Question:
i have asked this qeustion before but have never got a responce,was guru nanak a muslim,has mawlana shaykh nazim ever taked about guru nanak..thank you
Answer:
I have not heard that Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani – may Allah sanctify his secret – ever mentioned Guru Nanak. As for Guru Nanak being Muslim, the accounts of his life relate otherwise, since he chose a way other than Islam. He belonged by birth to the Kshatriya caste of Hinduism, yet he also chose not to defer to Brahmin authority. At the very least his Kshatriya origin may account for the militant ornaments of Sikhism.
Guru Nanak’s life was conditioned by the encounter of Hindu and Muslim societies. The most profound implications of this encounter have been suggested by Shaykh `Abdul Wahid Yahya – may Allah have mercy on him – in his famous article “The Mysteries of the Letter Nun” (and in the present context, let it not be ignored that the name “Nanak” is composed of two nun):
“Returning to the form of the letter nun, a further observation may be made…in the Sanskrit alphabet, the corresponding letter na, reduced to its fundamental geometrical elements, is likewise composed of a half-circumference and a point; but here, the convexity being turned upwards, it is formed by the upper half of the circumference, and not by the lower half as in the Arabic nun. We thus have the same figure placed the other way up, or more exactly two figures that are strictly complementary to each other. If they are joined together, the two central points naturally merge into one another, and this gives a circle with a point at its center, a figure which represents the complete cycle and which is also the sign of the Sun in astrology and of gold in alchemy…”
Concerning this “reunion” of elements from the traditions of Hinduism and Islam, he concludes that “it is in the ‘intermediary world’ that the junction must be brought about; this junction is in fact impossible in the ‘inferior world,’ which is the domain of division and ‘separativity,’ and on the other hand it is always accomplished in the ‘superior’ world, where it is realized principially in a permanent and unchangeable manner in the ‘eternal present.’”
Nevertheless, the milieu of Guru Nanak suffered more than one attempt to bring about a junction of Hinduism and Islam in this “inferior world,” for example by the Mughal Emperor Akbar with his “Din Ilahi.” This innovation was not only opposed by Muslims, chief among them the Mujaddid Alf-i Thani (may Allah sanctify his secret), since a Hindu is reported to have told Akbar: “I certainly am a Hindu, If you order me I will become Muslim, but I know not of the existence of any other religion than these two.”
Even if the account of the pilgrimage of Guru Nanak is accepted as historically tenable, it is likely that he was mistaken for a Muslim Qalandar or wanderer whose blameworthy appearance expressed independence from Muslim society. In this connection, it is worth noting that despite the Qalandars’ lack of regard for the conventions of this “inferior world,” certain doctrines attributed to them suggest that they were instead focused upon a reunion in the “intermediary world.”
Mahmoud Shelton
