AHMAD, SHAIKH (1564-1624), celebrated Muslim thinker and theologian of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, was born on 26 May 1564 at Sirhind in present day Patiala district of the Punjab. He received his early education at the hands of his father. Shaikh `Abd al-Ahad, and later studied at Siaiko, now in

SACHCHA SAUDA, GURDWARA, at Chuharkana in Sheikhupura district of Pakistan, celebrates a popularly told event from the lit of Guru Nanak. According to Bhai Bala janam Sakhi, Guru Nanak`s father, Baba Kalu, to settle his son in a permanent vocation once gave him a sum of twenty rupees and

Duggal, Kartar Singh (1917 - ) is one of the most prolific fictionist in Punjabi. He was born at Pothohar town in Dhamiyal (now in Pakistan). He is well-acqainted with the life of rural Punjab, particularly before the Partition which left ever-oozing scars on the psyche of the brave

SADH BELA, near Sakkhar in the Sindh province of Pakistan, was a prominent preaching center of Udasi Sikhs. It was established in 1823 by Bankhandi (d. 1863), a leading figure in the Mihanshahi order of the Udasis. Sadh Bela still attracts Sahijdhari Sikh devotees in large numbers living in

KANHAIYA, BHAI (1648-1718), founder of the Sevapanthi or Addanshahi sect of the Sikhs, was born in a Dhamman Khatri family of Sodhara near Waxirabad in Sialkot district (now in Pakistan). His father was a wealthy trader, but he himself being of a religious bent of mind left home when

SAKHI SARWAR, lit. the Bountiful Master, also known by various other appellations such as Sultan (king), Lakhdata (bestower of millions), Lalanvala (master of rubies), Nigahia Pir (the saint of Nigaha) and Rohianvala (lord of the forests), was the founder of an obscurantist cult whose followers are known as Sultanias or

MADDAR, village five kilometre north of Balloke head works in Pakistan, was known to Sikhs in prepartition Punjab for its Gurdwara Sachchi Manji and some relics of the Gurus it claimed to preserve. One of these was a cot (manji, in Punjabi, after which the Gurdwara was named), said to

SIKHS AND THE TRANSFER OF POWER. The Sikhs, after the two Anglo Sikh wars, lost their kingdom and the Punjab came under the British rule in 1849. The British, by the construction of railways, roads and canals, brought the province stability. The Sikhs, along with other Punjab is, became the

MAJHA, from manjhla, i.e. middle, is the traditional name given to the central region of the Punjab covering the upper part of the Bari Doab lying between the rivers Beas and Ravi (whence the name Bari) and comprising the present Gurdaspur and Amritsar districts of India and Lahore district of