Abstract
Mughal Empire, attributed to be a Muslim rule, and Sikhism grew side by
side in the South Asia; while Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babar was founding the
Mughal Empire, Guru Nanak was expounding a new religious philosophy,
Sikhism. Broadly speaking, both religions, Islam and Sikhism, believed in unity,
equality, tolerance and love for mankind. These similarities provided a very strong
basis of alliance between the two religions. This note of ‘religious tolerance’ of
Sikhism was welcomed by the common people, saints and many sage souls among
Sikhs and Muslims alike. The Mughal Emperors had by and large showed great
generosity to Sikh Gurus except few ones. However, despite these similarities and
benevolence of Mughal Emperors, political expediencies and economic
imperatives largely kept both the communities estranged and alienated. The
relations between Muslims and Sikhs after the death of Akbar underwent many
phases and shades. An in-depth study of the background of Mughal-Sikh relations
reveals that some political and interest groups including orthodox Muslims and
Hindu elites considered friendship between Sikhs and Muslims, a great threat to
their positions. These interest groups deliberately created circumstances that
eventually developed into unfortunate conflicts between the two communities.
Hence the religion was not the main factor that governed the Sikh Muslim
relations rather the political, economic and practical exigencies of the time
shaped the events that occurred between the two communities. Many historians
have written about the Sikh-Muslim relations and analyzed the factors, nature and
development of their estrangement but they built their arguments mostly on the
religious differences. The study argues that the basis of Sikh Muslim divide was
socio-economic and political factors.
Robina Shoeb, Tauqeer Ahmad Warriach, Muhammad Iqbal Chawla. (2015) Mughal - Sikh Relations: Revisited, Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, Volume 52, Issue 2.
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