Amrita Pritam

#294 heh heh ...
look dont harass the great panjabi... he only posted with much relief once he realized that the tenets are compatible with islam (and iconoclastic to boot)

291,

Dr LR,

1. Sikh Gurus were against oppression by ALL against ALL. Sikh sardars had laid down lives to save mostly Hindu and muslim girls from Abdali. When Nakkai (Chunnia) Sardars attacked Kasur, they were trying to save a Hindu girl. It was not uncommon for Hindus and muslims to seek help from sikhs. Muslim subedars in Punjab often recruited sikhs` help to fight their battles. Teg Bahadur simply spoke against oppression and laid down his life to fight zulm.

2. During the earlier stages of sikhism. Most converts were from Hindu conversions. They did have relatives and culture of Hindus that was a big part of them; so of course, their was no contrast and clear line between the two communities.

3. Sikhs only married Hindus as last resort. It is not the first choice. or highly sought after relations unless caste plays a role. A sikh jat would rather marry into a Hinud Jat than a sikh mazbi or even a khatri. (thats mostly a Jat thing). but, they will give first priority to a Sikh Jat. Same thing goes with a Sikh Khatri, Ramgaria, etc.

Hindu Right wingers like RSS and others have become notorious for their assertions due to POLITICAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL reasons only. They are trying to ``correct`` and ``rewrite`` history. Their actions are reactionary to the failings of Hindus over the past 10 centuries or so. They even claim Indian muslims and want them to reconvert. They had MORE TRAITORS than heroes in their amidst for the past 10 centuries. So, they want to claim whatever and whoever they can. If they can go to such extremes and absurdity that Taj Mahal is Hindu temple. laying claim to Guru Gobind Singh is a minor thing to them....Do note, many Hindus esp. Brahmins opposed the Gurus and their teachings - they undermined them in several ways.

Hindu rituals have CREPT into sikhism with time and converts bringing their OLD baggage. It doesn`t mean that there is no difference.

#249 by tahmed32 on May 20, 2005 7:05am PT
delhiwala/kaura: I googled sikh religion, and learnt a bit about the basic tenets. It is clearly a mixture of islam and hinduism: monotheism and equality of man is from islam, while concept of reincarnation is from hinduism. The mughals (aurangzeb) do seem to have tried to get sikhs to become muslims - but that seems to have been for political reasons, since (as Guru Gobind`s letter to him posted by kaura indicates) even Aurangzeb was basically a ``bearded politician`` and nothing more.

our ancestral village was in sassoli, district hoshiarpur. lived there since at least the early 1800`s, since the line of ancestors, :-) ends with a certain chaudhry baga (wolf) who romped around at that time.

---

Tahmad sahib, how old are you? So finally in year 2005..at the age of 13 you have googled and found the truth about something that was happening or is in your backyard?:-)

as for Baagha...one of my ancestors was also named Baagha Singh:-)

Re: # 292
Oye Dullya tu vi relative niklya Tahmed da.

Re: # 292

``Tahmad sahib, how old are you? So finally in year 2005..at the age of 13 you have googled and found the truth about something that was happening or is in your backyard?:-) ``

I too was stumped when I realised that the all knowing, mostly sensible punjabi googling to know about the basic tenets of Sikhism. I guess no one is perfect ;)

#269 dehliwala

You seem to be a knowledgeable person but you are wrong about the Koran. It includes a good deal of hate-speech towards non-muslims, including specific instructions for murder.

Here is a specific verses:

009:029: Fight those who do not believe in Allah…nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

There are many others. They are no better or no worse than those found in many other religions.

But they clearly show how far from the truth folks like tahmed go when they claim ``islam preaches equality of all men``. It is shameful that an educated person should spin truth in such a fashion.

dilli,
``Regardless, Tahmed is a great man due to his worth not his race, religion or anything else.``

..our race, religion etc plays a great role in what our ``worth`` is, on the average..so if he is worthy due to his race and religion, then his religion and race is superior, else he is extra-ordinary and trancended his otherwise ordinary race and religion.

kind of like me.. a sikh admirer inspite of not being ``born`` sikh ;-)

Re: # 288
Jang,
By your logic anyone who is not christian is a low caste because, Christians are controlling the world for the last 500 years.

Bhuankya: Lidh Unhu khialye jidda tu agent hai.

i think kaura rocks in his views on hinduism. hindu (or indian) philosophy indeed is a lot of loosy-goosy observations of human fraility, narure etc, give multiple and sometimes conflicting views.

Most Dalits did convert to Islam for obvious reasons. BUT, their position didn`t improve - ie the treatment of `chooras` in W Punjab - and they converted yet to another religion to escape the prejudice - Christianity.


It is stupid and foolish to say most Hindus converted under the sway of Sufis. Forced conversions are happening daily. Because of humilliations and persecution. Hindus are converting in Bangladesh and Pakistan (Leah incident among others). There is no open and large scale persecution as it happened in history because of fear of back lash in neighboring India and world image.

Millions of Jats, Rajputs, Brahmins were converted by force. They didn`t have any reason to convert since they ruled the roost unlike Dalits. But, they converted. Now, they are known as Sayeeds..etc.

How come, these Sufis didn`t convert a single person where muslims didn`t rule?

Very few upper classes converted for different reasons. I`ve heard one distant relative of a Guru converted to marry a muslim girl. His descendent was one of the PMs (?)of Pakisatan. It was in the news.



Dilliwaalya,

tu lidh karno naeen hatda @#%$%$#%!! apni bewakoofi na chhalka.

Stupidity and shameless Lies at display.

Re # 283

``1. netaji palkar defected to aurangzeb based on money-career disputes willingly, and aurangzeb accepted him as a mansabdar under the condition that he and his kabila become muslim. he was sent to the forntier province and felt cheated, and came back to sivaji and reconverted. ``

Jang,

Thanks for correcting. I think you are right. It has been so many years since reading about these things, it is easy to mis-state, sorry.

I think that this is where the dialogue will cease.
Tahmed has presented his position well considering that he is alone in answering the questions.

Bottom line is that till the shariat is prime for Muslims, it will be considered their religous duty to establish Dar-Ul-Islam by Zihad(different types available), let there be no doubt in anyones mind about it. We don`t need to dig in more than that to reach at conclusions and let us maintain civiltiy at this site.
Tahmed is a fine man and I respect his secular views.

Next challenge is for Muslim Ulemmas is to steer the modern Islamic world that is centered around global economics and secular lifestyles. This is very essential for survival of mankind and Islam, as I see it.

Nadir Shahs, Abdalis and Baburs are not possible in modern day world. Secular West is the forerunner of modern day Mai-Baap and all that really matters these days. Considering that a small country like Isreal with the support of USA could keep the whole Arab world at bay and the Arabs could not do anything about it, should make then rethink their stand and initiate internal restructuring to align Islam with the Modern Day, generally Secular new World Order.

Ameen!

just correcting some inaccuracies based on my readings:

1. netaji palkar defected to aurangzeb based on money-career disputes willingly, and aurangzeb accepted him as a mansabdar under the condition that he and his kabila become muslim. he was sent to the forntier province and felt cheated, and came back to sivaji and reconverted.

2. dara sikoh is un-necessarily glorified by indians. he was a worthless charsee and afimchi (not that different than many other mughals) and a totally incompetent leader. in one case, for siege of kandahar, he took 40 sadhus to do vodoo on the folks inside the fort to secure a win. offcourse this failed. in short, he was fairly stupid and hence was not supported by most rajput mansabdars in the war of succession for a good reason.

3. ramdas and sivaji met much later in sivajis life...by then sivaji was already a successful guerilla-band leader.

4. i dont think tahmeds ancestors were shudras .. unless he is as dark as an injun.

Re: # 283

Tahmed`s ancesstors name was Chaudhray Baag. He has to be a Rajput or Khatree by origin. I have never heard a Shudra as Chaudhry.

Regardless, Tahmed is a great man due to his worth not his race, religion or anything else.

May be all Muslim women need to tell Muslim men, we are ``outa here`` for making our testimony half of that of a man, for not allowing us to marry four men, for putting us in Burkha, for divorcing us by saying ``Talaq Talaq Talaq`` etc. etc..
I would be proud of my mother for telling that to all Muslim men and clegry and all those ``supposedly equality preaching men`` in the eyes of the god.
Now whom should these Muslim women thank for that?

Netizen:

``Untill the 19th century, sikhs were counted as hindus in the census.``

The picture was somewhat more confusing. Some Hindus would also enumerate themselves as Sikhs in the 19th century. In fact, the same person would declare himself as Sikh/Hindu in one census and the opposite in the next census. This resulted in large fluctuations in the Sikh population from census to census. Harjot Oberoi, the first chair of the Sikh studies at the University of British Columbia, did a rigorous study of this subject in his ``The Construction of Religious Boundaries``. His findings, however, did not find favour with a section of the nouveau Sikh orthodoxy.

tahmed#259

I am quite aware of your views and you have been quite consistent in expressing them. But it is difficult to accept them as views of the Muslim majority. I have been scanning Pakistani news media for almost ten years and I have not read a single article which says that Aurangzeb was not a true Muslim. Perhaps, you could refer me to some such articles, preferably from Urdu media, which says that Aurangzeb or Ghazni were not true Muslims.