Zachariah

Banned
In your opinion, do you think that it might have been plausible to have had a female Sikh Guru? Which POD (which can includie one of OTL's male Gurus being born as a female instead) might have had the greatest chance of bringing about this outcome- whose place would the female Guru take? And if so, what kind of impact do you feel that the existence of a female Guru might have had upon the development of the Sikh faith?
 
In your opinion, do you think that it might have been plausible to have had a female Sikh Guru? Which POD (which can includie one of OTL's male Gurus being born as a female instead) might have had the greatest chance of bringing about this outcome- whose place would the female Guru take? And if so, what kind of impact do you feel that the existence of a female Guru might have had upon the development of the Sikh faith?

Sikhism has always been pretty fair to both sexes in comparison to many othe religions and I feel this would just solidfy it along with incentivize more females for leadership roles.

On the other hand, this would further drive a wedge between believers and non-beleivers in the area if people choose the faith over the local culture and making Sikhism more distinct, especially if it is concentrated at the Punjab and thus isolating it more fro the rest of the sub-continent. Granted, this could connect it more to Central Asia and perhaps Sikhism could drive there. Sikh Khanates anyone?
 

Zachariah

Banned
Sikhism has always been pretty fair to both sexes in comparison to many othe religions and I feel this would just solidfy it along with incentivize more females for leadership roles.

On the other hand, this would further drive a wedge between believers and non-beleivers in the area if people choose the faith over the local culture and making Sikhism more distinct, especially if it is concentrated at the Punjab and thus isolating it more fro the rest of the sub-continent. Granted, this could connect it more to Central Asia and perhaps Sikhism could drive there. Sikh Khanates anyone?
Thing is, while Sikhism was always a relatively feminist faith, it'd also drive a wedge between many of the believers as well. Would a female Sikh Guru be accepted as legitimate by most of Sikhism's followers? Or might this trigger a schism in Sikhism? And if so, could the female Sikh Guru amass enough support for her branch to come out on top?
 
Thing is, while Sikhism was always a relatively feminist faith, it'd also drive a wedge between many of the believers as well. Would a female Sikh Guru be accepted as legitimate by most of Sikhism's followers? Or might this trigger a schism in Sikhism? And if so, could the female Sikh Guru amass enough support for her branch to come out on top?

I guess it would all depend on culture and so on. I don't know if it would be enough to cause a schism though.
 

Zachariah

Banned
Bumping this, with my own suggestion for an interesting possibility; Bibi Roop Kaur was Guru Har Rai’s only daughter, and Guru Har Krishan’s older sister. 7 years older than Har Krishan, and 2 years younger than her elder brother Ram Rai, Roop Kaur was an avid historian and devout scholar, writing far more Bani than her little brother had a chance to in his own short lifespan; and let's say that in this ATL, after having excommunicated her elder brother (for agreeing to Aurangzeb's demands, to either edit passages which he'd taken exception to out of the Sikh Scriptures or face being publicly tortured to death), while it would have been far more divisive and controversial, Guru Har Rai elects to nominate his daughter Roop Kaur to be the Eighth Guru ahead of Ram Rai, ahead of his younger son Har Krishan, who was still a newborn infant only a few months old at this time. And when Guru Har Rai dies ITTL, instead of being succeeded by his 5 year old son, Guru Har Krishan, he's succeeded by his 12 year old daughter, Guru Roop Kaur.

What happens next? IOTL, a few years after Guru Har Krishan assumed the role of Sikh leader, as soon as he was old enough to travel, Aurangzeb summoned the young Guru to his court, with his plan being to replace him and install his elder brother, Ram Rai ,as the Sikh Guru instead. However, Har Rai contracted smallpox when he arrived in Delhi, which proved fatal, and his meeting with Aurangzeb was cancelled. ITTL, would Aurangzeb have summoned the young female Guru to his court as well, in similar fashion, or have simply dismissed her as a challenge to Ram Rai because she was female? If he had summoned her, would Roop Kaur have gone to meet him? If she had, what would Aurangzeb have done to her- if he elected to publicly torture her and her entourage to death in the manner he'd intended to with Guru Har Krishan, and later did with Guru Tegh Bahadur, how much greater an impact might her martyrdom have had? And if she hadn't gone to Delhi, when Aurangzeb set about his purges to eradicate the Sikhs who opposed him (which would have almost certainly been even more severe in this timeline, since a female Guru vocally opposed to him would have presented a far greater socio-political challenge to the Muslim rule and to Aurangzeb), how many of the Sikh Masands would have united under her banner and fought for her, rather than defecting to endorse Babe Ram Rai as the rightful Guru instead?
 
I think any kind of split over a woman guru is going to find itself quite limited, namely because it would be insanelt hard for someone to read the writings of Nanak and and believe it justified in terms of faith to prohibit women from being gurus. More than that, the existence of quite a few women saints, womens contribution to some areas of the Granth Sahib and the apparently common perception of the Granth Sahib as a womans voice makes such a movement quite hard.
 
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