Prophecy of Gharib Nawaz Against Prithviraj Chauhan

بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

وصلى الله على نبينا محمد

وعلى آله واصحابه

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Allah, Holy and Exalted is He, repeatedly mentions in the Holy Quran the contest between His Prophet Moses and the Pharaonic magicians. Ancient Egyptian magic was known as Heka, and it was part of their religion. Hence, the Egyptian priests were primarily the ones who had knowledge of these dark arts and who practiced it, including at the behest of the Pharaoh. The Egyptian priests kept their heads shaven, and in fact removed all the hair from their body as part of their conception of purity and cleanliness. This is paralleled by the Hindu Brahmin priests or pandits who likewise are clean shaven. The style of the Egyptian priest was in stark contrast to the Israelite Prophets of God, like Moses who kept his hair and his beard. The ancient Egyptians would have considered that appearance rough or uncivilized, associated with the tent dwelling Semitic herders, whom they called “Shasu”. Egyptian priests, particularly the higher ranking ones, would often wear leopard skins. The Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, explicitly forbade the use of leopard skins, perhaps for this reason. Hence, Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan, may Allah be pleased with him, said:

هَلْ تَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم نَهَى عَنْ كَذَا وَكَذَا وَعَنْ رُكُوبِ جُلُودِ النُّمُورِ

Do you know that the Apostle of Allah, peace be upon him, forbade such and such, and riding upon leopard skins? (Sunan Abi Dawud)

Even today, the wearing of leopard skins is primarily associated with African heathens. Another reason is that leopards, like other predatory beasts of prey, are considered unclean in the Shariah. Their skins remain unclean, even the process of tanning is unable to change that from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence. Now when the Prophet Moses had his staff cast in the presence of Pharaoh and his occult priests it was truly transformed into a live snake by the power of God, and exposed the jugglery of the Pharaonic magicians, causing the latter to become astonished and then immediately proclaim their faith:

وَأُلْقِيَ السَّحَرَةُ سَاجِدِينَ

And the magicians were impelled to fall down prostrate

قَالُوۡۤا اٰمَنَّا بِرَبِّ الۡعٰلَمِیۡنَ

They said, “We believe in the Lord of the worlds”

رَبِّ مُوۡسٰی وَہٰرُوۡنَ

“Lord of Moses and Aaron”

(Surah 7:120-122)

The ability to perform miracles by the power and authority of Allah is also given to many of the Saints that appear in this Ummah. One such saintly and otherworldly man known for being a prolific miracle worker was the eminent Sayyid Muin-ud-Din Hasan Chishti (1143-1236) known popularly as “Gharib Nawaz”, may Allah be pleased with him and have mercy upon him. He was a Persian who settled in India, in the town of Ajmer, in the late 12^th century CE. At the time Ajmer was the capital of the Chauhan dynasty, ruled by Prithviraj III (1166-1192) also known as Rai Pathora. This Prithviraj was an evil and arrogant Hindu king who began harassing and persecuting Gharib Nawaz and his disciples. Gharib Nawaz was merely an otherworldly mystic, a faqir, who was worshipping Allah and spreading the light of Islam through his generosity and goodness to the locals. Like the wicked Pharaoh of Egypt, Prithviraj commissioned one of his Brahmin priests, a certain Ajaipal, trained in the arts of black magic, to confront and rid him of Gharib Nawaz Muin-ud-Din Chishti. After numerous attempts to defeat and destroy Gharib Nawaz with his black magic all ended in utter failure, and having witnessed the incredible miracles of the Muslim saint, Ajaipal finally surrendered and accepted Islam at his blessed hand. He was renamed Abdullah Biyabani and remained a devoted disciple of Gharib Nawaz for the rest of his life. Gharib Nawaz Muin-ud-Din Hasan Chishti continued to invite the haughty and obstinate Prithviraj to Islam but he constantly refused. Then concerning this Prithviraj he received an Ilham—divine inspiration—prophesying his imminent doom by a Muslim army

پتھورا را زندہ گرفتہ بدست لشکر اسلام دادم

I have captured Rai Pithora alive and handed him over to the Army of Islam

This has been mentioned in Siyar ul-Awliya compiled by Sayyid Muhammad bin Mubarak al-Kirmani, and by Shah Abd ul-Haq Muhaddith of Delhi (1551-1642) in Akhbar ul-Akhyar (p.44) and Shaykh Abd ur-Rahman Chishti in Mirat ul-Asrar (Urdu, p.599):

As fate would have it, Prithviraj Chauhan (Rai Pathora), with a coalition of several other Rajput kings possessing numerical superiority over the forces of Muhammad of Ghor (1144-1206), was soundly defeated and captured alive at the Second Battle of Tarain (Taraori in modern-day Haryana, India) in 1192. It is said that Gharib Nawaz Muin ud-Din Chishti had appeared to Sultan Muhammad Ghuri in a vision instructing him to invade India and giving him the glad tidings of a glorious triumph and conquest. The eminent saints, reformers and mystics of Islam have always worked and had the sentiments and loyalty to the pan-Islamic Ummah, and reject Indian nationalism or indigenism. On the one hand, most of our Sufi mystics and saints that came to India to spread Islam, like Gharib Nawaz, were not indigenous to India but Persian. As the reformer Shah Waliullah of Delhi (1703-1762) invited the Afghan King Ahmad Shah Abdali (1720-1772) to invade India and deliver the Muslims from the tyranny of the Marathas, likewise centuries before him Gharib Nawaz Muin ud-Din Hasan Chishti had been given the glad tidings that the tyranny of the Rajput Chauhans would be broken by Sultan Muhammad Ghuri. From the life and work of Gharib Nawaz in India we also come to know why fanatical Hindu nationalists, who subscribe to Hindutva ideology, hate the Sufis in particular. It is said that nearly ten million Hindus converted to Islam at the blessed hand of Gharib Nawaz Muin ud-Din Chishti, may Allah be pleased with him and have mercy on him! The illustrious Sufi saints and mystics who entered India in the garb of impoverished mendicants wielded enormous charisma, attracting ordinary Hindus to convert at their hand, and exposing the jugglery and facade of the Hindu priests and yogis who attempted to oppose them. They opened the eyes of the people to the light of monotheism whereas prior to that the people were trapped in the darkness of idolatry and baseless superstition.