The short version: the tradition that Guru Nānak went to Mecca is early and confident, and the visit cannot be confirmed.[1][2] Contested The story was told in the Gurus’ own circle within about seventy years of his death; but it was a miracle story from its first telling, no outside source records it, and the one object that seemed to confirm the western journey, a stone at Baghdad, is probably of the nineteenth century. What follows sets out each piece of evidence and what it can bear (§2).
The earliest telling: Bhāī Gurdās
The oldest account of the journey west is not in a janamsākhī but in the first vār, or long poem, of Bhāī Gurdās, the scribe of the Ādi Granth, written in the early seventeenth century.[3][4] Consensus It is a poem of praise, not an itinerary. The Guru, having received the Name, puts on the dress of a wandering ascetic and goes out to set the world right, to the pilgrimage places, to the mountain of the Siddhs, to Mecca and Baghdad, and back to Kartārpur.[3][5]
The Mecca episode opens:
ਬਾਬਾ ਫਿਰਿ ਮੱਕੇ ਗਇਆ ਨੀਲ ਬਸਤ੍ਰ ਧਾਰੇ ਬਨਵਾਰੀ। … ਜਾ ਬਾਬਾ ਸੁਤਾ ਰਾਤਿ ਨੋ ਵਲਿ ਮਹਰਾਬੇ ਪਾਇ ਪਸਾਰੀ। … ਟੰਗੋਂ ਪਕੜਿ ਘਸੀਟਿਆ ਫਿਰਿਆ ਮੱਕਾ ਕਲਾ ਦਿਖਾਰੀ।
bābā phiri makke gaiā nīl basatr dhāre banavārī | … | jā bābā sutā rāti no vali maharābe pāi pasārī | … | ṭaṅgoṅ pakaṛi ghasīṭiā phiriā makkā kalā dikhārī |
“Then Bābā went to Mecca, the Lord dressed in blue. … When Bābā slept at night with his feet stretched toward the miḥrāb … [Jīvan] seized him by the legs and dragged him, and Mecca turned, showing the miracle.”[2]
Six stanzas follow the Guru west. At Mecca the qāzīs and mullās ask him whether the Hindu or the Muslim is greater, and he answers that without good deeds both will weep; his sandal is kept at Mecca as a relic; at Baghdad, with “Mardānā the rabāb player”, he gives the call to prayer and the city falls silent, and he shows the son of the pīr Dastgīr the countless worlds above and below; and at the end Baghdad, Mecca and Medina, Hindus and Muslims, all bow.[2][6][4] Consensus on the text.
Two things follow, and they pull in opposite directions. The story is old: it was told in the Gurus’ circle within about seventy years of Guru Nānak’s death, earlier than any surviving manuscript of the janamsākhīs. And it was already a miracle story, told to show the Guru’s victory over the holy men of every tradition.[4][1] Majority
The janamsākhīs
The janamsākhīs, the lives of Guru Nānak written down from the seventeenth century onward, arrange his travels as four great journeys toward the points of the compass, with Mecca, Medina and Baghdad on the western one.[7][1][8] Consensus that this is the tradition’s account. But the order, number and dates of the journeys differ between the traditions, and each tradition’s itinerary is longer than the last.[1][9] Majority That growth is the pattern McLeod found across the stories: the later the life, the fuller the journey (How We Know).[9]
The Baghdad stone
During the First World War, Sikh soldiers of the Indian Army found a small shrine to Bābā Nānak outside Baghdad, near the tomb of the Sufi Bahlūl. Set into it was a stone with an inscription in Ottoman Turkish recording the building of a structure for “Bābā Nānak”, with a date.[10][11] Consensus that the shrine and the stone existed. The shrine was damaged and the stone taken after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.[10]
If it were of Guru Nānak’s own century it would be the only object outside India to name him in his lifetime, and so the readings of its date matter:[10][1][11] Contested
- 917 or 927 of the Hijra, that is 1511–12 or 1520–21, as the date has been read by those who take it as a record of the visit.
- 1226, that is 1811–12, as V. L. Ménage, an Ottomanist at SOAS, read its chronogram.
- 912, a date that comes from a 1919 poem about an “Arabic inscription” that no one has found.
McLeod, in 1968, printed a note by Ménage concluding that the inscription almost certainly did not name Guru Nānak and dated from the early nineteenth century, and withdrew it as evidence: the support claimed on its basis, he wrote, “must be withdrawn”.[1] Majority Harbans Singh and others objected; in 1979 Ménage answered them, arguing that the words read as “Bābā Nānak” break the verse’s metre, that the date in the cartouche had been retouched, and that the chronogram points to the early nineteenth century, and accepting the reading faqīr.[11][12] Contested Many Sikh writers treat the stone as proof of the visit. Most historians treat it as uncertain evidence of anything earlier than the shrine’s existence when the soldiers found it.[11][1][13] Majority
What the hymns show, and do not
Guru Nānak’s own hymns are the earliest evidence for him, and they show close knowledge of Muslim practice: they address qāzīs and mullās and speak of the five daily prayers in their own vocabulary.[4][14] Majority They also show a man who travelled; his hymns, Bhāī Gurdās and every janamsākhī agree on that.[1][3] Majority What they never do is say where he went. The scripture names no journey to Mecca or Baghdad.[15] Consensus
That knowledge did not require a journey west; it could as well have been gained in the Punjab he lived in, where he had worked for a Muslim governor, in a province governed in Persian and full of Sufi shrines (§1).[16][4] Majority on the setting. Nor is a journey west impossible. Punjabi traders and pilgrims travelled to Arabia and Iraq.[4] Majority
How historians weigh it
| View | Main argument | Main proponents |
|---|---|---|
| He went | Bhāī Gurdās, within seventy years, describes both visits; the Baghdad shrine and stone confirm one | Much Sikh scholarship; Harbans Singh[12] |
| Improbable or unproven | The travels are certain, the routes are not; the episodes are miracle stories from their first telling, and the stone is probably nineteenth-century | McLeod; Ménage on the stone[1][11] |
| Memory, not itinerary | The journeys say who the Guru was for those who told them: a teacher above every tradition | Anne Murphy; Arvind-pal Mandair[13][17] |
Contested The third view changes the question rather than answering it. For Murphy and Mandair the stories of the journeys, with the shrines and relics that grew up around them, are a living tradition of memory, and to ask only whether they are “true” is to miss what they were told for.[13][17]
Common misconceptions
- “The Mecca story comes from late legends.” It is older than any surviving janamsākhī: Bhāī Gurdās tells it in the early seventeenth century.[2] Consensus
- “The Guru Granth Sāhib describes the visit.” It does not; the account is Bhāī Gurdās’s and the janamsākhīs’.[15][1] Consensus
- “A Baghdad inscription proves he was there.” The stone’s date and wording are disputed, and the Ottomanist who studied it dated it to the early nineteenth century.[11] Contested
- “Historians have shown he never left India.” They have shown that the visit cannot be confirmed, not that it did not happen.[1] Majority
What the evidence cannot settle
Whether Guru Nānak stood in Mecca is a question the surviving evidence cannot answer either way. What it can say is when the story was first told, by whom, and what it meant to them: within a lifetime of the Guru, in his successors’ circle, it was already a story of the Guru’s authority over the holy men and holy places of Islam and of Hinduism alike (Who was Guru Nanak?).[4][1] Majority
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l W. H. McLeod Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968. The critical study of Nānak's life and theology, separating the janamsākhī tradition from the hymns.
- ^ a b c d Bhāī Gurdās, Vār 1.32 — Vārāṅ. early 17th c. CE. Punjabi in Gurmukhi. Nānak at Mecca in blue, feet towards the miḥrāb; Jīvan drags him and Mecca turns. The earliest telling of the Mecca story. read the text
- ^ a b c Bhāī Gurdās, Vār 1.23 — Vārāṅ. early 17th c. CE. Punjabi in Gurmukhi. "The bountiful Lord heard the cry and sent Guru Nānak into the world": the first vār's history of the world reaches Nānak here, then follows his travels and the succession to Guru Hargobind. read the text
- ^ a b c d e f g J. S. Grewal The Sikhs of the Punjab. The New Cambridge History of India II.3, Cambridge University Press, 1990. The standard narrative history; revised edition 1998.
- ^ Bhāī Gurdās, Vār 1.38 — Vārāṅ. early 17th c. CE. Punjabi in Gurmukhi. Back at Kartārpur the Guru puts off the udāsī's dress; Aṅgad set over the sons; the Japu recited at dawn and the Sodar and Āratī sung. read the text
- ^ Bhāī Gurdās, Vār 1.35 — Vārāṅ. early 17th c. CE. Punjabi in Gurmukhi. At Baghdad with "Mardānā the rabāb player"; the call to prayer, and the pīr Dastgīr's questions. read the text
- ^ Purātan Janamsākhī — Lives of Nānak in the Colebrooke and Hāfizābād manuscripts. 17th c. CE. Punjabi in Gurmukhi. The tradition McLeod judged the least elaborated, and the basis of his sorting of the stories.
- ^ Eleanor Nesbitt Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2016.
- ^ a b W. H. McLeod Early Sikh Tradition: A Study of the Janam-sākhīs. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980. The janamsākhī traditions, their manuscripts and how they grew.
- ^ a b c Baghdad inscription (Bābā Nānak shrine) — Inscription in Ottoman Turkish at the shrine of Bābā Nānak near the tomb of Bahlūl, Baghdad. 917 or 927 AH as read (1511–12 or 1520–21 CE); 1226 AH (1811–12 CE) by Ménage's reading of the chronogram. Ottoman Turkish. A stone in Ottoman Turkish verse at the Bābā Nānak shrine near Bahlūl's tomb, noticed by Indian Army Sikh soldiers in the First World War and lost after 2003. Read by many Sikh writers as naming "Bābā Nānak" and dating to his lifetime; Ménage argued the name breaks the metre, the date was retouched, and the chronogram gives the early nineteenth century.
- ^ a b c d e f V. L. Ménage The "Gurū Nānak" Inscription at Baghdad. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 111 (1): 16–21, 1979. doi Replies to critics (Harbans Singh among them) of his note printed in McLeod 1968: the words read as "Bābā Nānak" break the metre, the date was retouched, and the chronogram points to 1811–12; accepts the reading faqīr.
- ^ a b Harbans Singh Guru Nanak and Origins of the Sikh Faith. Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1969. The traditional life, told by a historian.
- ^ a b c Anne Murphy The Materiality of the Past: History and Representation in Sikh Tradition. Oxford University Press, New York, 2012.
- ^ Christopher Shackle and Arvind-pal Singh Mandair, trans. Teachings of the Sikh Gurus: Selections from the Sikh Scriptures. Routledge, 2005.
- ^ a b Pashaura Singh The Guru Granth Sahib: Canon, Meaning and Authority. Oxford University Press, 2000. doi The formation of the Sikh canon, from the 1604 Ādi Granth to its installation as Guru.
- ^ J. S. Grewal Guru Nanak in History. Panjab University, Chandigarh, 1969. Nānak set against the politics and the religious groups of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Punjab.
- ^ a b Arvind-pal Singh Mandair Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury, 2013.
