Author: Khushwant Singh
Publication: The Wall Street Journal
Date: October 12, 2001
URL: http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=95001306
Sikhs must never be confused with
sheiks, although they have been lately. Indeed, soon after the Sept. 11
attack, a man shot and killed a Sikh gas-station owner in Mesa, Ariz.,
believing, apparently, that he was an Arab Muslim from the Mideast.
Though both may sport turbans and
beards, they are poles apart in their beliefs and taboos. Muslims are followers
of the Prophet Muhammad and turn toward their holy city, Mecca, when they
pray. Their sacred book is the Quran. They are cow-eaters and abominate
pig meat.
Sikhs revere their 10 gurus, and
their sacred book is the Granth Sahib, compiled by their fifth guru, Arjun,
in 1605 in their holy city, Amritsar, now in northern India. Like Hindus,
Sikhs resent the killing of cows but don't object to eating pork. Sikhism
is a branch of reformist Hinduism. The two groups have close ties; conversion
from one to the other is common.
The founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak,
was born in 1469 to Hindu parents in a village northwest of Lahore, now
in Pakistan. He was a wayward child who spent a lot of time talking to
itinerant holy men. In his mid-20s he left home with a Muslim family retainer
and minstrel. They visited Hindu places of pilgrimage along the Ganges,
went south to Sri Lanka and then west to Mecca and Medina. Nanak carried
a notebook in which he wrote hymns in praise of God and set down his dialogues
with men of religious learning.
There are not many references to
historical events in Nanak's writings, but he does mention the invasion
of northern India by the Mughal conqueror Babar in 1526 and the havoc he
caused. Nanak was imprisoned for some time. He acquired a sizable following
among both Hindus and Muslims. When he died in 1539 there was a dispute
among his followers: Muslims wanted to bury him because they thought he
was one of them; Hindus wanted to cremate him in the belief that he remained
a Hindu to the end.
Nanak's teachings were a blend of
Hinduism and Islam. He rejected Hindu polytheism and idol worship and accepted
Islamic monotheism. He rejected the Hindu caste system and asceticism.
"Be in the world but not worldly," he said. He emphasized the duty to work
and earn a living.
It is clear that Nanak wished to
set up a community apart from Hindus and Muslims. He appointed his closest
disciple as the second guru, and the second guru appointed his closest
disciple to be the third. Thereafter succession remained restricted to
one family. The fourth guru founded the city of Amritsar in 1574. His son,
Guru Arjun, raised the Harimandir (temple of God) in the city. Later rebuilt
in marble and covered with gold leaf, it became the Sikhs' most important
place of pilgrimage.
Guru Arjun compiled the Granth Sahib,
the sacred scripture of the Sikhs. It comprises more than 6,000 hymns,
all meant to be sung in different ragas of Indian classical music. Besides
presenting the writings of the gurus, it includes the compositions of Hindus
and Muslim saints.
By Guru Arjun's time, Sikhs had
become a sizable community, which alarmed Muslim rulers. Arjun was summoned
to Lahore where, after days of torture, he died. The same fate befell the
ninth guru, who was arrested, brought to Delhi and executed in 1675.
His only son, Gobind Rai, took up
arms in defense of the community. "Where all other means have failed, it
is righteous to draw the sword out of its scabbard," he wrote to the Mughal
emperor. He called Sikhs to gather at Anandpur and baptized five into a
new fraternity called the Khalsa, or the pure. They vowed never to cut
their hair or beards and always to carry a sword. He gave them a common
surname--Singh, or Lion--and changed his own name to Gobind Singh.
Gobind Singh fought Hindu rajas
and Muslim Mughal armies. He lost all four of his sons and was assassinated
by two of his Muslim retainers. The Punjabi peasantry eventually rose and
ousted Muslim rule in northern India. This paved the way for a Sikh kingdom
under Ranjit Singh, who ruled over Punjab until 1839.
Sikh history is a long saga of bloody
conflicts with the Muslims. When the British partitioned the region, almost
half the Sikh population found itself in Pakistan. Muslims drove them into
India, killing hundreds of thousands. In their turn, Sikhs drove Muslims
out of towns and villages in northern India with as much slaughter.
How ironic that, of all people,
Sikhs should be eyed with suspicion simply because they resemble Osama
bin Laden and his progeny.
Mr. Singh is author of the two-volume
"History and Religion of the Sikhs," published by Oxford University Press.