Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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course which was bound to pose a political challenge to the Mughal
power. This challenge was inherent in the Sikh thesis itself and formed
a part of the political struggle. In fact, adherence to the Sikh thesis
would have posed a challenge to every political power which denied
religious, social or political freedom. Had it been a Hindu state bent
upon enforcing caste rules, its conflict with the Sikh movement would
have been as ineviatable as it was with the mughal rulers who were
guided by their bigoted interpretation of the Shariatic law. In the
medieval period, the states the world over were, by and large,
theocratic, which derived their social and political laws from the narrow
interpretation of religion. Such states usually discriminated, every
persecuted, the non-conformists. The history of the Inquisition in the
Christian world has its own tale to tell. The Muslim states of that
period could not be exceptions. But, we have to single out the Shariatic
concept of the Muslim theocratic state because it was the one the
Sikh movement had to deal with. ‘By the theory of its origin the Muslim
State is a theocracy … I such a state, infidelity is logically equivalent
to treason… Therefore, the toleration of any sect outside the fold of
orthodox Islam is no better than compounding with sin … The
conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of
every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State.’20a There were
shades of differences in the interpretation of the Shariat, and there
were concessions to political exigencies, but this Shariatic basis of the
Muslim state was not questioned in principle.
It is obvious that the enforcement of the Shariatic concept of
Muslim state posed a permament of the Shariatic concept of Muslim
state posed a permanent challenge to its non-Muslim subjects. “After
conquest the entire infidel population becomes theoretically reduced
to the status of slaves of the conquering army … As for the noncombatants
among the vanquished, if they are not massacred outright
— as the Canon lawyer Shafi declares to be the Quranic injunction
— it is only to give them a respite till they are so wisely guided as
to accept the true faith. 20b ‘A non-Muslim, therefore, canot be a
citizen of the state; he is a member of a depressed class; his status
is a modified form of slavery.’ 20c At best, the non-Muslim were secondrate
citizens (Zimmis), and one of the mild discrimination against