editorial articles reviews news & views - Institute of Sikh Studies

112
ABSTRACTS OF SIKH STUDIES : APRIL-JUNE 2005 / 537 NS
knowledgeable reader is in a position to weigh up the merits of the
modified perspective. However, there are chapters offering no new
perspective (e.g., Chapter 4 – “End of the Masand System and the Birth of
Khalsa” – and as such dot-less).
Writer’s prose is crisp and distinct. He expresses his thoughts
and arguments with economy. There are publishing oversights, such
as, presenting the appendixes as chapters rather than as addendums or
supplements and the odd printing mistake.
In his otherwise excellent introduction, Dr Kharak Singh
mistakenly views the book as an anthology; and, therefore, incorrectly
concludes that the book “is not a systematic account of any particular
period of Sikh history”. Rather, the book is an abstract of events that
the author believes were chronicled on the bases of incomplete data.
Born in a devout Sikh family, septuagenarian Sardar Harbans
Singh Noor graduated from Punjab University of Lahore in 1943,
choosing to make a career in journalism. He retired in 1984, after
serving 26 years as Cultural Affairs Specialist with the United States
Information Service, in New Delhi, to devote his life in the cause of
Sikhism. He resides in Baltimore (USA).
The author begins his quest by a fairly grim portrayal of Europe
during Guru Nanak’s life. He describes an ecclesiastical Europe under
the religious dominion of a corrupt papacy. The author blames Pope
Sixtus lV for “establishing the Spanish Inquisition” that was intended
to purify Spain and Portugal from heretics.
In reality it was the devout Isabella, a Castillion, and Ferdinand,
an Aragonese, who executed the Inquisition in order to wipe out the
Jewish and Muslim religions from their domain. Pope Sixtus agreed to
issue a papal bull only under threat of withdrawal by Ferdinand of the
Spanish garrisons from Sicily.
Most of the author’s “ethnic cleansing” and hounding of witches
was confined to some territories within Spain, which was not yet a
single state, but an amalgamation of reigns, and Portugal. These two
regions do not a Europe make.
Rather, Europe was emerging from the dark days of Middle Ages
into an era known as the Renaissance that witnessed the introduction
of print technology, flourishing of artistic, social, scientific, and
political thought, and discovery of sea routes between all continents.