This volume offers a comprehensive overview of Sikhism, which originated in India's Punjab region five hundred years ago. As the numbers of Sikhs settling outside of India continues to grow, it is necessary to examine this religion both in its Indian context and as an increasingly global tradition. While acknowledging the centrality of history and text in understanding the main tenets of Sikhism, Doris Jakobsh highlights the religion's origins and development as a living spiritual tradition in communities around the world. She pays careful attention to particular events, movements, and individuals that have contributed to important changes within the tradition and challenges stereotypical notions of Sikh homogeneity and stasis, addressing the plurality of identities within the Sikh tradition, both historically and within the contemporary milieu. Extensive attention is paid to the role of women as well as the dominant social and kinship structures undergirding Punjabi Sikh society, many of which have been widely transplanted through Sikh migration. The migration patterns are themselves examined, with particular focus on Sikh communities in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Finally, the volume concludes with a brief exploration of Sikhs and the Internet and the future of Sikhism.

Drawing on insights from theoretical engagements with borders and subalternity, Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan suggests new frameworks for understanding religious boundaries in South Asia. It looks at the ways in which social categories and structures constitute the bordering logics inherent within enactments of these boundaries, and positions hegemony and resistance through popular religion as an important indication of wider developments of political and social change. The book also shows how borders are continually being maintained through violence at national, community and individual levels. By exploring selected sites and expressions of piety including shrines, texts, practices and movements, Virinder S. Kalra and Navtej K. Purewal argue that the popular religion of Punjab should neither be limited to a polarised picture between formal, institutional religion, nor the 'enchanted universe' of rituals, saints, shrines and village deities. Instead, the book presents a picture of 'religion' as a realm of movement, mobilization, resistance and power in which gender and caste are connate of what comes to be known as 'religious'. Through extensive ethnographic research, the authors explore the reality of the complex, dynamic and contested relations that characterize everyday material and religious lives on the ground. Ultimately, the book highlights how popular religion challenges the borders and boundaries of religious and communal categories, nationalism and theological frameworks while simultaneously reflecting gender/caste society.

Sikhism's short but relatively eventful history provides a fascinating insight into the working of misunderstood and seemingly contradictory themes such as politics and religion, violence and mysticism, culture and spirituality, orality and textuality, public sphere versus private sphere, tradition and modernity. This book presents students with a careful analysis of these complex themes as they have manifested themselves in the historical evolution of the Sikh traditions and the encounter of Sikhs with modernity and the West, in the philosophical teachings of its founders and their interpretation by Sikh exegetes, and in Sikh ethical and intellectual responses to contemporary issues in an increasingly secular and pluralistic world. Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed serves as an ideal guide to Sikhism, and also for students of Asian studies, Sociology of Religion and World Religions.

'This fine study of the Sikhs in Britain is a splendid addition to the field. Not only does it provide an invaluable mapping of the community's origins and development which should make it a standard work of reference for years to come, but in its sophisticated interrogation of the sociological and political tensions which have marked that development it makes a uniquely informed wider contribution to the ongoing debates about the nature of "multicultural" Britain'. Professor Christopher Shackle, SOAS, University of London 'This book is of very great importance for anyone who wishes to understand the crucial role of Sikhs in defining the possibilities of multiculturalism in Britain at a time when the very notion is under attack from many sources. It should be essential reading for policy makers as well as students.' Professor John Rex, Professor Emeritus at the University of Warwick 'This work is a major review of the history and issues affecting Sikhs in Great Britain since the Second World War. Balanced and extremely well documented...it marks an important contribution to Sikh and multicultural studies'. - Professor Norman G. Barrier, Professor of History University of Missouri 'This is an important book which details the coming to self-consciousness of the Sikh community in Britain under local, national and transnational exigencies'. Professor Uday S. Mehta, Department of Political Science, Amherst College 'This book comes at a time when new limits to multiculturalism and to free speech are being drawn and these wider debates are brilliantly interwoven with an account of the public and private lives of Sikhs. The book is politically charged, but sensitive, humane and open-minded at the same time.' Robin Cohen, ESRC Professorial Research Fellow, University of Warwick. 'This first major account of the development of the British Sikh community is very welcome. Scholarly, analytical and deeply empathetic, it is a major contribution.' Professor Judith M. Brown, University of Oxford

The Sikhs, a colorful and controversial people about whom little is generally known, have been the subject of much hypothetical speculation. Their non-conformist behavior, except to their own traditions, and their fierce independence, even to demanding autonomy, have recently attracted world-wide attention. Hew McLeod, internationally known scholar of Sikh studies, provides a just and accurate description in his introducion to this religious community from northern India now numbering about sixteen million people, exploring their history, doctrine, and literature.

"The Sikhs" begins by giving an overview of the people's history, then covers the origins of the Sikh tradition, dwelling on controversies surrounding the life and doctrine of the first Master, Guru Nanak (1469-1539). The book surveys the subsequent life of the community with emphasis on the founding of the Khalsa, the order that gives to Sikhs the insignia by which they are best known. The remaining sections concern Sikh doctrine, the problem of who should be regarded as a Sikh, and a survey of Sikh literature. Finally, the book considers the present life of the community -- its dispersion around the world to Asia, Australasia, North America, Africa, and Europe, and its involvement in the current trials of the Punjab.

Sikh culture is believed to have been settled and unchanging from the time of the Gurus onwards. "The Sikhs," a major new work by a leading authority, reveals that this is a very misleading view. McLeod treats a variety of questions sympathetically and in so doing he establishes a new understanding for students of religion and for all those interested in current events in India.

Exploring the issue of Islamophobic attacks against Sikhs since 9/11, this book explains the historical, religious and legal foundations and frameworks for understanding race hate crime against the Sikh community in the UK. Focusing on the backlash that Sikhs in the UK have faced since 9/11, the authors provide a theological and historical backdrop to Sikh identity in the global context, critically analysing the occurrences of Islamophobia since 9/11, 7/7 and most recently post-Brexit, and how British Sikhs and the British government have responded and reacted to these incidents. The experiences of American Sikhs are also explored and the impact of anti-Sikh sentiment upon both these communities is considered. Drawing on media reporting, government policies, the emerging body of inter-disciplinary scholarship, and empirical research, this book contributes to the currently limited body of literature on anti-Sikh hate crime and produces ideas for policy makers on how to rectify the situation. Providing a better understanding of perceptions of anti-Sikh sentiment and its impact, this book will of interest to scholars and upper-level students working on identity and hate crime, and more generally in the fields of Religion and Politics, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, and International Studies.

Village people in the Punjab have lived with the terror of the conflict between Sikh militants and Indian security forces since the attack on the Sikh Golden Temple in 1984. In this remarkable book, a courageous anthropologist who knows the region intimately presents a very human portrait of the struggle. She argues that, despite its apparent defeat, it can only be in abeyance while the root causes, which have prompted so many young Sikhs to take up arms and fight for an independent Khalistan, remain unaddressed. Through the skilful use of interviews, Dr Pettigrew takes us into the worlds of Punjabi farmers, Sikh militants, and the police commanders responsible for containing a vicious conflict whose ramifications have spilled beyond the Punjab into wider Indian politics.

McLeod is a renowned scholar of Sikhism. . . . [This book] confirms my view that there is nothing about the Sikhs or their religion that McLeod does not know and there is no one who can put it across with as much clarity and brevity as he can. In his latest work he has compressed in under 150 pages the principal sources of the Sikh religion, the Khalsa tradition and the beliefs of breakaway sects like the Nirankaris and Namdharis. . . . As often happens, an outsider has sharper insight into the workings of a community than insiders whose visions are perforce restricted.--Khushwant Singh, Hindustan Times

This complete and accessible translation of the songs of the saints from the Sikh holy book the Adi Granth provides access to the hymns written by Hindu and Muslim devotional writers of north India, who flourished from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries.

The songs of the saints hold a unique position in Sikhism in that they provide the faith with a prehistory that reaches back to the dawn of north Indian Bhakti and Sant traditions. These works provided a ground upon which Sikh gurus laid the foundations of their faith.

The songs also mark the earliest beginnings of Hindi literature. Although the literary output of these saints comes down to us in various stages of corruption, the works which appeared in the Adi Granth are unchanged since their inclusion in that work in the early 1600s.

History of Sikhs from Punjab in 18th and 19th century; contributed articles presented at the 60th annual session of Indian History Congress at Calicut University, Calicut, India in 2002.