Re: Babri Masjid - Archeological & Historical View
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Opposite view on Guru Nanak’s visiting Ayodhya:**
When we reach back in time, what we find particularly interesting are the accounts attributed to Guru Nanak. He was a contemporary of Babar, and an eyewitness to his vandalism. Nanak condemned him in the strongest terms. The historian Harsh Narain in his book The Ayodhya Temple Mosque Dispute: Focus on Muslim Sources, writes: “Guru Nanak, according to Bhai Man Singh’s Pothi Janam Sakhi, said to have been composed in 1787 Anno Vikrami/1730 A.D., visited Ayodhya and said to his Muslim disciple Mardana: 'Mardania! eh Ajudhia nagari Sri Ramachandraji ki hai. So, chal, iska darsan kari’e. Translation: ‘Mardana! this Ayodhya city belongs to Sri Ramachandra Ji. So let us have its darsana.’”
This indicates that Nanak visited Ayodhya shortly before the destruction of the Rama temple by Babar. Another work by Baba Sukhbasi Ram gives a similar account, again suggesting that Nanak visited Ayodyha before the temple was destroyed by his contemporary, the Mughal invader Babar.
Muslim sources also give a similar account. In 1855, Amir Ali Amethawi led a Jihad for the recapture of Hanuman Garhi, situated a few hundred yards from the Babri Masjid, which at that time was in the possession of Hindus. This Jihad took place during the reign of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Oudh. It ended in failure. A Muslim writer, one Mirza Jan, was a participant in that Jihad. His book Hadiqah-i-Shuhada was published in 1856, i.e. the year following the failed Jihad. Miza Jan tells us:
“'wherever they found magnificent temples of the Hindus ever since the establishment of Sayyid Salar Mas’ud Ghazi’s rule, the Muslim rulers in India built mosques, monasteries, and inns, appointed mu’azzins, teachers and store-stewards, spread Islam vigorously, and vanquished the Kafirs. Likewise they cleared up Faizabad and Avadh, too from the filth of reprobation (infidelity), because it was a great centre of worship and capital of Rama’s father. **Where there stood a great temple (of Ramajanmasthan), there they built a big mosque, … Hence what a lofty mosque was built there by king Babar in 923 A.H. (1528 A.D.), under the patronage of Musa Ashiqqan!” Even more impressive is a Persian text known as *Sahifah-i-Chihal Nasa’ih Bahadurshahi *written in 1707 by a granddaughter of the Moghul emperor Aurangazeb, and noted by Mirza Jan in his Urdu work Hadiqah-i Shuhada just cited. Mirza Jan quotes several lines from her work which tell us:
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**“…keeping the triumph of Islam in view, devout Muslim rulers should keep all idolaters in subjection to Islam, brook no laxity in realization of Jizyah, grant no exceptions to Hindu Rajahs from dancing attendance on 'Id days and waiting on foot outside mosques till end of prayer … and 'keep in constant use for Friday and congregational prayer the mosques built up after demolishing the temples of the idolatrous Hindus situated at Mathura, Banaras and Avadhà.”
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Other Muslim authors than Mirza Jan also cite the work, which appears to have been widely available in the 18th and 19th centuries. Then there is the evidence of the three inscriptions at the site of the mosque itself, at least two of which mention its construction by Mir Baqi (or Mir Khan) on the orders of Babar. Babar’s Memoir mentions Mir Baqi as his governor of Ayodhya. Some parts of the inscription were damaged during a riot in 1934, but later pieced together with minor loss. In any event, it was well known long before that, recorded for instance in Mrs. Beveridge’s translation of Babur-Nama published in 1926.