Sikhism in Pakistan
religious community
Sikhism is a minority religion in Pakistan with a population of around 16,000 Sikhs, accounting for 0.01% of the national population. Although Sikhs form a small community in Pakistan today, Sikhism has an extensive heritage and history in the country. Sikhism originated from what is now Punjab, Pakistan in the 15th century. By the 18th and 19th centuries, the Sikh community had become a major political power in Punjab, with Sikh leader maharaja Ranjit Singh founding the Sikh Empire which had its capital in Lahore, today the second-largest city in Pakistan. Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, is located in Pakistani Punjab; moreover, Kartarpur Sahib, the place where Guru Nanak died and was subsequently buried, is also located in the same province.
According to the 1941 census, the Sikh population comprised roughly 1.67 million persons or 6.1 percent of the total population in the region that would ultimately become Pakistan, notably concentrated in West Punjab, within the contemporary province of Punjab, Pakistan, where the Sikh population stood at roughly 1.52 million persons or 8.8 percent of the total population. By 1947, it is estimated that the Sikh population had increased to over 2 million persons in the region which became Pakistan with significant populations existing in the largest cities in the Punjab such as Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad (then Lyallpur). With communal violence and religious cleansing accompanying the Partition of British India at the time, the vast majority departed the region en masse, primarily migrating eastward to the region of Punjab that would fall on the eastern side of the Radcliffe Line and Delhi, with corresponding mass migration of Muslims into Pakistan from India.
In the decades following Pakistan's formation in 1947, the Pakistani Sikh community began to reorganize, forming the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PSGPC) to represent the community and protect the holy sites and heritage of the Sikh religion in Pakistan. It is headquartered at Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore.
The public source identifies “Sikhism in Pakistan” as religious community. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sikhism, Pakistan and religious.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Sikhism in Pakistan”, the useful work is to connect “religious community” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7513720. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1941 and 1947.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sikhism in Pakistan”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sikhism in Pakistan primary sources, Sikhism in Pakistan archive and Sikhism research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sikhism in Pakistan”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sikhism in Pakistan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.