The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c10.s3.13

c10.s3.13

Kabir was more than sixty years of age when Sikandar Lodi ascended the throne and Nanak was twenty. Both saw the world around them and were dissatisfied with the unjust social and political order in which they lived. Not far from Nanaks home town of Talwandi, at Shahabad in the Ambala district, resided Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangoh. Nanak must have heard about him and his fundamentalism which was shared by the Lodi monarch in equal measure, and it were the activities of Mashaikh like Abdul Quddus and Sultans like Sikandar Lodi which provoked the Bhakta saints to stand equal to them and confront and encounter them. Kabir openly declared: I have come to save the devotee. I was sent because the world was in misery The Almighty sent me to show clearly the beginning and the end.¹⁰¹ Similarly Guru Nanak regarded himself as (having) received from His door-step the signs (*aitan*), the chapters (*surahs*) and the tradition (*hadis*) of the prophet.¹⁰² He taught that there is one God in the world and no other, and that Nanak the Caliph (or son) of God speaks the truth.¹⁰³ In language, sometimes soft and sometimes hard, they challenged the onslaught of Islam by claiming to have received message from God Himself. Kabir was conscious of his apostolic mission and challenged the concept that Islam was superior to Hinduism. There had been times under Muslim rule when, if one as much as said that Hinduism was as good as Islam, he was summarily executed.¹⁰⁴ Now Bhakta Kabir openly reiterated that Mecca has verily become Kashi, and Ram has become Rahim.¹⁰⁵ So also asserted Guru Nanak when he declared that There is no Hindu, there is no Musalman.¹⁰⁶ Most Hindu saints travelled widely and so did Guru Nanak, acquainting himself with different systems, orders and philosophies. He freely borrowed from Hindu classics and Muslim orders. He established the *Sangat* and the *Langar* after the way in the Muslim *Khanqahs*.