Relics of Muhammad

What it is

These are objects that Islam honours because they are tied to the prophet Muhammad: a battle banner, a cloak, a seal, hair from his beard, teeth, sandals, a bowl, and stones said to carry his footprint. Well-known sets are held at Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, at Hazratbal in the Kashmir valley, at Kirka Sharif in Kandahar and at the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore. Muslims who venerate them speak of blessing, held to pass from the prophet to the object and from the object to the person who sees it or touches it.

Where it comes from

Honouring such objects is old in Islam. Some of the earliest Muslims are recorded as venerating relics, and the custom stayed common across much of the Sunni world into the 18th century. Reform movements then attacked it, Salafism and Wahhabism chief among them, calling it shirk, the sin of pairing something with God. Their influence led some present-day Muslims to drop the practice. Belief in the footprint goes back to early Islam, the idea that a rock pressed by Muhammad kept the mark; orthodox branches never took it up, yet it spread and shrines grew around the stones. The mantle has its own story: a gift to the poet Ka'b ibn Zuhayr, later bought by Muawiyah I.

How it is done

Veneration is largely a matter of custody and display. In the 17th century the French traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier learned how the mantle was handled at the Ottoman court. Courtiers lifted it from its coffer and kissed it with respect. It was then laid in a wide golden cauldron of water and wrung out, with care taken that nothing fell to the floor. The water went into small bottles, about half a pint each, which were stoppered and stamped with the sultan's seal. The garment was left to dry until the twentieth day of Ramadan, then returned to the coffer.

Tools and materials

The banner travelled in a rosewood box inlaid with tortoiseshell, mother of pearl and gems; its keys were kept by the Kizlar Agha. Tavernier saw the seal in a small ebony box set in a wall niche beside a divan. The seal is a red agate rectangle about a centimetre long, cased in crystal with an ivory edge, cut with two lines of Arabic, one naming God and one naming Muhammad as his messenger. The beard rests in a glass case. Water from the washed mantle went into crystal bottles sealed in the ruler's name.

What it is for

The point of keeping these things is blessing. Sandals attributed to Muhammad, called Nalain Shareef in Urdu, are traditionally used to seek his blessings, and footprint shrines give worshippers a place to pray. Rulers found other uses. Murad III sent the banner to Hungary to lift his army's spirits, and it was shown to troops on campaign. The seal stamped documents in the 17th century. A bowl said to have been used by Muhammad passed down through his descendants and was valued as a family heirloom.

Who does it

For centuries the relics were in state hands. Ottoman sultans gathered them, and court officers did the handling: two treasurers of Constantinople described the collection to Tavernier, the Kizlar Agha held the keys to the banner's box, and an officer received the mantle after the sultan had kissed it. Sultans had the banner brought out for war. Elsewhere the keeping was more local. In Kashmir the hair relic, Moi-e-Muqqadas, is said to have been brought by Syed Abdullah Madani, described as a descendant of Muhammad, who left Medina and settled at Bijapur in 1635 as the Mughal Empire expanded across India.

Peoples and places

Relic keeping is spread widely across the Muslim world. Turkey holds the Topkapı collection. India has footprint shrines at Delhi, Murshidabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Bahraich and Cuttack, and Kashmir's Hazratbal keeps the hair. Bangladesh has the Qadam Rasul Mosque at Gaur plus sites at Chittagong and Bandar. Egypt has three, in Cairo and Tanta. Syria has two in Damascus and Palestine one, on the Foundation Stone beneath the Dome of the Rock. Kandahar in Afghanistan keeps the cloak, and Lahore its own relics.

What people believe

The reasoning behind the practice is that contact carries blessing. Several hadith report blessings coming from touching Muhammad's body or things that touched him. Al-Uthaymin, a Salafi scholar, held that Muhammad is the one person from whom blessing may be sought, whether through his body, objects that touched him, or his bodily fluids. Against this, Salafi and Wahhabi teaching calls the honouring of relics shirk. The footprint belief was never accepted by orthodox branches, but it spread widely and produced shrines.

When it is done

Two dates stand out. One is the Hajj: Selim I had the banner taken to the Grand Mosque of Damascus so that it could be carried on the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca. The other is Ramadan: the washed mantle was left to dry until the twentieth day of that month, when the sultan came to watch it put back in its coffer. The banner also marked public moments, among them the 1826 Auspicious Incident and the start of Turkey's entry into the First World War.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Much of what is known about the Ottoman collection comes from travellers. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a 17th century French explorer, set down what two treasurers of Constantinople told him about the standard, mantle and seal. Two centuries later Charles White wrote of the mantle, banner, beard and tooth, and said he had seen the footprint himself. Historians note evidence of relic veneration among the earliest Muslims. The most developed argument in the record is theological: Al-Uthaymin, writing from a Salafi position, limits blessing to Muhammad's own person and things that touched it.

Compare and confuse

Several related objects have their own names and entries. The banner is Sancak-ı Şerif, the mantle Hırka-i Şerif or Burda, the seal Mühr-ü Şerif, the beard Sakal-ı Şerif, a footprint Qadam-e-Rasul, the Kashmir hair Moi-e-Muqqadas and the sandals Nalain Shareef. The cloak kept at Kirka Sharif in Kandahar and the seal of Muhammad are treated separately. Comparable relic traditions gather around the Buddha and around Jesus.

Today

Most of the collections still exist. Topkapı Palace keeps the Sacred Relics, Hazratbal the hair, Kirka Sharif the cloak, and the Badshahi Mosque its own set. The bowl said to be Muhammad's came to Britain through generations of his descendants and was handed to Chechnya on 21 September 2011; it now sits in the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque in Grozny. At the same time, Salafi and Wahhabi influence means a good number of Muslims today take no part in relic veneration at all.

Questions people ask about Relics of Muhammad

Good reading and sources

• Relics associated with Muhammad on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data