The Martyrdom of Guru Arjan
The fifth Guru dies in Mughal custody in Lahore on the orders of the emperor Jahangir, becoming the first Sikh martyr.
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the Game of Love — Louis E. Fenech, Oxford University Press (2000)
- A History of the Sikhs (2 vols, 2nd edition) — Khushwant Singh, Oxford University Press (2004)
By 1600 the Sikh community was large, organised and wealthy enough to worry the Mughal state. When the young prince Khusrau rebelled against his father, the new emperor Jahangir, in 1606, Guru Arjan was accused of blessing him. Jahangir wrote in his memoirs that he had long wanted to end this “shop” of falsehood, and ordered the Guru’s punishment.
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the Game of Love — Louis E. Fenech, Oxford University Press (2000)
Guru Arjan died in custody in Lahore in 1606. Sikh tradition remembers him being tortured on a red-hot iron plate and then allowed to bathe in the Ravi, where he disappeared; Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore marks the place. His son, Guru Hargobind, took up two swords, miri and piri, worldly and spiritual authority, and built the Akal Takht facing the Harmandir: the start of the Sikh tradition of the saint-soldier.
- Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the Game of Love — Louis E. Fenech, Oxford University Press (2000)
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- Sikhism — W. H. McLeod, Penguin (1997)
Guru Arjan was tortured, made to sit on a burning hot plate and have scalding sand poured over him, for refusing to change his faith or his scripture, and bore it calmly, accepting God's will. He is the "crown of martyrs".
- Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the Game of Love — Louis E. Fenech, Oxford University Press (2000)
- A History of the Sikhs (2 vols, 2nd edition) — Khushwant Singh, Oxford University Press (2004)
Jahangir's own memoir shows he resented the Guru's growing influence and punished him for blessing the rebel prince Khusrau. The exact manner of his death is not recorded in contemporary Mughal sources; the details of torture come from later Sikh tradition, though historians agree he died in custody as a result of the emperor's order.
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the Game of Love — Louis E. Fenech, Oxford University Press (2000)
Why it matters today
Every summer Sikhs mark Guru Arjan's martyrdom by handing out chilled sweetened water, chhabeel, to passers-by in the heat, often to strangers of every faith. His death began the Sikh ideal of martyrdom (shahidi) for truth, and the turn under his son towards self-defence.