The holy men were very impressed with the Guru. However, some of them wear janeu while some others got themselves circumcised’. God has created all beings in the same mould. The Guru replied that ‘the Almighty created the same Divine Light, which pervades all.
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In one instance, the Guru met some holy men who inquired what brought a Hindu ascetic to a land of Muslims. Guru Nanak and his companion in his travels, Bhai Mardana left Mashhad (Persia) to reach Balkh and then reached outskirts the city of Kabul which was under Babur at that time. The life and times of the Guru is recorded in Janamsakhis which are semi-historical in nature as they are written in a devotional manner and do not contain dates but records of his visits to Mecca, Medina, Bagdad, Kabul and Kandahar (all in Central Asia) along with visits to Sri Lanka and within the Indian sub-continent.6 The earliest copy belongs to the early 1600s but their earlier antiquity cannot be ruled out. The history of Sikhs in Afghanistan starts with the founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak (1469–1539) who was a prolific traveller.
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He adds that in Kabul, products from Khurasan, Iraq, Turkey and China were available and Hindvi language was spoken in the region.5 Although Babur does not mention Hindu merchants specifically, but Indian merchants and language are mentioned in his memoirs. Despite making 300–400 percent profit, many merchants were not satisfied although they would never make such profit even if they went to Cathay (Northern China) or Turkey, he noted. He mentions that almost 8,000–10,000 horses would come to the city along with 15,000–20,000 caravans from Hindustan with household stuff, slaves, white cloth, refined sugar candy, common sugar and aromatic roots. Babur wrote an autobiography, Baburnama and he refers to Kabul as an excellent trading center and Hindustan’s own market. A large number of Afghan Sikhs shared their surname or sub-caste with Hindus.4īabur, the founder of Mughal Empire in the sub-continent captured Kabul in 1504 and later captured Delhi in 1526 after the first battle of Panipat. The present-day Afghan Sikhs are descendants of the Afghan Hindus who became Nanakpanthis when Guru Nanak came to Afghanistan in 1521. A small number of them are Brahmins and Bhatias. The Afghan Hindus are also Khatris and Aroras. The majority of the Sikhs killed on 25th March 2020 were from this group. They migrated to Kabul, Gardez and Ghazni. They left the city in 1940 when one of clan girls was abducted and converted to Islam. They originally belonged to Maidan Shar in Wardak province. All are well known to an average Sikh except for the last one which are in majority among the Afghan Sikhs present in Afghanistan.
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Few are from Bhatia, Bhatra and Rajvanshi background. The majority of Afghan Sikhs belong to Arora and Khatri castes. Bukhara was one of the major cities of Khurasan (medieval Afghanistan), Anthony Jenkinson who visited this city in 1558 mentions Indian merchants in the city.3 There is no evidence that Buddhism survived in Afghanistan till 15th or 16th century. Guru Nanak came to Afghanistan during his 4th Udasi (1517 – 21) in 16th century2 and it is more likely that the Hindus rather than Buddhists became Nanakpanthis ( followers of Guru Nanak). Roger Ballard (2011) stated that Afghan Sikhs are “likely to be made up of those members of the indigenous population who resisted the process of conversion from Buddhism to Islam which took place in this area between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, and who subsequently aligned themselves with the teachings of Guru Nanak – himself a Khatri and the founder of the Sikh tradition – during the course of the fifteenth century”1 There is very little material on Afghan Sikh history or its origin in the public domain. The Afghan Sikhs are now leaving the country and it is important to trace the origins and history of Sikhs in Afghanistan.
![das dev dashanan das kandahar das dev dashanan das kandahar](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nhhrg6md6xQ/hqdefault.jpg)
A couple of years ago on 1st July 2018 in a bomb blast in Jalalabad, 15 Afghan Sikhs & 4 Hindus were killed which included the community leaders Avtar Singh and Rawail Singh. They eventually requested for refuge to the Indian government. The Gurdwara Sahib was also a home to 50 Sikh families. The deadly attack on Gurdwara Guru Har Rai Sahib at Shor Bazar in Kabul on 25th March 2020 which led to death of 27 Sikhs including children and women shocked the small 650 odd community.