AKALI, a term now appropriated by members of the dominant Sikh political party, the Shiromani Akali Dal, founded in 1920, and groups splitting from it from time to time, was earlier used for Nihangs (q.v.), an order of armed religious zealots among the baptized Sikhs. The word Nihang is

ALAM KHAN, son of Nihang Khan of Kotia Nihang Khan and son-in-law of Rai Kalha, the chief of Raikot, was a devotee of Guru Gobind Singh. According to Sarup Singh Kaushish, Guru kian Sakhian, he was with Rai Kalha when he met Guru Gobind Singh passing through Raikot after

MUMTAZ, according to Sarup Singh Kaushish, Guru kian Sakhian, was the daughter of Nihang Khan, Muslim chief of Kotla. Nihang Khan near Ropar. She served the Sikh warrior Bhai Bachittar Singh who, severely wounded in a skirmish after the evacuation of Anandpur in December 1705, had been brought to

NIHANG KHAN, Muslim chief of Kotia Nihang Khan, near Ropar, in the Punjab, was a devotee of Guru Gobind Singh. According to Sarup Singh Kaushish, Guru kidn Sakhtan, he with his wife and sons attended Baisakhi festivity at Anandpur in 1694 and rendered homage to the Guru. At his

NIHANGS or Nihang Singhs, originally known as Akalis or Akah Niharigs, are endearingly designated the Guru`s Knights or the Guru`s beloved, for the military ambience they still carry about them and the heroic style they continue to cultivate. They constitute a distinctive order among the Sikhs and are readily recognized

SHAM SINGH NIHANG (1854-1924) was born Harkesh, in 1854, to Chaudhari Jasvant Singh at the village of Muhammadpur, in Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. As he grew up, he helped his father in the family`s profession of farming before migrating at the age of twenty. five to Hyderabad, in

ZORAWAR SINGH PAUT (d. 1708), generally known as Guru Gobind Singh\'s adopted son, was born to Bhai Natthu, a carpenter of Bassi Pathanan, near Sirhind. His mother, Mai Bhikkhi, served in the Guru`s household at Anandpur, where the boy spent his early childhood, too. He was about the same age