I have read lot’s of beautiful literature on the blessed sandal, poetry in praise and honourary literature. But My masters stood heightened above all. Hazrat Abdur Rahman Jami had this unique quality of expressing his love and veneeration in poetry which we shall highlight in a bit.

The prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam wore a special kind of sandal, the two strings of which were drawn between the blessed toes. These sandals (na’l, became likewise an amulet full of baraka particularly strong against the evil eye. Were they not worthy of all admiration and veneration, for the prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam had touched the Divine Throne with them during his heavenly journey, so that they became "the vertex of the crown of the Throne" (1)

Our master Hazrat Abdur Rahman Jami for example further writes that all heavenly beings rubbed "forhead of their intention" on RasulAllah’s SallAllahu alaihi wasallam "Throne rubbing Sandals"(2) He also writes that the heavenly tree ‘Tuba’ had rubbed its head at the Prophet’s SallAllahu alaihi wasallam sandal and thus reached highest honour, and he repeatedily expresses the feeling that ‘the thread of the soul is nothing but the string of RasulAllah’s SallAllahu alaihi wasallam sandals and that cheek of the longing lover resembles the fine Ta’ifi leather of which these sandals were made: do the lover’s cheeks not hope to be touched by the Prophet’s holy feet thus to obtain every conceivable bliss.    

The poets, many of them from North Africa and Spain, described these blessed sandals or expressed their longing for them. Thus an Andalusian poetess, Sa’duna Umm Sa’d bint Isam al Himyarriya begins one of her poems with the words;

‘I shall kiss the image if I do not find

A way to kiss the Prophet’s sandal.

Perhap’s the good fortune of kissing it 

Will be granted to me in Paradise in the most radiant place,

And i rub my heart on it so that perhaps

The burning thirst which rages in it maybe quenched. (3)   

The North African historian al Maqarri devoted a voluminous book to the subject of the Prophet’s SallAllahu alaihi wasallam sandals, its more then 500 pages contain not only prose and poetical texts but also drawings of the blessed sandals as they were used by people as a protective talisman, for it protected one’s house from fire, caravans from hostile attacks, ships from disaster at sea and property from loss.’ Around the turn of the present century Hazrat Yusuf Nabhani, the collector of eulogies for the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam, sang in one of his poems:

"Verily i serve the image of the sandal of Mustafa

So that i may live in both worlds under its protection"

Popular songs in honour of the Nalain Sharif (Noble Sandals) have persisted down to the present, according to a Iraqi friend who remembered such songs from childhood in Baghdad.

In addition to the sandals, another relic that became widely accepted was the impression of the beloved Prophet’s SallAllahu alaihi wasallam blessed foot. According to historians RasulAllah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam foot left a trace on the rock in Jerusalem where he alighted during his (night journey) before ascending into the Divine Presence. The dome of the rock was built in honour and protect that site, which is greatly revered.

At various times and places other large stones have been found with an impression in them that came to be regarded as the trace of the Prophet’s SallAllahu alaihi wasallam foot, and hence worthy of veneration. It is also believed that the Abbasid caliph recieved as a gift a pair of sandals attributed to the beloved prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam and paid a hefty and handsome amount even though he did not believe in their authenticity.

People for centuries gained blessings and veneered anything connceted to the blessed feet of RasulAllah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam. In the year 1304, the reformist theologian Ibn Taimiyya, who tried to remove such a stone in Damascus to stop the percieved superstitious practices with it, was driven away by the enraged masses and even accused of impiety.            

From the middle ages onward such stones and relics were bought to India by credulous pilgrims. One of the first known instances is connected with the name of a Suharwardi saint ‘Hazrat Makhdoom Jahaniyan’ from Uchh, who deposited such a qadam e rasul SallAllahu alaihi wasallam (Footprint of the prophet) in Delhi.

It must have been this very qadam mubarak (holy footprint) that Sultan Feroz Ghazi Malik placed on his son’s tomb. As late as the early nineteenth century, an annual fair also was held on the 12th Rabi ul Awwal at that very site: one observer in 1840 reported that ‘thousands upon thousands thronged and assemble and perform ecstasies in front of its gate.’ (5)  

Soon a number of places between Nayanganj (Bangladesh), Gaur (West Bengal) and Gujrat boasted of owning such a relic.

The veneration for the qadam e rasul mubarak SallAllahu alaihi wasallam was so deeply rooted that even the Mughal emperor Akbar waited upon such a blessed stone that one of his grandees had bought back from Makkah in 1589. Because this happened after the ruler had promulgated the deen e Elahi, his eclectic religious order, the critical chronicler Badaoni notes the event with great amazement: how such respect for the Prophet’s footprint SallAllahu alaihi wasallam compatible with the ruler’s otherwise so "unIslamic" attitude. (6)     

A great Urdu poet whose name i cannot recall writes;

‘The trace of his foot has the rank of Mount Sinai’ that is, it is the place where Divine Light becomes visible, and therefore, Mustafa’s footprint is the place where the bearers of the Divine Throne prostrate.’

Syedina Muhammad Mustafa SallAllahu alaihi wasallam is the colour of the rose of Love,

And his curls are the spring of the hyacinths Love,

Certainly, he, he alone is the most radiant sun of Love,

And through him are illuminated the luminous stars of Love 

 

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Notes:

1-Jami- ‘Laila u Majnun’ in haft aurang pg 756 - S.B Bukhari ‘Jawahir al auliya’ pg 233 Nizami in his ‘khausrau u shirin’ had addressed the blessed sandal as ‘The crown of the throne’ also in Khaqanis he sings in his hilya pg 11 ‘the Divine throne throne gained honour from kissing these sandals.        

2- Jami- ‘Tarji-Band’ Diwan pg 95 (Silsilat ad dhahab)   

3- Hazrat Yusuf Nabhani- ‘Al majmua an nabhaniya’ pg 386 

4- Memon- ‘Ibn taimiyyas struggle against popular religion’ pg 362 (This book also contains veneration of other relics that taimiyya objected to)

5- Nath- ‘Monuments of Delhi’  pg 39

6- Badioni- ‘Munthakab at tawarikh’ [translated]