Translated from Mohsin Fani's Dabistan Mazahib)
NANAK PANTHIS OR THE SIKHS AND SIKHISM 17th CENTURY (translated from Mohsin Fani's Dabistan Mazahib) EDITED WITH NOTES £y GANDA SINGH Khalsa College Amritsbr N'Df O ***** N / ' (Jftrrr**** t, <4 fU Pn f Dr. Hiraam Sinsn ian I - In\ s >i « •» • I - ; i S .' • * / Reprinted from the Journal of Indian History, Volume XIX, Part 2. Nanak Panthis or The Sikh and Sikhism of the 17th Century (Translated from Muhsin Fani's Dubistan-i-Mazahib,) EDITED WITH NOTES BY GANDA SINGH, Khalsa College, Amritsar PRINTED AT THE G. S. PRESS, MADRAS ' . J INTRODUCTION THE Dahistan-i-Mazahib, from which I have culled and trans lated the account of the Nanak-panthis, the followers of Guru Nanak, is generally acknowledged to be the work of Shaikh Mohsin Fani. -• According to the Gal-i-Racna1 and the Miftah-ui-Twarikh2 he was a resident of Kashmir, but a closer examination of the Dabis- tan reveals that he was born somewhere on the shores of Persia, and that he was compelled by inconstant fortune and force of cir cumstances to spend most of his life in "the land of the believers in transmigration." Unlike most of the Muhammadan writers, Mohsin Fani has not anywhere in the text alluded to his parentage and the date of his birth. Out of over fifty dates that are connected with the various events of his life, referred to here and there is his work, the earliest is 1028 Hijri,3 corresponding to 1618 A.D. when his guardian Mobid Hushiar took him for blessing to Balak Nath, a leading member of the order of the Jogis in the seventeenth cen tury.
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