Steel and Spirit

What This Book Covers

1. Chapter One - India Before the Fire
2. Chapter Two - Guru Nanak — The First Light
3. Chapter Three - The Line of Ten Gurus
4. Chapter Four - The Khalsa — The Sword Awakens
5. Chapter Five - The Guru Granth Sahib
6. Chapter Six - Empires, Exile, and Survival
7. Chapter Seven - The Code of the Sikhs
8. Chapter Eight - A Warrior’s Peace

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE India Before the Fire BEFORE THERE WAS a Khalsa. Before the Gurus. Before the fire of Sikhism lit the sky — There was a land gasping for breath. The Mughal Empire ruled most of India by the 1500s. It was grand. Sophisticated. Brutal. Islam was the crown religion of the court — but this wasn’t peace. India’s population was still overwhelmingly Hindu, and the Mughal rulers — some tolerant, some tyrannical — wavered between coexistence and crackdowns. Akbar the Great tried unity. He abolished the jizya tax on non-Muslims, welcomed scholars of all faiths, and married Hindu princesses. But his descendants? Not so gentle. Aurangzeb, the hardline emperor who would rise later, brought...