[Sūrah xxi. 104]: “The day when we will roll up the heavens as as-Sijill rolls up his books; as We produced it at the first creation, will we bring it back again.”
SIJJĪN (سجين). A deep pit in which is kept the register of the actions of the wicked, and hence this register itself. Qurʾān, [Sūrah lxxxiii. 7, 8]: “The book of the wicked is in Sijjīn, and what shall make thee know what Sijjīn is?—It is an inscribed book.” (See also Mishkāt, book v. ch. iii. pt. 3.)
SIKANDAR (سكندر). The Persian for Alexander, by which is meant Alexander the Great. [[ZU ʾL-QARNAIN].]
SIKHISM (from the Panjābī word sikh or sikhā = Sanskrit śishya, “a disciple” or “pupil”). The religion of the Sikhs in the Panjāb. Founded by Nānak, who was born in the village of Talvandī (now known as Nankānā), on the banks of the river Rāvī, near Lahore, in A.D. 1469.
The history of the Sikh religion has not yet been subjected to the scrutiny necessary to warrant strong dogmatism as to the ultimate source, or sources, whence the system of Nānak and his followers took its rise. The literature and traditions of Sikhism present a strange intermingling of Hindū and Muḥammadan ideas; and this is so palpably apparent that even superficial inquirers have been led to conclude that Nānak purposely intended his creed to be a compromise between those two great religions. Dr. Trumpp, the able translator of the Ādi Granth (the sacred book of the Sikhs), who is the only author that has written with knowledge on the subject, is, however, distinctly of opinion that Sikhism has only an accidental relationship with Muḥammadanism. In the Introduction to his Translation of the Ādi Granth (p. ci.), he says:—
“It is a mistake, if Nānak is represented as having endeavoured to unite the Hindū and Muḥammadan ideas about God. Nānak remained a thorough Hindū, according to all his views; and if he had communionship with Musalmāns, and many of these even became his disciples, it was owing to the fact that Sūfism, which all these Muḥammadans were professing, was in reality nothing but a Pantheism, derived directly from Hindū sources, and only outwardly adapted to the forms of the Islām. Hindū and Muslim Pantheists could well unite together, as they entertained essentially the same ideas about the Supreme.”
If the foregoing opinion accurately represents the real truth, then Sikhism hardly deserves mention in the present work; but it will soon be seen that the balance of evidence is heavily on the other side. A careful investigation of early Sikh traditions points strongly to the conclusion that the religion of Nānak was really intended as a compromise between Hindūism and Muḥammadanism, if it may not even be spoken of as the religion of a Muḥammadan sect. The very little that seems to be known as to the views of the early Sikh teachers, coupled with the decided opinion put forth by Dr. Trumpp, has made it necessary to give here a longer article on Sikhism than its importance with respect to Islām would have otherwise warranted; because it was necessary to establish the relationship which actually existed between the two faiths. It will be seen that the information given in this article is chiefly taken from original Panjābī books, and from manuscripts in the India Office Library; and it is supported by the authority of the Ādi Granth, which is the sacred canon of the Sikhs.
The Janam-Sākhīs, or biographical sketches of Nānak and his associates, contain a profusion of curious traditions, which throw considerable light on the origin and development of the Sikh religion. From these old books we learn that, in early life, Nānak, although a Hindū by birth, came under Ṣūfī influence, and was strangely attracted by the saintly demeanour of the faqīrs who were thickly scattered over Northern India and swarmed in the Panjāb. Now, Ṣūfīism is not, as Dr. Trumpp supposes, due to Hindū pantheism; for it arose in the very earliest days of Muḥammadanism, and is almost certainly due to the influence of Persian Zoroastrianism on the rude faith of Arab Islāmism. Persia has ever been the stronghold of Ṣūfīistic doctrine; and the leading writers who have illustrated that form of Muḥammadanism have been the Persian poets Firdūsī, Niz̤āmī, Saʿdī, Jalālu ʾd-Dīn, Ḥāfiz̤, and Jāmī.
Ḥāfiz̤, the prince of Ṣūfī poets, boldly declares: “I am a disciple of the old Magian: be not angry with me, O Shaik͟h! For thou gavest me a promise; he hath brought me the reality.” Although this stanza alludes directly to two persons known to Ḥāfiz̤, its almost obvious meaning is: “I, a Persian, adhere to the faith of my ancestors. Do not blame me, O Arab conqueror! that my faith is more sublime than thine.” That Ḥāfiz̤ meant his readers to take his words in a general sense, may be inferred from the stanza in which he says: “I am the servant of the old man of the tavern (i.e. the Magian); because his beneficence is lasting: on the other hand, the beneficence of the Shaik͟h and of the Saiyid at times is, and at times is not.” Indeed, Ḥāfiz̤ was fully conscious of the fact that Ṣūfīism was due to the influence of the faith of his ancestors; for, in another ode, he plainly says: “Make fresh again the essence of the creed of Zoroaster, now that the tulip has kindled the fire of Nimrod.” And Niz̤āmī, also, was aware that his ideas were perilously akin to heterodoxy; for, he says in his K͟husrū wa Shīrīn: “See not in me the guide to the temple of the Fire-worshippers; see only the hidden meaning which cleaveth to the allegory.” These citations, which could be indefinitely multiplied, sufficiently indicate the Zoroastrian origin of the refined spirituality of the Ṣūfīs. The sublimity of the Persian faith lay in its conception of the unity of Eternal Spirit, and the intimate association of the Divine with all that is manifest. Arab Muḥammadans believe in the unity of a personal God; but mankind and the world were, to them, mere objects upon which the will of God was exercised. The Ṣūfīs approached nearer to the Christian sentiment embodied in the phrase, “Christ in us.”
The Persian conquerors of Hindūstān carried with them the mysticism and spirituality of the Islāmo-Magian creed. It was through Persia that India received its flood of Muḥammadanism; and the mysticism and asceticism of the Persian form of Islām found congenial soil for development among the speculative ascetics of northern India. It is, therefore, only reasonable to suppose that any Hindū affected by Muḥammadanism would show some traces of Ṣūfī influence. As a fact we find that the doctrines preached by the Sikh Gurus were distinctly Ṣūfīistic; and, indeed, the early Gurus openly assumed the manners and dress of faqīrs, thus plainly announcing their connection with the Ṣūfīistic side of Muḥammadanism. In pictures they are represented with small rosaries in their hands, quite in Muḥammadan fashion, as though ready to perform ẕikr. Guru Arjun, who was fifth in succession from Nānak, was the first to lay aside the dress of a faqīr. The doctrines, however, still held their position; for we find the last Guru dying while making an open confession of Ṣūfīism. His words are: “The Smritis, the Śāstras, and the Vedas, all speak in various ways: I do not acknowledge one (of them). O possessor of happiness, bestow thy mercy (on me). I do not say, ‘I,’ I recognise all as ‘Thee.’ ”—(Sikhān de Rāj dī Vithiˏā, p. 81.) Here we have not only the ideas, but the very language of Ṣūfīs, implying a pantheistic denial of all else than Deity. The same manner of expression is found in the Ādi Granth itself, e.g. “Thou art I; I am thou. Of what kind is the difference?” (Translation, p. 130); and again, “In all the One dwells, the One is contained” (p. 41). Indeed, throughout the whole Ādi Granth, a favourite name for Deity is the “True One,” that is, that which is truly one—the Absolute Unity. It is hardly possible to find a more complete correspondence of ideas than that furnished by the following sentences, one taken from the Yūsuf wa Zulaik͟ha of Jāmī, the Persian Ṣūfī; and the others, from the Jap-jī and the Ādi Granth. Jāmī says:—