Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
It is not easy to truly deserve the name 'Muslim,' says Guru Nanak — but if someone really lives it, then the name fits beautifully.
First, let the faith of the Prophet be sweet to you — something you genuinely love. Then let your pride in everything you own be scraped clean away. Set aside the fear of dying and the desperate clinging to living; surrender fully to the One's Will, and let your selfishness dissolve. And here is the test that seals it all: be merciful to every living being. Then — and only then — can you truly be called a Muslim.
This shalok completes Guru Nanak's loving meditation on what it means to truly belong to a faith — and it sets a standard so high, and so inward, that it applies to every tradition on earth. It is difficult to be called a Muslim; if one is truly a Muslim, then he may be called one. The name is not a label of birth or community; it is something earned by a transformed life. To wear the name truly is hard, because it asks for everything.
Guru Nanak then lays out the inner journey, step by step, with deep respect for the tradition he is describing. First, let him savor the religion of the Prophet as sweet — let the faith become something genuinely loved, delighted in, not merely inherited or performed. Then, let his pride of his possessions be scraped away — the ego's attachment to what is mine sanded down to nothing. Let him put aside the delusion of death and life — release both the terror of dying and the desperate grip on living. As he submits to God's Will and surrenders to the Creator, he is rid of selfishness and conceit.
And then the final, crowning test — the one that seals the whole thing: when he is merciful to all beings, only then shall he be called a Muslim. Mercy to all beings is the summit. Notice that this is the very same standard Guru Nanak holds up for everyone, in every tradition: the genuine follower of any path is known not by their label, their rituals, or their birth, but by the love and surrender and mercy their life actually carries. A true Muslim, by this measure, and a true Hindu, and a true Sikh, all arrive at the same place — a heart emptied of pride and fear and selfishness, and merciful to every living thing. This is the project's deepest conviction: the outer names differ, but the inner reality they point to is one, and its final test, everywhere, is mercy.
If the real test of any faith is mercy to every living being, how would your days look measured against it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI