation; and that “the only religion acceptable to Allah is Islam” (Qur’an 3:19), as inscribed on the right sleeve.

On the other hand, if any of the four Gurus were privy to this fact, then they would have known of the incriminating consequences of preserving, honouring, and worshipping said cloak, before handing it over to Tota Ram for safe keeping. Let us not forget that these are the very same Gurus the Ahmadiyya have been so quick to accuse of tampering with the text of Nanak’s recorded hymns in order to eradicate any evidence of his Muslim identity. Are the Ahmadiyya, therefore, implying that the very same Gurus who insidiuously worked to bury such evidence contradictorily preserved it too in the form of this chola? Their entire line of reasoning is so ill-conceived and inconsistent that it fails to hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.

The Ahmadiyya are, unsurprisingly, even quicker to accept those traditions they believe to be contemporaneous to Nanak. However, as argued above, the discovery of the much older and more authentic Puratan JS forced scholars towards the unanimous conclusion that Bala’s janam sakhi was, in actual fact, “compiled about two hundred years AFTER Baba Nanak” (bold, capitalisation ours), i.e. in the eighteenth century as opposed to the sixteenth. Recall that Barkatullah’s assertion that “some writers interpolated their own ideas into the Granth Saheb” “at a later time” is predicated on the assumption that “the holy book of the sikhs, granth saheb, was actually compiled about two hundred years after Baba Nanak”. Thus, if such interpolations were possible after such a long period of time, is it not equally possible for spurious and fictitious accounts to have been interpolated in the Bala JS – a source not nearly as revered and protected as the SGGS? More importantly, if Ahmad did not consider arguments in the Gospels as “cogent and worthy of attention” as those in the Bala JS for not having been “simultaneously recorded” but “chronicled many years after the time of Jesus”, then by his own standards he would also have had to concede this janam sakhi to be equally groundless and unworthy of attention in the face of new evidence proving it was compiled two centuries after Nanak’s death.

Yet, despite all the evidence to the contrary, there are some Qadianis like Abdul Jaleel who have continued to incessasntly repeat how this janam sakhi “is an authoritative source of Sikhism” and how “Bala was Nanak’s constant companion” who “accompanied his Master for twenty years during his travels”. [158] As we have seen, scholars consider the former not nearly as authoritative as the Ahmadiyya tend to portray, and have all but rejected the latter. Perhaps it is for this reason that some Qadianis not only cling to outdated evidence, but sadly resort to spin and misrepresentation. One such individual is Ansar Raza who deserves to be scrutinised and exposed for this very reason.

In his article Baba Guru Nanak – A Muslim Saint, Raza seeks to prove that “Baba Nanak was a Muslim saint” by extensively citing from Pincott’s aforementioned entry included in British missionary Thomas Patrick Hughes’ Dictionary of Islam. But Raza’s real reason for referencing said entry, whose authorship he incorrectly attributes to Reverend Hughes, is because his messiah cited the same source a decade after its publication in 1885 for having “clearly state[d] that Guru Baba Nanak was converted to Islam. (Satt Bachan, inside title page, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol-10, p.112)”. [159] The only problem is that Pincott said nothing of the sort. In fact, his conclusions are so conspicuously at odds with those drawn by both Ahmad and Raza that one wonders whether the pair were analytically challenged, or disingenuously opted to misprepresent him.

Take, for instance, how Raza lopsidedly interprets Pincott in the following passage as evidence of his being “confident that … Baba Nanak was himself a Sufi”:

Notice that the above says nothing of the sort. According to Pincott, Nanak was attracted towards and came under the influence of Sufism to the point that he “show[ed] some traces of Sufi influence … thus plainly announcing their connection with the Sufiistic side of Muhammadanism”. It is a fallacious logical leap to infer that a person must be a Sufi for merely showing signs of influence or having connections to them. And though Pincott draws a number of parallels between Nanakian philosophy and Sufi mysticism, at no stage does he come close to saying that Nanak was a Sufi, quite the contrary in fact. [161]

Yet, Raza is so fixated on proving his messiah’s claim that not only does he misrepresent Pincott’s apparent position on Nanak’s real identity by quoting him selectively, but even goes so far as to grossly misinterpret extracts cited as proof. The latter is no better demonstrated than in the following where Raza quotes Pincott as stating:

Here, Pincott understands from the “extraordinary admission” of a Muslim Pir that once Nanak, who is identified as a Hindu, successfully conquers Jannah, not only will this culminate in Muslims losing faith in the teachings of Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him), but that Nanak will also have “succeed[ed] in breaking up the faith of Islam”. Raza, on the other hand, entirely fails to appreciate the dire implications of Pincott’s interpretation by not only ignoring Nanak’s destructive role in weakening Islam, but also his religious identity. Apart from seeing this as merely an “interesting story”, Raza simplistically deduces that “a Muslim saint tells his disciples that the Muslims of his time have become be-iman (faithless) and now a Hindu is entering Behisht (Paradise)”. And though he curiously acknowledges that a Hindu will enter paradise at the expense of the Muslims, he fails entirely in identifying Nanak as this Hindu! Hence, rather than the source proving Nanak’s Muslim credentials, it actually cites a Pir – Nanak’s very own coreligionist – as blaming him for “breaking up the faith of Islam”!

Another example of Raza’s faulty analytical skills occurs when he covers the story of Nanak’s first alleged revelatory experience followed by his interrogation at the hands of a qazi in the presence of Nawab Daulat Khan Lodi. In this instance, Pincott states:

While Pincott acknowledges that the immediate successors of Nanak believed him to be “very close to Muhammadism”, he, nevertheless, lays stress on the fact that the famous clause “there is no Hindu; there is no Musalman” articulated by Nanak emphatically indicates that he had instituted a third course that was meant “to do away with the differences between” Islam and Hinduism by superseding them both.

Despite this, Raza again ignores Pincott’s conclusion and in its place chooses to understand the event as having “stated that Baba Nanak then proceeded to offer prayer with the whole congregation and the news spread in the town that Baba Nanak has become Muslim”! It is difficult to see how Raza, and Raza alone, reached this vacuous conclusion given the story only reveals that when “[t]he time of the afternoon prayer had come. All arose and went (to the mosque) to prayers, and the Baba (Nanak) also went with them. Nanak then demonstrated his supernatural power by reading the thoughts of the Qazi. Then the Qazi came and fell down at his feet, exclaiming, ‘Wonderful, wonderful! [O]n this one is the favour of God.’ Then the Qazi believed; and Nanak uttered this stanza”. Once Nanak had completed his recital, it is said that “the people, Hindus and Musulmans, began to say to the Khan that God (Khuda) was speaking in Nanak” (India Office MS 1728, fol. 36-41).

Notice, however, that there is no apparent confirmation that Nanak actually took part in the prayers. It is only said that Nanak “went with them” before allegedly exhibiting his supernatural powers. What is more significant is how Raza inexplicably clips the paragraph immediately succeeding the above which actually serves as evidence for him rather than against him! Pincott further reveals:

At this juncture, it seems as though Nanak’s brother-in-law believes that Nanak participated in prayer which results in an outcry from the Hindus, at least in a negative sense given that as a Hindu Jairam was grieved over Nanak’s alleged conversion. Note, however, that the account in MS 2885 does not seem to tally with that in MS 1728. In the former, it is reported that there was commotion among the respectable Hindus along with grief displayed by Nanak’s brother-in-law, Jairam, over his alleged conversion. Yet in the latter, the Hindus are made to recognise that God had spoken through Nanak. This raises the question of how the Hindu community could have acknowledged such a thing for a coreligionist who they saw as having abandoned their faith for Islam. If Nanak had participated in the prayers as a Muslim at said mosque, it makes little sense for the Hindus present to then claim that “God was speaking in Nanak”.

Notwithstanding this apparent discrepancy, a solution can, nonetheless, be found by making recourse not only to the most ancient, but also to as wide a range of janam sakhis as possible. In Pincott’s case, of course, such an option was absent given that the Puratan JS was not published until 1926 by Vir Singh. Thus, when we turn to a more thorough and detailed evaluation of the janam sakhi tradition, we find that there is certainly more to this than first appeared to Pinchott, Hughes, and, of course, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad back in the nineteenth century.

Nanak Prays with Nawab Daulat Khan Lodi

The availability of a far broader range of extant janam sakhis, which includes the oldest and most authoritative Puratan version, has enabled us today to uncover vital information that offers up a definitive answer to the question of whether Nanak participated in the Friday (jumu’ah) prayers and/ or converted to Islam.

It seems that in this context their discovery would not have made much of a difference because, as it so happens, the very same source that Pincott and Ghulam Ahmad, and perhaps to a lesser extent Raza, relied upon and presumably had access to already offered a solution which these protagonists either innocently missed or purposefully overlooked.

Let us recount the entire story as reproduced and translated by Ernest Trumpp:

While Pincott could be excused for failing to cite the above portion of the story given that he never argued for the Muslim identity of Nanak, the same, of course, cannot be said of Ahmad who miserably failed to make any mention of this pivotal account. The question is why? Did he or his followers never have access to the Bala JS? If not, then why have they continued to remain silent while consistently repeating their founder’s false arguments? Did Raza, Maulana Barkatullah, Abdul Jaleel, and the rest of Ahmad’s khaleefas and adherents never pick up a copy of Trumpp’s partial translation of the Adi Granth published as early as 1877 (eight years before the publication of Hughes’ Dictionary of Islam) which contained the above? It simply beggars belief.

It is crystal clear from the above that:

Recall how quick Ahmad was in stamping his seal of approval on the apparent authenticity and authoritative nature of said tradition; one wonders whether such praise was made without him having direct access to this work or any other Sikh tradition that contained this story. Or was he relying solely on the nine-page entry penned down by Pincott, which he managed, nevertheless, to misconstrue and misrepresent anyway.

How could such a slipshod approach, poor argumentation skills, and overarching disingenuousness befit an academic let alone a Prophet-Messiah of God?

But to drive the nail firmly in Ahmad’s coffin, let us turn to an in depth study of the other available janam sakhis to snuff out any shred of doubt that might remain vis-á-vis this incident. Kirpal Singh goes into some detail by comparing a variety of janam sakhis to acquire a more thorough historical analysis of this event:

This should be cause for concern for anyone looking to this story as proof of Nanak’s Muslim identity. It is obvious that the consternation caused by such words was controversial enough to not only force the people to report the case to Daulat Khan, but also sensitive enough to force his hand into calling for the town’s qazi. A qazi is a learned Muslim scholar who specialises in the interpretation of Islamic law and is responsible for issuing legal decrees, or fatwas. It is, therefore, plausible to assume that the reason why this qazi was summoned was to ascertain whether such a proclamation contranvened the Shari’ah.

This question is telling since it reveals the qazi’s underlying motive – to determine whether Nanak, who has thus far remained unclear vis-á-vis his religious identity, was a Muslim, and if so, whether he had, thus, broken the law by blaspheming the Prophethood of Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him).

Nanak replied that it is difficult to be a Musalman. One has to live life as per the will of God. Getting one’s mind cleansed of ego and inculcating compassion, mercy and love for all is the true path of religion and only the rare tread this path. Guru Nanak enunciated this in the following hymn:

Note that although the questions posed by the qazi, which are directly related to ascertaining Nanak’s religious identity, provide him with the perfect opportunity to openly acknowledge his Islamic allegiance, he instead chooses, and for very good reasons too as we see in what follows, to equivocate in his answers.

It is actually worth quoting the qazi’s displeasure directly from the Puratan JS since he reveals the following to Khan:

Kirpal continues:

From the above, it is apparent that the story, rather than hinting at Nanak’s Muslim identity, lays bare his ploy in exposing the local Muslims so as to support his new found conviction of there being “no Hindus and no Musalmans”. Simply put, there is not a shred of evidence in any of the janam sakhis, particularly Bala’s, in support of the Ahmadiyya’s hyperbolic arguments, and yet plenty to prove that Nanak was anything but a Muslim or, more precisely, a heretical Sufi.

As a matter of fact, the spin, hyperbole and subreption resorted to in the above is a common feature employed with impunity by the Ahmadiyya in almost all of their presuppositional arguments.

Take, for instance, Abdul Jaleel’s contentious boast that “a careful study of Sikh traditions and relics of Sikhism lead to an irrefutable conclusion that Guru Nanak discarded the Hindu doctrines and assimilated the teachings of Islam to such an extent that Sikhism, in its pristine form, can be looked upon as a sect of Islam”. We have already provided just one example of what happens when the Ahmadiyya undertake a “careful study” of anything; and in what follows, we shall provide even more examples of shoddy research and poorly contrived arguments.

Nanak’s Early Life

Regarding the early life of Guru Nanak, Abdul Jaleel asserts:

This grand argument fails to stand up to even the most superficial of inquiries into a select number of historical sources let alone an exhaustive examination of the “whole history of Sikhism” as supposedly undertaken by the good professor.

The only instance where Nanak is said to have participated in prayer that we know of is when he was probed by Daulat Khan Lodi; an affair where Nanak not only refused to pray, but was dubbed a Hindu by the qazi while confirming and maintaining his non-Muslim identity.

As for the Sufi that Nanak is said to have constantly turned to, then it is likely that Abdul Jaleel here is referring to the same person his compatriot, Barkatullah, cites when referencing Giani Gian Singh’s (d. 1921 CE) Twarikh Guru Khalsa – a voluminous encyclopedia that was first published as late as 1891: [175]

Of important note is the fact that the first person to give this Muslim teacher said name was not Gian, but, as Harbans Singh reveals, Ghulam Hussain Khan in his work, Siyar-ul-Mutakherin:

The problem for the Ahmadiyya is that since this work was first “written in 1780” [177] – almost 250 years after Nanak’s death – it would, like Twarikh Guru Khalsa, have to be dismissed as historically unreliable as per the standards of Ghulam Ahmad.

What is more, while Harbans adds that Nanak’s “knowledge of Sufi lore is traced to his early contact with … Sayyid Hasan”, [178] and Kartar Singh highlights that “[a]ccording to the author of the Siyar-ul-Mutakhirin,Guru Nanak studied Islamic literature from Sayyad Hassan, a darvesh”, [179] it is impossible to correctly conclude that Nanak was a Muslim for merely having either allegedly turned to this teacher for advice and guidance, or for having derived his knowledge of whatever version of Islam this dervish practiced.

Alas, this is the dilemma that the Ahmadiyya face where on the one side they are quick to cite any source that meets their requirements no matter how historically dubious, whilst on the other are compelled to tow the party line.

Hence, when assertions are forwarded similar to the following made by Barkatullah that “Baba Nanak also visited Sarhand Sharif and spent forty days in fasting and worshipping on the burial place of a celebrated saint Kh. Abdul Shakoor” [180] from the same book, “Tawarikh Khalsa, p. 224”, not only is it prudent to question the credibility of a book written almost 400 years after the fact, but it is imperative that the Ahmadiyya be taken to task. Either Qadianis like Barkatullah and Abdul Jaleel openly reject the peculiar conditions of historical authenticity observed by their messiah, or adhere to them, but be brave enough to take their position to its logical conclusion, i.e. to reject any non-contemporary Nanakian sources, like Bala’s hagiography and Tawarikh Guru Khalsa.

This, however, is the least of their worries. Their biggest problem is the Bale JS itself which, when examined in detail, stands as evidence against rather than for them.

The Ahmadiyya’s Achilles’ Heel

When one studies the hagiography attributed to Bala, it quickly becomes apparent that what Ghulam Ahmad touted as one of his greatest proofs actually turns out to be his Achilles’ heel.

All serious academics involved in the study of Sikh hagiographies recognise the mythical overlay and fictional elements pervasive throughout these records. In fact, this feature is so obvious that even Abdul Jaleel is forced to concede: “It is true that in [Bala’s] Janam Sakhi one finds much fiction mixed with facts.” [181]

It is discernable that when the Ahmadiyya cite this source as evidence, they invariably do so by selectively quoting, cheery picking, or distorting the facts in much the same way they have done with the sources of Islam. It is this fallacious approach that we intend to expose and examine in this section through a range of examples.

This will be achieved by exploring a far broader range of extant janam sakhis than the Ahmadiyya, who have restricted themselves to primarily Bala’s, have been willing or able to do. In turning to older and more authoritative sources, at least by Ahmad’s standards, not only will we be able to present a more complete and accurate picture of Nanak’s life, but also be in a better position to properly contextaulise and, hence, reconcile between the contradictory historical accounts one encounters when undertaking such an holistic examination.

For instance, the Ahmadiyya have exploited certain references made in the Bala JS, as quoted below by Abdul Jaleel, wherein Nanak apparently supported certain fundamental tenets of Islam, including the Testification of Faith (Kalimah), the five daily prayers, and the fasting month of Ramadan, which Sikhism traditionally rejects:

As regards the above, then either Abdul Jaleel has committed an honest mistake, or he is guilty of misrepresentation since the above was not uttered by Nanak, but rather Rukn-ud-Din. This is made clear at the beginning of the chapter which begins with the heading: “Suaal rukn deen kazee,” or: “Questions from Qazi Rukn ud-Deen.” [183] As to the report that Nanak kept fasts and gave the call to prayer, then no evidence has been cited for this. What is certain is that it is not part of the aforecited quote.

The above misquotation, however, may not be as innocent as one might imagine. Two similar examples were also brought to the attention of Gurbachan Singh Sidhu who quotes a Qadiani as audaciously alleging that the Bala JS had Nanak going not only as far as supporting the doctrine of exclusive salvation for Islam, but also advocating the dual declaration of Islamic faith itself!

However, like us, Sidhu too is far from impressed for he not only brandishes these as “audacious misquotes” from one who has “taken them out of context and quoted what suited his purpose”, but also adds that this approach “typifies the challenge to Sikhism based on dishonest quotations and false evidence”. [184] Despite holding the Bala JS to be the work of the heterodox Hindali sect, [185] a view incidentally shared by a large number of Sikh scholars, he nevertheless reveals that these statements were never attributed to Nanak to begin with, but rather an imam named Karim Din:

After emphatically declaring that “[t]here is no mention anywhere that he [Nanak] observed ihram, did t[a]waf, ran between Safwa and Marwa or sacrificed an animal … rituals [that] are absolutely essential” for the pilgrimage of Hajj; “no evidence that he followed an Imam” for congregational prayer, nor “uttered Quranic verses in a pew”; and “absolutely no evidence that the Guru read the Kalima”, Sidhu reasons:

In other words, it would be just as fallacious to argue that Nanak must have been a Hindu for having participated in prayer with Hindus as it is to conclude that he was a Muslim simply for having “said his prayers sitting among his Muslim friends”.

But relying on such claims that Nanak fasted for a year, performed both the daily prayers and pilgrimage, and recited sermons similar to Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) creates an additional problem of epic proportions in that these evidently stand in counterposition to those accounts where Nanak either:

Regarding this last point, then take, for example, an important account recorded in the more ancient Puratan JS wherein Nanak answers Mardana’s query following a chance encounter with a one Sheikh Bajid Sayyid in which Nanak unequivocally affirms his belief in reincarnation and transmigration:

McLeod translates this more clearly as follows:

Later in the same source and in response to Rukn ud-Deen, Nanak responds:

To make matters worse, the Kapoors make mention of a damning piece of testimony from Bala in Saakhis 115-119 where Nanak goes so far as to claim that Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) would again transmigrate into a Hindu family after 1500 years because of sins he committed in his first life!

While these three Gunas originate from the Samkhya School of classical Indian philosophy, they have also been incorporated into Sikh religious thought. [193] Nanak, for example, presents these three qualities in the SGGS as follows:

The Kapoors elucidate further by explaining:

Hence, according to Bala, Nanak considered Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) to have been a Manmukh, which, as demonstrated in our article: Manmukh, Kafir, and the Infidel, would be equivalent to the Islamic classification: kaafir (disbeliever).

What is more, this testimony is entirely consistent with a number of verses attributed to Nanak in the SGGS where he again made clear his beliefs. These include:

Additionally, Nanak also upheld the theory of karma and its association with past lives:

There is then Nanak’s inexplicable theory of the Hindu idol, shiv lingam, said to have been present in the Ka’bah itself as recorded again in the Bala JS and summarised by the Kapoors below:

This story does not have a word of truth to it. For one, it has been authentically recorded in a number of ancient sources that the 360 idols stored therein by the polytheist Arabs were completely destroyed by Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) immediately following his peaceful overtaking of Makkah. In Sahih al-Bukhari, it is related:

Ibn ‘Abbas narrated that when the Messenger of Allah arrived in Mecca, he refused to enter the Ka’bah while there were idols in it. So he ordered that they be taken out.

This is supported in some of the early biographies of Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) and the books of history including the one below by Ibn Ishaq (d. 150AH/ 767CE) who elaborated:

This purging of the Ka’bah from the filth of idolatry was only in fulfilment of the command of Allah as recorded in Sahih Muslim (832) wherein ‘Urwah ibn ‘Abasah narrated that he said to the Prophet (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him): “With what were you sent?” Muhammad replied: “I was sent to uphold the ties of kinship and to break the idols so that Allah would be worshipped alone with no partner or associate.”

How then were these additional idols reintroduced back into the Ka’bah, as Nanak alleged, and who initiated this absurd ritual of entering the Ka’bah blind-folded?! Simply put, there is no credible evidence to support such fiction.

The Ahmadiyya have also exploited references in the Bala JS where the practice of quintessential Islamic praxis is said to have been supported and encouraged by Nanak. Abdul Jaleel alludes to this by suggesting that Nanak spoke favourably of the Qur’an:

But, how will the Ahmadiyya be able to reconcile this argument with Nanak’s aforementioned anti-Islamic beliefs both of which, it should go without saying, stand diametrically opposed? The answer lies in the fact that Nanak actually opposed, to some level of degree, both the external rituals of Islam and the authority of the Qur’an and Prophetic Sunnah. In this respect, Rizvi contends:

The Bala JS actually makes clear Nanak’s position quite emphatically by quoting him as declaring: “In this dark age Nanak starts a pure religion. I do not accept the Vedas or the Quran. I accept only God. (Lines 14-15 page 118)”. [200] (bold ours)

Courtright too concurs stating:

In fact, both Rizvi and Courtright agree that Nanak was, in general, against “conventialism”, “formalism of ritual” and “pride of worship”. While the former says: “He [Nanak] urges that the effort to seek Him in places of worship and centres of pilgrimage is futile. He is hidden ‘within’ the searcher and only a true Guru directs him to the right path,” [202] (bold ours) the latter adds:

Kohli is altogether more emphatic concluding: “The Guru was against ALL ritualism and formalism. He laid stress on practical life of inward purity.” [204] (bold, underline, capitalisation ours)

As for the issue of pilgrimage in general, then Rizvi stresses:

One noteworthy way in which “he insisted upon inner content of the outer forms of religious worship”, as Kohli puts it, was by reinterpretating some of the most important aspects of Islam, such as, the five daily prayers, fasting, frequenting of the mosque, circumcision, and, as already mentioned, pilgrimage and the Qur’an. Kohli offers an insight into this with the following example:

Nanak, in fact, even had the temerity to belittle the status of Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) as part of the first pillar of Islam, i.e. the Duel Declaration of Faith. Kohli states in this regard:

This excerpt is found in the Puratan JS:

Nanak is quoted further by Bala in story no. 125 of downplaying the true status of the Prophet of Islam. In answer to Vira Naon Malar’s query, who “inquired how was True God like and where he lived [sic]; whether He was a Muslim, as they had heard that Muhammed was near to God and that Hindus say that Brahma, Bishan and Mahesh were God-like”, Nanak responded:

Muslims have complete consensus over the fact that Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) was not only the greatest of God’s designated Prophets and Messengers, but also the best of humankind. In an authentic tradition related in the Sahih of Imam Muslim, Abu Hurayrah narrated that the Prophet (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) said:

Aside from this, there is also an authentic tradition attributed to Ibn Mas’ud, one of the most erudite of the companions, in which the undisputed superiority of his Prophet is established:

How can any Muslim said to have been a Wali (intimate friend) of Allah, as some of the Ahmadiyya have boasted of Nanak, undermine the position of their Prophet, who was chosen precisely because he had the purest of hearts, as just another individual among thousands of others? Only a disbeliever or, worse still, a hypocrite (munafiq) would harbour such thoughts let alone comtemptuously express them in public.

Kohli then cites Nanak, albeit from the SGGS, as going so far as to redefine the true meaning and intent of the five daily prayers:

And finally, this entire approach is clearly discernible in an exchange found in the Puratan JS between Nanak and Mian Mitha:

These verses read as follows:

Hence, it is apparent from the above examples that Nanak intended on redefining those aspects of Islamic orthopraxy that he saw as clashing with his wholly unIslamic religious views. It is inconceivable to think that any true Muslim would consistently repeat such a message, let alone go so far as to undermine God’s divine commandments and His revealed Word.

The ‘Hindu’ Nanak

Guru Nanak ji said: “O Mardana, it is a fair distance away and [besides] they do not allow Hindus to enter therein.” – Bala Janamsakhi

Further evidence of inconsistencies and discrepencies in the janam sakhis can also be presented from a variety of angles.

Compare, for example, the number of occasions where Nanak is called a “Hindu” as opposed to a “Muslim”. We have already seen how he responded to rumours of him having converted to Islam – he emphatically and unhesitatingly rejected them as untrue. Yet, Nanak put up no such objections when called a Hindu. To the contrary, there is plenty of evidence to show that he was either indifferent to or, worse still, tacitly approved of being labelled as such. We have already cited the story related by Pincott wherein a Muslim identifies Nanak as the Hindu who would not only break up the faith of Islam, but also succeed in conquering Paradise (Jannah), thus causing Muslims to lose confidence in their Prophet’s teaching. This admission, however, pales in significance to the one uttered by Nanak and acknowledged by his ‘Muslim’ bard, Mardana. Related in the Bala JS, the dialogue runs as follows:

This is a devastating revelation which ought to serve as a death nell to the incessant arguments of the Ahmadiyya. Not only does the very same source they blindly rely on have Nanak referring to himself as a Hindu, but also has Mardana repeating and, thus, agreeing with his Guru’s self-identification.

Bala again records how Nanak is designated a Hindu during his chaperoning of Mardana to Mecca. Sidhu cites:

We can also do away with Abdul Jaleel’s contention that “Baba Nanak, while on pilgrimage, dressed like a pilgrim, carried with him a stick, Quran, a prayer mat and a water jug for performing ablution”. [222] Actually, the Bala JS account has it that Nanak carried a “book” under his arm, not a Qur’an:

This is corroborated in an earlier source too, namely the vars of Gurdas, in which he records:

Although the above lends absolutely no weight to the claims of the Ahmadiyya, it does not stop Qadiani, Giani Ibadullah, from citing it as proof before going on to argue:

Ibadullah’s unwillingness to comment and, hence, his resortment to G.B. Singh speaks volumes, since it probably has something to do with the fact that Bhai Gurdas said absolutely nothing of the sort, anywhere – neither in his Vars nor in his Kabitt Sawaiyye.

More significantly, curiosity over the identity of this book even got the better of the Hajj pilgrims Nanak presumably travelled with while accompanying Mardana to Mecca. Kirpal relates that these Hajis “questioned him saying that he should reveal the book he used to carry under his arm. They wanted to know whether it was the Quran or some other text. They also desired to know whether Hindus or Muslims were good. In response, the Guru sa[id] that both Hindus and Muslims would suffer without the noble deeds such as righteousness, truth, etc. The Guru implied that those who do good are good people. [226] Listening to this, the Hajis remained silent”. [227], [228] (bold ours) The exact words are:

Notice though that Nanak did not answer the query, but managed to adroitly sidestep the issue altogether.

There is then the possibility that the Ahmadiyya may have equivocated over the Punjabi word kitab used in reference to this mysterious book and taken it to mean the Qur’an. Though it is true that both the Arabic words Kitab and Qur’an can and have been used synonymously within Islam, there is no evidence in this particular context to restrict its meaning in such a way; for all we know, this book, as some scholars have suggested, could have been a proto-copy of his hymns that were later incorporated in the SGGS.

It is also likely that the Ahmadiyya ended up suffering from confirmation bias. In their pursuit for information that might conform to their preconceived views, the group may have been motivated to interpret evidence in a biased way, in this case the meaning of the word kitab, with the goal of supporting their aforementioned contention of an extant copy of the Qur’an falsely attributed to Nanak.

But what of the obvious disparity that plagues such an argument? While on the one hand, we have Nanak being depicted as a practicing Muslim who had donned the attire of a pilgrim and set off for Hajj carrying a prayer mat, an ablution jug, and rosary beads; on the other, he was constantly being called a disbelieving Hindu polytheist!

To put it plainly, it is inconceivable to think that any reasonable Muslim would consider a man dressed to the hilt as a practicing co-religionist and travelling for pilgrimage – one of the five sacred pillars of Islam – to be anything other than a Muslim, let alone publicly labelling him with a term that represents the worst possible crime against God’s divine sovereignty: polytheism. The issue of declaring someone a disbeliever is as serious as it can get vis-á-vis the inviolable rights afforded by God in protecting a Muslim’s dignity and honour. As such, Muslims are, in general, incredibly careful and sensitive in this regard given the ominous consequences of wrongly identifying a fellow faithful as a kaafir (disbeliever). Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) warned in no uncertain terms:

Hence, whatever the reasons, it is not unreasonable to assume that these must have been of a conspicuously unIslamic nature to theologically warrant labelling Nanak as, of all things, a polytheist. And although there may exist a seemingly insurmountable disparity between Nanak’s alleged Muslim appearance and the multiple historical accounts of Muslim witnesses, some of whom were considered learned individuals, all independently verifying at different times and locales his Hindu identity, there is a credible solution. The answer lies with Nanak’s unusually peculiar dress sense as depicted so vividly in the Puratan JS. It is reported in this janam sakhi that when he “passed his retired life in the east”:

Similarly, during “the second time [of his] retired life in the Dakhan (south) … on his feet he had sandals of wood, in his hand a staff, on his head rolls of rope; on his forehead as Tilak the paint of a point”. [232] Likewise, when he “began to pass his third retired life in the northern region … [o]n his feet he had a skin and on his head also, his whole body was wrapped up. On his forehead he had a Tilak of saffron”. [233] And finally, we are informed of his fourth retired life in the west and his journey across the Middle East to the city of Mecca:

Little wonder, therefore, that despite his adoption of the emblematic clothing of the fakirs, the distinctly Hindu-oriented saffron mark on Nanak’s forehead, as well as his necklace of bones, either culminated in him swiftly being identified as a Hindu, or led to confusion and uncertainty over his religious origin.

As for him being identified as a Hindu, then as quoted earlier from the Bala JS, not only was Nanak questioned by Shah Sharaf about his dress as follows: “Being a Hindu why are you dressed as a Fakir?'”, but was also appropriately dubbed a “Hindu Fakir” by other Hajj pilgrims. [235]

Further supporting evidence can be gleaned from other hagiograpgies too. Kirpal cites a discussion between the Sufi Shaikhs Ibrahim and his disciple Kamal following the latters encounter with Nanak and Mardana in the jungle. The story goes that after returning to “his teacher to tell him that a faqir has arrived who is accompanied by a rebeck-player and that the faqir sings his own verse. He also told that he had remembered the above couplet”, [236] Ibrahim “asked Kamal if that faqir was a Hindu or Muslim. Kamal replied that he was a Hindu. He was highly astonished that a Hindu faqir could be so committed to the unity of God” (bold ours). [237]

In the Puratan JS, a Haji travelling with Nanak rebukes him by stating that “no hindu has ever gone to Mecca. Don’t walk with me; either walk infront or behind me”, to which Nanak responds: “It would be good if you carry on infront.” [238]

Even Pincott, whom the Ahmadiyya have purposefully misrepresented as supporting their overall contention, relates a story that says the same thing:

As for the confusion and uncertainty over his religious identity created by his attire, then this is typified by a story recounted from Miharban’s janam sakhi by Kirpal where Nanak is met by “some sadhus” in Hinglaj:

This, of course, begs the question of how Hindu sadhus could have possibly fallen at Nanak’s feet if he truly was a Muslim. It is patently clear that the only sensible reason for this act of homage was because Nanak’s attire presented him as someone altogether separate and distinct from, at the very least, Islam and Muslims.

Dodging the Bullet

There are then a number of incidents where Nanak is guilty of employing evasive tactics – similar to the one noted above vis-á-vis the book he carried to Mecca – as a means of skirting around any direct inquiries into his religious allegiances. The first is cited by Kirpal which mentions the moment when Nanak is interrogated by the group of Hajj pilgrims he was accompanying:

Confusion also transpired in Afghanistan where Nanak acquiesced to the Hindu identity tag by arguing that because everyone originated from the same source, religious labels were, therefore, inconsequential:

The same approach and argument was utilised against Pir Abdul Rehman in Iran:

In fact, this exchange is further elaborated by Kirpal below:

While Ubare Khan is told that being a Hindu or Muslim was irrelevant!

But, it simply beggars belief as to why any bona fide Muslim would choose to avoid answering such direct and seemingly honest inquiries for no good reasons at all. After all, it was not as if Nanak’s life was under threat – a legitimate Islamic reason – to justify such an approach. Of course, the answer is obvious in light of Nanak’s modus opernadi that there is no Hindu and no Muslim. Otherwise, no proud Muslim in his or her right mind would allow confusion and uncertainty to prevail and persist after being associated to a religion that champions polytheism – a concept considered the worst sin of all in Islam. In the end, this ambiguous approach merely reinforces our overall contention while further weakening the Ahmadiyya’s.

Having said that, however, there is a meeting that happened between Nanak and a one Pir Dastgir [252] in the city of Baghdad where the Baba musters the courage to directly answer this all-important question. The episode is recorded in Gyan-Ratanavali, a janam sakhi attributed to Mani Singh and related by Kirpal below:

Whatever the historical truth of this encounter, what cannot be disputed is the sheer weight of evidence we have evaluated in this section that points to the indisputable fact that Nanak was neither identified as, nor called himself or allowed anyone in his presence to label him a Muslim.

As for the issue of ablution, then not only is it an illogical leap in reasoning, given the absence of clear evidence, to infer that Nanak’s performance of it must have been Islamic in nature, but such an argument simply cannot be reconciled with him consistently being idenfitied by Hajis and, of all category of people, Sheikhs as a Hindu.

Nanak’s Marriage

Before tackling the legendary account of Nanak’s death narrative, it would be appropriate, at this stage, to tackle Ahmad’s earlier cited assertion that his Muslim brother (in the Qadiani sense, of course), Baba Nanak, “married into a Muslim family”. [256] Now, there are a number of arguments the Ahmadiyya have advanced for this; but, they are so weak to the extant that they can all be rebutted in one fail swoop by again referencing the Bala JS:

In this case, we have Bala himself almost swearing under oath before Angad of being an actual eyewitness to Nanak’s bethrothal which, he says, was solemnised with circuits around the fire à la the Hindu marriage ceremony.

There is then the simple issue of whether the names of Nanak’s wife and mother-in-law – recorded in Saakhi no. 34 of the Bala JS as Mata Sulakhni and Chando Rani, respectively [258] – were typically, or for that matter atypically, Muslim in origin.

It is also interesting to highlight the incidental point that while the founder explicitly stated that Nanak married into a Muslim family, thereby implying that his wife was a Muslim before and presumably after the marriage, we have some Qadianis today alleging the opposite. For example, a paper published on the Ahmadiyya website alislam.org has the author, Mubasher Ahmad, flatly contradicting his messiah by declaring: “The parents of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, his wife and early disciples were all Hindus, but he did not adhere to Hindu ceremonial devotions.” [259] From the above, it appears as though he certainly did adhere to some ceremony that was more Hinduised than anything else!

Nanak’s Fictitious Death

There is then the curious case of Nanak’s death and Ahmad’s palpably fictitious take on this incident as divulged by Barkatullah below:

Paradoxically, what Ahmed rejects as untrue has evidence for it, albeit disputed by the scholars, while what he accepts as fact has absolutely none and is, hence, a gross figment of his imagination. What is more, the contention that “Muslims do not say funeral prayers for a body that is not there” might be true in the cult of the Ahmadiyya, but is patently false in Islam. The strongest and most correct opinion is that Muslims can pray the funeral prayer in absentia of a body. This is proven in the most authentic books of hadith – the Saheehayn, i.e. Bukhari and Muslim [261] – where the Prophet (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) offered the funeral prayers with his companions in absentia of the Abyssinian King, Negus, after news reached them of his death.

It is true that whatever historical evidence we have of Nanak’s final moments are heavily disputed by academics and for good reason too. Take, for instance, the earliest account recorded in the Puratan JS as quoted by Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair:

Mcleod adds that “[t]hose who had gathered around him prostrated themselves, and when the sheet was removed they found that there was nothing under it. The flowers on both sides remained fresh, and both Hindus and Muslims took their respective shares. All who were gathered there prostrated themselves again”. [263]

If, for arguments sake, the above were true, then what is beyond doubt is that the “Muslims” who prostrated in homage to Nanak, for whatever reason, were entirely ignorant of the very basics of Islam. Instead, it is likely that this group may have either been followers or sympathetic to the Bhakti movement and, thus, felt an affinity towards Nanak and his teachings.

It might also be the case, as Pincott points out, that this story was meant to confirm Nanak’s religious neutrality towards both Islam and Hinduism:

Some Sikh academics like Kirpal dismiss the factuality of this story on the simple basis, as Trumpp cites, that “[t]he family and attendants of Guru Baba Nanak set fire to the funeral pile and performed the funeral ceremonies, (saying): ‘The Guru Baba Nanak is bodily gone to Paradise!'”. [265] Kirpal reasons:

But there is another much stronger reason for doubting its credibility and that revolves around the supposed miraculous transmutation of Nanak’s body into flower petals. This mythical tale is, in actual fact, almost identical to one attributed to Nanak’s predecessor, Kabir. As Mahinder Gulati puts it:

According to Ashraf Mirani, this “story undoubtedly owes much to the tale mentioned in Chapter One of the bier of Ma’ruf Karkhi which was fought over by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and may therefore be of sufi origin”. [269] Roshen Dalal agrees:

It is plausible to assume, therefore, that this story is, as Dalal et al [271] candidly call it, a legend, where: “The word ‘legend’ designates, as I [McLeod] understand it, a story which is not true. It may be popularly credited with factual truth, but upon examination it turns out never to have happened”. [272] Since it is extremely likely that no one tended to Nanak’s funeral rites except his immediate family, it is, thus, equally probable that the dispute over the disposal of his body is the stuff of legends and that his body was never taken away secretly by his Muslim followers, as Nanak dreamed up, before being buried in some unknown safe place.

Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to examine both the century-old arguments of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the subsequent apologetics of his followers to determine whether there was any truth to the bold claim that Guru Nanak, who is almost universally accepted as the founder of Sikhism, was a Muslim. Unlike the Ahmadiyya though, who it was found deliberately restricted their research to a narrow selection of historical sources, our objective was to be as comprehensive in our approach as possible. Thus, in order to acquire a far more nuanced and precise record of Nanak’s life, we turned to a larger selection of hagiographies than the single one opted for by Ahmad.

We also exposed an apparent catch-22 by showing that the very same reasons Ahmad used in justifying his rejection of all non-contemporary Nanakian texts, including the SGGS, as historically unreliable for being open to textual corruption and fictitious interpolations also applied to the Bala JS. We achieved this by disproving the vital premise of said argument that the Bala JS was the oldest and most authentic extant document when, in fact, it was written sometime after both the compilation of the SGGS in 1604CE and other more authoritative hagiographies. Hence, not only would Ahmad by his very own standards have to reject the Bala JS, but, more importantly, his followers would have to either reject all evidence cherry picked from it on account of its historical unreliability, or be bold enough to dismiss their founder’s nonsensical approach. It would be inconsistent on their part to continuely uphold its avowed authenticity while ignoring the Puratan JS and the SGGS when the latter two chronologically preceded the former and would, therefore, be, according to Ahmad’s measure, more authentic.

In the end, what we found in terms of the Ahmadiyya’s academic honesty and objectivity was as disturbing as it was predictable. Their treatment of the historical sources was as diabolically shoddy as one might dare to encounter with clear cases of misrepresentation, cherry-picking, quoting-out-of-context, and plain outright subreption. And though the biggest perpetrator was the very founder himself, it hardly came as much of a surprise given his equally dishonest handling of the Islamic sources. If anything, this only further supported what the Muslims have known of this charlatan from the very beginning – big on claims, but small on proofs.

To start with, Ahmad was distinctly biased in his handling of historical proofs. In the case of those relics attributed to Nanak by members of the Sikh community, he was swift in taking their word at face value and readily accepting these sans any attempt at verifying their validity. Contra Ahmad, our research found that the chola alleged by him to be adorned with Arabic verses, including the Islamic Declaration of Faith, and divinely ordained to Nanak could not be traced directly back to him. Instead, it was found that this relic had gone missing for around 200 years before mysteriously coming into the possession of Baba Kabli Mal.

There is then the question of how individuals as openly Sikh and as academically qualified as the Gurus failed to recognise something as ubiquitous and, thus, as obvious as the Shahaadatayn (Duel Declaration of Faith) , which stood to entirely undermine their religious faith, let alone verses of the Qur’an that declared all other religions as false. If, on the other hand, any of these Gurus knew of the obvious incriminating nature of this cloak, then it is difficult to understand how someone as hostile to orthodox Islam as Guru Arjan could have awarded this to a fellow Sikh! The entire story makes no sense whatsoever.

As for the Qur’an alleged to have been Nanak’s personal copy, then not only is this again uncritically accepted on the word of the Sikh community, but the book identified in the Bala JS and carried by Nanak on his tours cannot be shown with any level of certainty to be a mus-haf (copy of the Qur’an). Rather there exists evidence in the very janam sakhi that proves Nanak rejected the authority of the Qur’an declaring: “In this dark age Nanak starts a pure religion. I do not accept the Vedas or the Quran. I accept only God. (Lines 14-15 page 118)”. [273] Moreover, he refused to answer direct questions put to him by Muslims inquiring into the identity of said book.

But what really destroys this absurd argument propounded by the Ahmadiyya for well over a century is the sheer bulk of evidence from both the Bala JS, as well as other more authoritative hagiographies, that prove beyond doubt that Nanak:

As it turns out, the very source that Ahmad relied so heavily on, i.e. the Bala JS, serves as nothing except emphatic evidence against him. As Sidhu expressed so bluntly to his Qadiani opponent:

There is then the compelling scholarly side to consider where virtually no non-Sikh academic worth his or her salt considers Nanak to be a Muslim. One ought to ask why? Is it the case that so many intellectuals from different parts of the world and at different times all independently got it wrong by reaching a conclusion contra Ahmad? Or could it be that the Qadianis, collectively driven by a shared belief in the infallibility of their Messiah and a fundamental set of beliefs and agendas, have always been right? The answer ought to be self-evident when carefully considered in light of all the above. Of course, there are always those who will suggest otherwise as Abdul Jaleel attempts when deludingly contending:

As we have seen, however, a complete and satisfactory explanation is not just possible, but easily accessible for those who honestly and objectively seek the truth. Like us, there are many others who managed to achieve this end. Take Prof Haq’s simple yet persuasive argument below. He argues that it is highly likely that had Nanak been born into a Muslim family, he would certainly have faced severe repercussions for much of the anti-orthodox rhetoric he is known to have spouted as a result. The only reason he was tolerated, Haq argues, is because he was a disbeliever to begin with whose new movement posed little threat to elicit any meaningful response from Muslim orthodoxy. It is worth presenting Haq’s argument in full:

And as argued above, this was the same Mardana accompanied by Nanak on his Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Haq continues:

In conclusion then, the arguments that we have presented in this paper and the evidence on which they rest should lead the unbiased and critically minded to the undisputed conclusion that Nanak was anything but a Muslim.

As for the Ahmadiyya in particular, then they are confronted by damning evidence that not only demolishes all the arguments of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in this regard, but more significantly exposes his biggest lie of all – his claim to Prophethood.

Subhanakallaahuma wa bi hamdika, ash-Shahaadu al-Laa ilaaha illa Ant, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilayka.

Appendix A – Rumi’s Ascent of Man and Transmigration

Rizvi is not the only one to have made this connection between Rumi and his alleged belief in the Hindu doctrine of transmigration. However, Hanif disagrees and refers to Chishti Sufi sheikh, Simnani (d. 1405CE), for evidence:

In Hanif’s assessment of the Sufis residing in the region of South Asia, only two have been identified in his encyclopedia as clearly expressing their belief in said doctrine: Ghulam Jilani Rohtaki (d. 1819CE) and Saiyid Karam Ali (circa 1700s).

[1] Abu Hurairah narrated that Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The Hour will not arrive until almost thirty Dajjal Liars are sent; each one of them will claim that he is the Messenger of Allah.” (Bukhari, 13/81; Muslim, 7202)

Hudhaifah narrated that the Prophet (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) said: “In my nation there are 27 Dajjal Liars (kathaaboon daajjaaloon); among them, four are women. And indeed, I am the seal of Prophets. There is no Prophet after me.” (Ahmad, 5/396; at-Tabarani in Al-Kabir, 3026; and Al-Ausat, 5582; and in As-Sahihah, al-Albani declared it authentic, 1999).

Jabir narrated that he heard the Prophet say: “Indeed, before the Hour arrives there will be 30 Liars (kathaabeen). Among them is the one from Yamamah, the one Al-‘Ansi from San’a, and the one from Himyar. And one of them is the Dajjal, who is the greatest of them in terms of Fitnah (i.e., in terms of the trials and tribulations that he will come with).” (Ahmad, 3/345; Ibn Hibban, 6650; Al-Bazzar, 3375; al-Ihsan, 15/26; al-Arnaut said that its chain is strong)

Thauban narrated that the Messenger of Allah (Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The Hour will not come to pass until tribes from my nation will go and join polytheists, and until they worship idols. And indeed, there will be among my nation thirty Liars (kathaaboon): each one of them will claim that he is a Prophet, though I am the seal of the Prophets – there is no Prophet after me.” (At-Tirmidhi, 2219, who said, “Hasan Sahih.” Al-Albani declared it to be authentic in Sahih Sunan at-Tirmidhi, 2/244)

– M. bin Bayyumi (2004), Smaller Signs of the Day, (Maktaba Dar-us-Salam, Riyadh), pp. 34-5, 108.
[2] Fn. 19: Sat Bachan: pg. 29.
[3] Fn. 20: Nazool ul Masih: pp. 203/204.
[4] Fn. 21: Ibid: pp. 204/205.
[5] Fn. 22: Khan, Muhammed Zafarullah: Ahmadiyyat. The Renaissance of Islam: pg. 79.
[6] Fn. 23: Ibid.
[7] Fn. 24: Dictionary of Islam: pp. 583/595.
[8] N.O. Memon (1989), Ahmadiyyat or Qadianism! Islam or Apostasy?, (Islam International Publications Ltd, Islamabad),
pp. 195-6.
[9] Baba Nanak, (Ahmadiyya Muslim Community; accessed: Mar 14, 2014).
[10] A. Jaleel (1993), Birth of Sikhism, (The Review of Religions, March; accessed from Ahmadiyya Muslim Community: Mar 14, 2014).
[11] G.S. Mann (1996), The Goindval Pothis: The Earliest Extant Sources of the Sikh Canon, (Harvard University Press, USA), p. 14.
[12] W.H. McLeod (1980), Early Sikh Tradition – A Study of the Janam-sakhis, (Clarendon Press, Oxford), p. 8.
[13] K Singh (1994), Impact of Colebrooke’s Janamsakhi MS. on History of the Sikhs, (Asiatic Society, Calcutta).
[14] Ibid.
[15] J.S. Tiwana, Birth of Guru Nanak, Katik or Baisakh, (Maritime Sikh Society; accessed: Mar 15, 2014).
[16] K. Singh (2004), Janamsakhi Tradition – An Analytical Study, (Singh Brothers, Amritsar), pp. 37-8.
[17] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., pp. 24-5.
[18] J.S. Tiwana, op. cit.
[19] K. Singh, op. cit., p. 19.
[20] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., pp. 16, 22.
[21] (Ed) P. Singh, L.E. Fenech (2014), The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, (Oxford University Press), p. 185.
[22] Fn. 20: The earliest known manuscripts include the Puratan Janam Sakhi (1640); the Bala Janam Sakhi (1658); and the Miharban Janam Sakhi (1754). As for the dates of these texts’ composition, I base them on the following evidence. The text of the writing of the Gurus that appear in the early Puratan manuscripts is pre-Kartarpur Pothi (1604).

We have on record the claim of Hariji (d. 1696) that his father, Miharban, had completed his Janam Sakhi by 1619; see Sodhi Hariji Krit Goshatan Miharban kian, ed. Krishna Kumari Bansal (Sangrur: the editor, 1977), 234; for reference to a copy of Miharban Janam Sakhi prepared in 1651, see MS 427B, Khalsa College (Samat 1708 Vaisakh Vadi ekam nu [Miharban, Hariji, and] Chatrbhuj pothi puran hoi, folio 676). There is firm evidence that Bala Janam Sakhi was compiled after the death of Baba Handal (1648), and an elaborately illustrated manuscript dated 1658 was extant until recently, see Janam Sakhi Bhai Bala, 149-150.
[23] Fn. 22: The Miharaban and the Bala Janam Sakhis were productions of the sectarian groups led by Miharban and Baba Handal, respectively. For Janam Sakhi of Miharban, see MS 2306, Khalsa College, dated 1650 (Sakhi Guru Hariji ke mukh ki likhi Samat 1707, folio 164b); and Sodhi Hariji Krit Goshatan Miharban kian. For additional writings of this family, see Pritam Singh and Joginder Singh Ahluwalia, Sikhan da Chhota Mel: Itihas te Sarvekhanh (San Leandro, California: Punjab Educational and Cultural Foundation, 2009), 84-97. An undated manuscript entitled, Janam Sakhi Baba Handal (folios 1-602), is available with his descendents [sic] at Jandiala Guru, near Amritsar. For more on this text and family, see Varinder Kaur, “Parchi Baba Handal: Sampadan te Itihasik Visleshanh,” M. Phil. thesis (Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, 1989); and Rajinder Pal, Sankhep Jivan Charitar Sri Guru Baba Handal Ji (Jandiala: Gurudwara Sri Guru Baba Handal Ji, undated [1990s]).
[24] G.S. Mann (2010), Guru Nanak’s Life and Legacy: An Appraisal, (Journal of Punjab Studies, Spring – Fall, Volume 17, No. 1-2, accessed: Mar 16, 2014), p. 7.
[25] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., p. 16.
[26] H.R. Gupta (2008), History of the Sikhs 1469-1708, Vol. 1, (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi), pp. 39, 42.
[27] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit.
[28] Fn. 1: Bala JS, p. 1.
[29] Fn. 1: Bala JS, pp. 1-7.
[30] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., pp. 16-7.
[31] K. Singh, op. cit., p. 29.
[32] Fn. 2: The actual manuscript is in the possession of Shri P. N. Kapoor of Hauz Qazi, Delhi. A photocopy is held by the Department of Punjab Historical Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala. An abbreviated text is given in Kirpal Singh, Janam Sakhi Parampara (Patiala, 1969), Appendix, pp. 221-329. See also Rattan Singh Jaggi, Dasam Granth da pauranik adhiain (Jalandhar, 1965), p. 59.
[33] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., p. 19.
[34] K. Singh, op. cit., p. 39.
[35] H.R. Gupta, op. cit., p. 42.
[36] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., p. 176.
[37] H.R. Gupta, op. cit.
[38] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., pp. 175-6.
[39] Fn. 18: Earnest Trump, The Adi Granth, London, 1877. Preface p.(v).
[40] K. Singh, op. cit., p. 40.
[41] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., p. 17.
[42] W.H. McLeod (1968), Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion, (Oxford), p, 22.
[43] Fn. 10: M.A. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, IXXXVII Vol. I, 2000 (Reprint).
[44] K. Singh, op. cit., pp. 14-5.
[45] (Eds) D. Jones, M. Marion (2014), The Dynamics of Cultural Counterpoint in Asian Studies, (Stale University of New York Press, Albany), p. 97.
[46] (Eds) R.M. Feener, T. Sevea (2009), Islamic Connections: Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia, (Institute of Sourheast Asian Studies, Singapore), p. 140.
[47] (Ed) C. Caldarola (1982), Religion and Societies: Asia and the Middle East, (Walter de Gruyter), p. 277.
[48] Ghulam Ahmad mentions this incident and his regret at the loss of Lekh Ram’s life in the following publication: <href=”#page -15=”” mode=”” 1up”=”” target=”_blank”>The Essence of Volume III, (Islam International Publications Limited, 2005; accessed: Mar 31, 2014), p. 403.
[49] (Eds) D. Jones, M. Marion, op. cit.
[50] (Eds) R.M. Feener, T. Sevea, op. cit.
[51] (Eds) H.K. Puri, P.S. Judge (2000), Social and Political Movements: Readings on Punjab, (Rawat Publications, New Delhi), p. 140.
[52] M.G. Ahmad (2007), A Message of Peace, (Islam International Publications Ltd, UK), pp. 13-4.
[53] Ibid., p. 14.
[54] S.A. Malik (1993), Sikhism – Some Distinctive Beliefs, (The Review of Religions, Nov; accessed from Ahmadiyya Muslim Community: Mar 31, 2014).
[55] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[56] (Ed) H. Singh (1975), Perspectives on Guru Nanak, (Punjabi University, Patiala), p. 99.
[57] Ibid., pp. 200-1.
[58] R. Thapar (2004), Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, (University of California Press), p. 488.
[59] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., p. 196.
[60] (Eds) G.H. Adel, M.J. Elmi, H. Taromi-Rad (2012), Sufism: An Entry from Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam, (EWI Press Ltd., UK), pp. 79-80.
[61] T.P. Hughes (1885), A Dictionary of Islam, (W.H. Allen and Co.), p. 584.
[62] I.M. Lapidus (2002), A History of Islamic Societies, (Cambridge University Press, USA), p. 366.
[63] B.A. Faruqi (1940), The Mujaddid’s Conception of Tawhid – Study of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindis Doctrine of Unity, (Ripon Printing Press, Lahore), pp. 80-1.
[64] R. Thapar, op. cit., p. 488.
[65] Ibid.
[66] (Ed) W. Singh (1990), Sikhism and Punjab’s Heritage, (Publication University, Patiala), p. 158.
[67] Ibid., p. 167.
[68] I.M. Lapidus, op. cit.
[69] Fn. 3: A Sufi order named after the famous Persian mystic Abu’l Mughith al-Husain bin Mansur al-Hallaj (244-309 A.H./858-922 A.D.). The doctrines of the Hallajiya order may be thus summarised:

[70] Fn. 4: The doctrine of Wahdat-u’l-Wujud means that God and the Universe are not two separate entities, but form one unity. Existent is one. This soon becomes Identyism – that it is identical with everything else, which in the end passes on to pantheism, – that it is God and God is all. Shaikh Muhi-u’d-din Ibn-i-‘Arabi (ob. 638 A.H. /1240 A.D.) was its powerful exponent ….
[71] K.A. Nizami (1955), The Life and Times of Shaikh Farid-u’d-din Ganj-i-Shakar, (Muslim University, Aligarh), p. 19.
[72] Ibid., p. 105.
[73] Fn. 34: Fawa’id-al-Fu’ad, pp. 258-259.
[74] Fn. 35: Ibid., p. 250.
[75] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., pp. 196-7.
[76] Ibid., p. 198.
[77] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., pp. 199-200.
[78] Ibid., pp. 200-1.
[79] Ibid., p. 192.
[80] Ibid., p. 194.
[81] Fn. 1: The distinction of Dhat and Sifat is very nearly the distinction of substance and attributes. At times it looks like that of existence and essence. It can be rendered as the distinction of Being and Nature, or It and Its Qualities. Asma’, plural of Ism, means Divine Names with reference to particular Sifat or Dhat as they occur in the Quran, e.g. Rahim, the Merciful, as they are the names of Allah in virtue of His qualities or activities, i.e., an Ism combines Dhat and Sifat.
[82] Fn. 1: Tajalli is really shining forth. The conception underlying it is that God is Light and this Light shines forth as if bodily in many forms. Hence it may be translated as eradiation, effluence, emanation, manifestation and in philosophical terminology is equivalent to Mode. When the Light shines forth on itself it is Tajalli-bi-nafsihi. As the Light shines forth in various grades to the mystic it is Tajalli-i-Dhati or Sifati, etc., with reference to the mystic it means the vision of the Light or illumination by it. If this vision is that of the attributes of God it is Tajalli-i-Sifati, if it is the vision of the Being or Dhat of Allah it is Tajalli-i-Dhati.
[83] Fn. 3: The act of creation by the word (“Be”) is nothing but the descent of the Creator Himself into the being of things.
[84] B.A. Faruqi, op. cit., pp. 86-7.
[85] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit.
[86] Ibid., pp. 196-7.
[87] B.A. Faruqi, op. cit., p. 98.
[88] Ibid., p. 101.
[89] Ibid., p. 114.
[90] Fn. 2: Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1294-1357 A.H.) was a great poet, philosopher and scholar. Since he wrote his Asrar-i-Khudi about 1333 A.H., he became a force which modified the trend of Muslim thought in politics and morals He attacked mysticism for its doctrines of ‘Fana’ or self-annihilation, and substituted ‘Khudi’ or self-affirmation in its place. He also objected to Wahdat-i-Wujud or unityism.
[91] Fn. 3: Cf. Iqbal’s poems Asrar-i- Khudi [] and Rumuz-i-Bikhudi []. Asrar-i-Khudi (Secrets of Self): In this Dr. Iqbal denounces mysticism as un-Islamic in its origin and injurious to the national and political life of Musalmans. Rumuz-i-Bikhudi (Secrets of Selflessness): In it he lays emphasis on the life according to the Quran and the Sunnat, and preaches such morals as are more positive.
[92] B.A. Faruqi, op. cit., p. 41.
[93] Fn. 15: “Mohammed Iqbal”, TCD, p. 283.
[94] Fn. 16: Margaret Smith, Readings from the Mystics of Islam (London: Luzac, 1972), p. 2.
[95] Fn. 17: Ibid., p. 5.
[96] A.P. Ganguly (1990), India, Mystic, Complex, and Real: A Detailed Study of E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, (Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd., Delhi), pp. 109-10.
[97] T.P. Hughes, op. cit., p. 583.
[98] Fn. 1: Haqq-ul-Yaqin: Literally absolute certainty. Yaqin or certainty according to mystics has three stages: ‘ilm-ul-yaqin’, ‘ain-ul-yaqin’, ‘haqq-ul-yaqin’. One finds smoke and is certain that there is fire, this is ‘ilm-ul-yaqin’, one sees fire with his own eyes, he is more sure than the first person of the existence of fire, this is ‘ain-ul-yaqin’, one puts his hand in fire and gets a burn, he realises the existence of fire, this is haqq-ul yaqin. With reference to the Being of Allah, the mystics believe that one passes through similar stages of certainty and realisation. But on the principle of the Mujaddid none of these kinds of yaqin is possible in case of the Being of God.
[99] B.A. Faruqi, op. cit., pp. 78-9.
[100] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., pp. 200-1.
[101] Fn. 25: 22. “An account of Sufi Mysticism”, Selections from the Rubaiyat and odes of Hafiz (London: John M. Watkins, 1920), p. 16.
[102] Fn. 26: Shaikh Muhammad Iqbal, The Development of Metaphysics in Persia (London: Luzac & Co. 1908), p. 116.
[103] A.P. Ganguly, op. cit., p. 111.
[104] (Ed) W. Singh, op. cit., p. 157.
[105] N. Hanif (2000), Biographical Encyclopaedia of Sufis: South Asia, (Sarup & Sons, New Delhi), pp. 93-4.
[106] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit.
[107] Fn. 177: Ma’arij’l-Wilayat, f. 15a. 177.
[108] (Eds) M.V. Singh, B.B. Shrivastava (2011), Art and Culture of Medieval India, (Centrum Press, New Delhi; accessed: scribd.com, 09 Apr, 2014), p. 38.
[109] The so-called Pakistani intellectual, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, was also guilty of saying something similar suggesting that “Sikhism is established upon Tawheed”. If what he means by Tawheed is the innovated concept of Tawheed al-Wujidi, then there may be some merit to his claim. But, if he means Tawheed in the orthodox sense, then he is patently wrong.

[110] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., p. 202.
[111] M.S. Ahluwalia, Influence of Islam and Sufism on Sikhism, (Sikh Institute; accessed: June 07, 2014).
[112] (Eds) S.S. Bhatia, A. Spencer (1999), The Sikh Tradition: A Continuing Reality, (Publication Bureau Punjabi University, Patiala), p. 33.
[113] Trilochan Singh strongly rebuts this thesis arguing instead that Bhaktas like Kabir, Namdev and Ravidas associated themselves to the path and discipline of Bhakti. See: Ernest Trumpp and W.H. McLeod as Scholars of Sikhi History Religion and Culture, 1994, International Centre of Sikh Studies.
[114] (Eds) S.S. Bhatia, op. cit., p. 34.
[115] Ibid., p. 35.
[116] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit.
[117] S.S. Kohli (1980), Philosophy of Guru Nanak, (Publication Bureau Panjab University, Chandigarh), p. 119.
[118] (Ed) A. Singh (2002), Socio-Cultural Impact of Islam on India, (Publication Bureau Panjab University, Chandigarh), p. 125.
[119] K.A. Nizami, op. cit., p. 19,
[120] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., p. 203.
[121] (Ed) A. Singh, op. cit., p. 67.
[122] A.C. Banerjee (1983), The Sikh Gurus and the Sikh Religion, (), p. 142.
[123] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., p. 210.
[124] See Appendix A.
[125] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., p. 211.
[126] Ibid., pp. 200-1.
[127] (Eds) S.S. Bhatia, op. cit., pp. 34, 36-7.
[128] M.G. Ahmad (2005), The Essence of Volume III, (Islam International Publications Limited; accessed: Mar 31, 2014), p. 402.
[129] M.M. Ali (2008), The Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, (Ahmadiyya Anjuman Lahore Publications, U.K: accessed: Mar 31, 2014), pp. 47-8.
[130] S.H. Ahmad (2010), An Introduction to the Hidden Treasures of Islam, (Islam International Publications Ltd.), p. 169.
[131] M.G. Ahmad (1903), The Discovery of the Chola of Nanak, (The Anjuman-i-Isha’at Islam, Qadian; The Review of Religions, Jan; accessed: Mar 31, 2014), pp. 33-4.
[132] Fn. 1: I have questioned several well-informed Sikhs about this incident, but found them unable to verify it.
[133] H.A. Walter (1918), The Religious Life of India – The Ahmadiya Movement, (Oxford University Press), pp. 106-8.
[134] S.H. Ahmad, op. cit.
[135] M.M. Ali, op. cit., pp. 47-8.
[136] M.G. Ahmad (1903), op. cit., pp. 32-3.
[137] Ibid., p. 30.
[138] Ibid., pp. 29-30.
[139] M.M. Ali, op. cit.
[140] M.G. Ahmad (1903), op. cit., p. 31.
[141] H.S. Singha (2005), The Encyclopedia of Sikhism (over 1000 Entries), (Hemkunt Publishers Ltd, New Delhi), p. 59.
[142] Fn. 3: Unfortunately these items were destroyed in the Military Action (Blue Star) when the Indian army attacked the Golden Temple in June 1984.
[143] G.S. Sidhu (1999), A Challenge to Sikhism, (Mohindra Art Press, London), pp. 16-7.
[144] M.M. Ali, op. cit.
[145] M.G. Ahmad (1903), op. cit., pp. 29-30.
[146] Ibid., pp. 33-4.
[147] M.G. Ahmad, A Message of Peace, op. cit., p. 46.
[148] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[149] Holy Robe of SHRI GURU NANAK DEV JI, (SikhiWiki; accessed: June 22, 2014).
[150] Dera Baba Nanak, (The Sikh Encyclopedia; accessed: June 22, 2014).
[151] M.G. Ahmad (1903), op. cit., p. 34.
[152] M.G. Ahmad (2007), The Need for the Imam, (Islam International Publications Ltd, London), pp. 35-6.
[153] M.G. Ahmad (2007), The Criterion for Religions, (Islam International Publications Ltd, UK), pp. 13-4.
[154] Q.M. Barkatullah (1985), Baba Nanak was a Muslim, (The Review of Religions, Sept; accessed: Mar 31, 2014), p. 17.
[155] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[156] M.G. Ahmad (1903), op. cit.
[157] M.G. Ahmad (1903), op. cit., p. 29.
[158] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[159] A. Raza, Baba Guru Nanak – A Muslim Saint, (Ahmadiyya Muslim Community; accessed: Mar 14, 2014).
[160] T.P. Hughes, op. cit.
[161] Ghulam Ahmad et al inexplicably overlooked the many times where Pincott unequivocally states that Nanak was neither a Hindu nor a Muslim:

[162] T.P. Hughes, op. cit., p. 588.
[163] Ibid., p. 586.
[164] E. Trump (1877), The Adi Granth, or the Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs, (W. M. H. Allen & CO., London), p. lxvii.
[165] Fn. 95: The Miharban Janamsakhi records the dialogue that is presumed to have taken place between Guru Nanak and the qazi. There appears to be a distinct possibility of such a happening in the context of narration of this episode.
[166] Fn. 96: These questions and answers are mentioned in the Miharban Janamsakhi. They are not found in any other Janamsakhi.
[167] Fn. 97: All the Janamsakhi versions agree that Guru Nanak went to the mosque, along with the qazi, to say the namaz. It has to be taken as correct.
[168] Fn. 98: This detail is given only in the Bala Janamsakhi, and in no one else. But this dialogue fits into the given situation.
[169] Fn. 99: This event is mentioned in all the Janamsakhi versions.
[170] E. Trump, op. cit., p. xii-xiii.
[171] Fn. 100: This episode is mentioned in all the Janamsakhi versions. The Bala Janamsakhi records that Daulat Khan asked the Nanak that he could have said the namaz with him if the qazi had not been saying his. In reply, Nanak told him (Daulat Khan) that he himself was then buying horses in Kabul and Kandahar. At this Daulat Khan also became silent.
[172] Fn. 101: Bhai Gurdas in his var XI makes the following reference to Daulat Khan; “Daulat Khan was a virtuous person, a Muslim holy man, Jind, was also there who was beyond death.” Mufti Ghulam Sarvar’s Tarikh-i-Makhzan-i-Punjab (pp.28-29) says that Shaikh Badr-ud-Din Sherwani was called Jind Pir. He was a man of considerable influence. Bahlol Lodhi’s daughter was married to him. He got several villages in jagir with which he founded the Malerkotla State. He died in A.D. 1515. See also Griffin’s Chiefs and Families of Note in the Punjab, 1940, Vol. II, p. 529. Bhai Randhir Singh says that Shaikh Badr-ud-Din Jind Pir was the qazi at Sultanpur when Guru Nanak went into the mosque to say namaz. However, this fact is not supported by any other source.
[173] K. Singh, op. cit., pp. 75-8.
[174] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[175] Twarikh Guru Khalsa, (The Sikh Encyclopedia; accessed: Jul 04, 2014).
[176] Q.M. Barkatullah, op. cit., p. 16.
[177] H. Singh (1969), Guru Nanak, (Asia Publishing House, Punjabi University Patiala), p. 18.
[178] Ibid., p. 80.
[179] K. Singh, op. cit., p. 35.
[180] Q.M. Barkatullah, op. cit.
[181] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[182] Ibid.
[183] Bala JS, p. 175.
[184] G.S. Sidhu, op. cit., p. 14.
[185] Ibid., p. 62.
[186] Ibid., pp. 30-1.
[187] Ibid., p. 16.
[188] E. Trump, op. cit., p. xvi.
[189] Fn. Pur JS, pp. 25-6 [i.e. Vir Singh (ed.), Puratan Janam-sakhi, 5th edition, Amritsar, 1959].
[190] W.H. McLeod (1980), op. cit., p. 85.
[191] Bhai Vir Singh’s Purataan Janamsakhi – Mecca pages 176-183.
[192] S.S. Kapoor, M.K. Kapoor (2005), Janam Saakhi Prampara, (B. Chattar Singh Jiwan Singh, Amritsar), p. 180.
[193] Nanak said: “The Fourteenth Day: One who enters into the fourth state, overcomes time, and the three qualities of raajas, taamas, and satva.” (SGGS, 840)

“Your Power is diffused through the three gunas: raajas, taamas and satva.” (SGGS, 1038)

Kabir added: “Raajas, the quality of energetic activity shall pass away. Taamas, the quality of lethargic darkness shall pass away. Saatvas, the quality of peaceful light shall pass away as well.” (SGGS, 1204)
[194] S.S. Kapoor, M.K. Kapoor (2007), Guru Granth Sahib – An Advance Stud, Vol. 2, (Hemkunt Publishers Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi), p. 39.
[195] S.S. Kapoor (2005), op. cit., pp. 179-80.
[196] Fn. 2: A parallel tradition on the authority of I. ‘Abbas via al-Zuhri simply says that the idols were strengthened by lead.
[197] A. Guillaume (2011), The Life of Muhammad – A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, (Oxford University Press, Pakistan), p. 552.
[198] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[199] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., pp. 200-1.
[200] G.S. Sidhu, op. cit., p. 29.
[201] (Eds) S.S. Bhatia, op. cit., p. 32.
[202] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., p. 202.
[203] (Eds) S.S. Bhatia, op. cit., p. 33.
[204] (Ed) A. Singh, op. cit., p. 122.
[205] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., p. 216.
[206] Fn. 4: The Adi Granth, p. 140.
[207] (Ed) A. Singh, op. cit., p. 122.
[208] Ibid.
[209] E. Trump, op. cit., p. xxxi.
[210] S. Singh (1996), About Compilation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, (Lok Sahit Parkashan, Amritsar), pp. 170-1.
[211] Fn. 15: Reported by Ahmad, AI-Bazzaar, At-Tabaraani, At-Tayalisee, and Al-Khateeb. Al-Hakim said it is authentic and Ad-Dhahabi agreed. Many think that this reference is a Prophetic Hadeeth, and it is not. It is authentically related to Abdullah bin Mas’oud. A great benefit is deduced from Ibn Mas’oud’s explanation as to what constitutes Ijmaa’. In the last part of his statement marked by { }, as reported by Al-Hakim, he clearly explains that the agreement between the Sahabah constituted a state of Ijmaa’ (consensus between Muslims). Therefore, in any generation, the consensus of opinion amongst the learned, pious and righteous scholars who follow the companions’ path regarding any matter not directly stated in Quran or Sunnah, produces a state of Ijmaa’. Blind following and innovations are not part Ijmaa’.
[212] S. al-Saleh, Islam: The Complete and Final Message to Man, (Understand Islam; accessed: Aug 09, 2014), p. 10.
[213] Shaykh Wasiullah ibn Muhammad Abbaas:

Ed.- See also Ibn Taymiyyah’s Majmu’ al-Fataawa 11/573. Shaykh Nasir ud-Deen al-Albani declared it Hasan in ad-Da’eefah 2/17.
[214] Fn. 2: The Adi Granth, p. 1381.
[215] Fn. 3: Ibid, p. 141.
[216] Fn. 4: Ibid, p. 465.
[217] (Ed) A. Singh, op. cit., p. 123.
[218] E. Trump, op. cit., p. xxxii.
[219] H. Court (1888), History of the Sikhs; or Translation of the Sikkhan De Raj Di Vikhia, (Civil and Military Gazette Press, Lahore), pp. 197-99.
[220] Bala JS, p. 164.
[221] G.S. Sidhu, op. cit., p. 27.
[222] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[223] Bala JS, p. 155.
[224] Vars Bhai Gurdas, Pannaa 1.
[225] G. Ibadullah (1988), Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion, (The Review of Religions, vol. LXXXIII, Jan; accessed: Mar 31, 2014), pp. 13-4.
[226] Fn. 491: Bhai Gurdas versified this dialogue as under: The Qazis and Mullahs go together and ask about righteousness. God has enacted a huge drama and none can comprehend it. They wanted the Guru to open his book and tell whether Hindu or Muslim is great. Baba told the Hajis- Both of them will weep without good deeds. (Var 1 Pauri 33).
[227] Fn. 492: After that it is said that a dialogue took place with Pir Rukan-ud-din and Pir Patlia. Bhai Vir Singh calls the latter Pir Patnia. That implies he could be Shaikh Ibrahim of Pakpatan with whom the Guru had a dialogue at Pakpatan, but this remains unconfirmed. However, the fact that the Makhdum of Multan and Makhdum of Uch went to Mecca at the time of Guru Nanak is confirmed. The point whether Shaikh Ibrahim also went to Mecca at that time cannot be ascertained. Similarly, no information is forthcoming in respect of Rukan-ud-din.
[228] K. Singh, op. cit., pp. 189-90.
[229] G.S. Sidhu, op. cit., p. 34.
[230] Fn. 3: The [] (kafni) a kind of woollen shirt without sleeves, worn by Faqirs.
[231] E. Trump, op. cit., p. xv.
[232] Ibid., p. xxxiv.
[233] Ibid., p. xxxix.
[234] Ibid., p. xl.
[235] G.S. Sidhu, op. cit., p. 27.
[236] Fn. 128: In both the Vilayatvali and the Miharban versions, the episode has been given as above.
[237] K. Singh, op. cit., pp. 84-5.
[238] Bhai Vir Singh’s Purataan Janamsakhi – Mecca pages 176-183.
[239] T.P. Hughes, op. cit., p. 589.
[240] Fn. 483: This is based on the sakhi titled, “Guru Ji Hinglaj Vich” in Miharban’s Janamsakhi, pp. 461-62. Although this episode is found in no other Janamsakhi version yet it seems correct since it happened at a place which is on the Guru’s way to Mecca. Bhai Gurdas has also said that the Guru first went to Mecca and then to Baghdad. Thus, the Guru’s journey by sea seems probable and correct. Lakhpat, sarovar at Narain Swami and Hinglaj fall on this route.
[241] K. Singh, op. cit., pp. 187-8.
[242] Fn. 490: The Utterance of this hymn by Guru Nanak had nothing unusual about it because the Hajis who put these questions to him were especially those who had gone from India and they could comprehend Sadh Bhakha. The Vilayatvali Janamsakhi records that the Guru uttered this hymn in Mecca in response to the questions of Hajis there.
[243] K. Singh, op. cit., pp. 189-90.
[244] Fn. 528: The episode of the Guru’s visit to Kabul is from Mani Singh Janamsakhi. Although it does not appear in any other Janamsakhi version, but Kabul fell on the Guru’s route while returning from Baghdad. There is every possibility of the Guru’s halt there.
[245] Fn. 529: Mani Singh Janamsakhi, Bombay edition, p. 210.
[246] K. Singh, op. cit., p. 198.
[247] Ibid., p. 207.
[248] Fn. 522: This episode is recorded in the Bhai Mani Singh Janamsakhi, but is not found in any other Janamsakhi text. It seems correct because Mashhad is situated on the old route from Baghdad to Kabul.
[249] Fn. 523: If we carefully analyse the Mani Singh text, we find indications that Pir Abdul Rahman was a native of
Gurdez.
[250] K. Singh, op. cit., pp. 196-7.
[251] Ibid., p. 206.
[252] Despite being recorded in the Vaars of Gurdas, some dispute has been raised over the historical truth of this exchange. See Prof Devinder Singh Chahal’s Did Guru Nanak meet Pir Dastgir and Pir Bahlol Dana?
[253] Fn. 511: These details are on the basis of a Sakhi in the Bhai Mani Singh Janamsakhi.
[254] Fn. 512: Bhai Gurdas says:

[255] K. Singh, op. cit., p. 194.
[256] M.G. Ahmad, A Message of Peace, op. cit.
[257] E. Trump, op. cit., p. lxvii.
[258] S.S. Kapoor (2005), op. cit., p. 171.
[259] M. Ahmad (2008), Approaching the West, (Majlis Anṣarullāh, U.S.A; accessed: Aug 03, 2014), p. 102.
[260] Q.M. Barkatullah, op. cit., p. 18.
[261] Abu Hurairah reported: “The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) informed his companions about the death of Negus (Najashi), the king of Abyssinia, the day that he died. And then the Prophet led them to the prayer ground where he lined them up and offered funeral prayer for him with four Takbirs.”
[262] A.-P. S. Mandair (2013), Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed, (Bloomsburys Publishing Plc), p. 27.
[263] W.H. McLeod (1984), Textual Sources for the Study of Sikhism, (Manchester University Press), p. 25.
[264] T.P. Hughes, op. cit.
[265] E. Trump, op. cit., p. lxxvi.
[266] Fn. 27: It is said that a quarrel arose between the Hindus and the Muslims as the Guru passed away. The Hindus said that the Guru’s body be cremated whereas the Muslims said that it be buried. The reference to this quarrel is found in Vilayatwali.
[267] K. Singh, op. cit., p. 230.
[268] M.N. Gulati (2008), Comparative Religious and Philosophies: Anthropomorphism and Divinity, (Atlantic Publishers and Distributors Ltd), p. 280.
[269] (Eds) M.V. Singh, op. cit., p. 39.
[270] R. Dalal (2010), Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide, (Penguin Books, India), p. 184.
[271] Raj Pruthi:

Sehdev Kumar:

[272] Ibid., p. 172.
[273] G.S. Sidhu, op. cit., p. 29.
[274] Ibid., p. 31.
[275] Ibid., p. 16.
[276] A. Jaleel, op. cit.
[277] (Ed) H. Singh, op. cit., pp. 292-3.
[278] Ibid., pp. 293-4.
[279] Ibid., p. 295.
[280] N. Hanif, op. cit., p. 30.