Neutral ji I tried your provived link but didn't work. Anyway I knew few things about the Chola as under:
The
Chola, or the cloak of Baba Nanak, is the holiest relic of the Guru and is preserved in Dera Baba Nanak, a small village in Gurdaspur District of the Punjab. This is a cloak which Nanak wore in his life-time and it is considered so sacred that his immediate followers took every care to keep it safe. The regard and reverence rendered to the
Chola by the Sikh community is a testimony to the authenticity of the cloak. The words of Guru Nanak as contained in the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh scriptures) were not collected until the time of Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Guru, and therefore cannot be relied upon as accurate particularly as Sikhism had by that time assumed an attitude of hostility towards Islam. But the
Chola is clear from this charge, because it was handed down by Nanak himself and has come down to our times in its original condition. It is commonly alleged that verses from different scriptures in different languages are written on the
Chola. But this is not true. The verses chosen for writing on the
Chola are quotations from the Holy Quran as revealed by photographs recently taken. The religion followed by the man can be none other than Islam. But strangely, the misconception has gained upper hand in the case of
Chola as in the case with teachings of Baba Nanak, which, in spite of being purely Islamic, came by and by to be looked upon as a compromise between Hinduism and Islam.
The congruence of the teachings of Baba Nanak with those of the Holy Quran is so perfect that one cannot escape the conclusion that the Guru had accepted Islam as his religion. He declared that there was One God and He was the same for all and that He was formless. There is none else who is equal to Him. He is the sole Creator of this Universe. Everything is created by Him. He is the ultimate determinant in terms of all forms of His creation.
Sikhism believes in a one and formless God and it does not believe in idol worship. According to it, idol worship promotes attachment of God with something other than God and God cannot limit Himself in the form of an idol or a stone. He is beyond everything and in everything at the same time.
Sikhism does not believe in Avatar, i.e. God descending on earth to protect humanity. On the other hand, it believes that there are men who are spiritual to the highest degree, are blessed souls and therefore are assigned the duty to liberate humanity from its continual suffering.
The book Janam Sakhi of Bala Sahib is an authoritative source of Sikhism. Bala was Nanak's constant companion and he accompanied his Master for twenty years during his travels. It is true that in Janam Sakhi one finds much fiction mixed with facts. Bala was a Hindu and after Nanak's death, estrangemant of Sikhism from Islam had started. As such any statement contained in Janam Sakhi in favour of Islam has the weight of a hostile witness.
The following passages are quoted from the third edition of Bala Sahib's Janam Sakhi, printed by the press, Anarkali, Lahore in the early part of this century.
On page 134 of Janam Sakhi, we read, The Quran is divided into thirty sections, proclaim thou, this Quran in the four comers of this world. Declare the glory of one name only for none other is an associate with me. Nanak proclaims the word of God that came to him, thou hast been granted the rank of Sheikh, so thou shouldst abolish the worship of gods and goddesses and the old Hindu idol - temples.
The fundamental article of the Islamic faith, the Kalima, has been given the greatest stress in Janam Sakhi. A few Shaloks (verses) from this Sakhi read:
I have repeated one Kalima, there is none other.
Those who repeat the Kalima and are not devoid of the faith, shall not be burned on fire.
Repeat the Holy Kalima of the Prophet, it shall cleanse thee of all sins.
By repeating the Kalima, the punishment of this world, as well as the next is averted.
Whoever repeats the Kalima, how shall he be punished? the merit of repeating the Kalima is that a person is cleansed of his sins.
In Bala's Janam Sakhi, we also read that during his pilgrimage to Mecca, Baba Nanak met Qazi Rukn-ud-Din, the Imam and had long conversations with him. It is reported that Nanak said, 0: Rukn-ud-Din, it is written in the Book (i.e., the Quran) that those who drink wine or 'Bhang' shall be punished on the Day of Judgement.
Baba Nanak was not a Muslim in belief only. He recognised the necessity of worship in the form enjoined by Islam and laid stress on this point in his teachings. On page 193 of Bala's Janam Sakhi, we have: Nanak said, 0: Rukn-ud-Din, hear from me the true reply: the saying of the Lord is written in the Book. That person will go to hell who does not repeat the Kalima, who does not keep the thirty fasts, and does not say the five prayers, who eats what is not lawful for him. These shall receive the punishment and the fire of the bottomless pit shall be his abode. It is also reported that Baba Nanak kept fasts for a whole year at Mecca and put his fingers in his ears and gave the call to prayer. It is also related that Nanak recited the Khutba of the Prophet and became happy.
The few quotations are sufficient to show that Nanak not only made a full confession of the absolute truth of Islam but also performed the obligations of Islamic law and enjoined others to follow them. Now the question arises how the religion preached by Nanak came to be identified as an offshoot of Hinduism. Anybody who is acquainted with the history of Sikhism would reach the conclusion that the transformation was due to political, not religious reasons.
Baba Nanak was not a mere convert to Islam. He felt he had been called to act as a spiritual guide and to take people into his discipleship after the manner of many Muslim Sufis. This has lead later historians to conclude that Baba Nanak founded a new cult which took into his fold Muslims as well as Hindus and hence Sikhism was a compromise of the two religions. We have to reject this conclusion because no Muslim disciple of Nanak is known to have given up his belief in Islamic principles nor to have acted against any Islamic injunctions regarding prayers and fasting. Punjab, at the time of Nanak, was under Muslim rule and if Nanak had converted any Muslim to a faith other than Islam, he would have been sentenced to death for apostasy, (though it is un-Islamic to the core!) was strictly enforced by all Muslim rulers in the Middle ages, but Nanak's disciples were not harmed in any way let alone being stoned to death. This clearly shows that Nanak was looked upon as a Muslim Sufi by his contemporaries. It is indeed difficult to explain fully the causes which led to the identification of Sikhism with Hinduism rather than with Islam. But so subtle and variant are generally the causes which shape the religious thought of a people, that a complete satisfactory explanation is often impossible in such matters.
