Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar · Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sikhism

Tradition·Founded 1499 CE·est. ~26 million worldwide

Sikhism → 1 branch

Branch
B Figure of Sikhism

Bhagat Kabir — the weaver in the scripture.

A Muslim weaver of Banaras who mocked pandits and mullahs with equal appetite and died about fifty years before Nanak was born. Guru Arjan put 541 of his compositions inside the Sikh scripture — more than any Guru except Nanak and Arjan himself.

Names & titlesBhagat Kabir
DomainWeaver of Banaras — 541 compositions inside the scripture
RelationsDied roughly fifty years before Nanak was born; claimed by Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs alike
Depicted asAt the loom, weaving
StandingMore verse in the Guru Granth Sahib than any Guru except Nanak and Arjan
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Kabir's presence in the Sikh scripture is not an ecumenical gesture bolted on afterwards — he is structurally central, with 541 compositions distributed through the raags and a section of saloks of his own. He was a Muslim weaver in fifteenth-century Banaras who attacked Brahmin ritual and Islamic legalism with the same voice, and he died decades before Nanak began teaching. Guru Arjan included him without editing out the difficult material, and where a Guru disagreed with a bhagat's line the reply was printed alongside rather than the line removed, which is unusual behaviour for a scripture. Kabir is claimed simultaneously by the Kabir Panth, by Hindu bhakti traditions and by Sikhs, and each reads him differently. Sikh commentary treats him as bani — revealed word with the same authority as the Gurus' own — which is a stronger claim than most traditions make about an outsider.

From the sources — the passages this rests on; concise renderings, cited

First Allah made the light, and from it made all creation; if the whole world came from one light, who is good and who is bad?

Bhagat Kabir, Raag Prabhati, Guru Granth Sahib Ang 1349 (rendered)

A Muslim weaver's verse, carried in a Sikh scripture, arguing against Hindu caste.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
Whether this is religion or atheism with better manners. Pantheism · core tenet Go deeper →
Sound rightly spoken has power. Vedic Religion · core tenet Go deeper →
The teaching bends to the hearer. Buddhism · core tenet Go deeper →
Truth has many sides. Jainism · core tenet Go deeper →
God contracted to make room for the world. Judaism · core tenet Go deeper →

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