Available From UC Press

The Road to Empire

The Political Education of Khalsa Sikhs in the Late 1600s

Satnam Singh

From the late seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century, the Sikh community transformed from a relatively insignificant religious minority to an elevated position of kingship and empire. Under the leadership of Guru Gobind Singh (1661–1708), Sikh elites and peasants began to align themselves with discourses of power and authority, and within a few decades Khalsa Sikh warriors conquered some of the wealthiest provinces of the Mughal and Afghan empires.

In this book, Satnam Singh argues that the Sikhs’ increasing self-assertion was not simply a reaction to Mughal persecution but also a result of an active program initiated by the Guru to pursue larger visions of scholarship, conquest, and political sovereignty. Using a vast trove of understudied court literature, Singh shows how Sikhs grappled with Indo-Islamic traditions to forge their own unique ideas of governance and kingship with the aim to establish an independent Sikh polity. The Road to Empire offers an impressive intellectual history of the early modern Sikh world.

Satnam Singh is a senior consultant to Danish authorities and has worked professionally for more than a decade to prevent political extremism and honor-related violence against women.

“The Road to Empire is one of the only English-language books to deal with a fascinating subject that gets little attention: the literature produced by the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century court of the Tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh. An excellent contribution to the field.”—Lou Fenech, author of The Cherished Five in Sikh History

“This is an exciting new work, highly relevant in the field of modern Sikh studies and a must-read for both scholars and laypeople.”—Pashaura Singh, Distinguished Professor, Department for the Study of Religion, University of California, Riverside

“In this innovative study, Satnam Singh brings to light the complex relationships among the Sikh, Indic, and Islamic literatures that helped shape Sikh conceptions of sovereignty and political theory.”—Robin Rinehart, Richard H. Jr. ’60 and Joan K. Sell Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies, Lafayette College

“I commend Singh on his thorough, rigorous, and groundbreaking research. Articulately expressed, this is an essential source for gaining insight into the development of the Sikh community in the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth century.”—Opinderjit Kaur Takhar MBE, Director of the Centre for Sikh and Panjabi Studies, University of Wolverhampton

346 pp.6 x 9Illus: 3 charts, 4 tables

9780520399372$95.00|£80.00Hardcover

Oct 2024