Talk:Turban (Sikhism)

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The Wikipedia article for 'Turban'[[1]] states that the turban is 'not explicitly required for baptised [Sikh] men'. This appears to contradict this article, which asserts that, 'Sikhism is the only religion in the world in which wearing a turban is mandatory'. Does anyone know which is correct?

Ah ha! This is an issue. Strictly speaking, the compulsory item (one of the 5 Ks) is uncut hair. However, the turban goes hand-in-hand with the uncut hair and it's part of the uniform of a Sikh.
As with all things religious, it really depends on what type of Sikh you are. All bapitised men and women will cover their head: be it with a turban or cloth. For unbaptised Sikhs it certainly isn't compulsory.
A full analysis would require a bit more investigation than I have time for at the moment. But I hope that helped. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 18:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Much cleanup needed

I'm not really qualified to carry out the necessary cleanup to this article, but since no-one else has done so, I will point out some of the problems I see with it as it stands. Firstly, the problem mentioned above - the phrase that says that wearing a turban is mandatory, despite Sukh's explanation - is still in the article unchanged after several months. Secondly, there are some (generally minor) issues with the English. (For example, Vast majority of people who wear turbans in the Western countries are Sikhs. should read The vast majority... Also:

  • The article has trouble keeping to NPOV in several places. For example: The turban is certainly a gift of love from the founders of the Sikh religion and is symbolic of sovereignty that is of Divine concession. This is a clearly pro-Sikh POV and thus just as unacceptable on Wikipedia as an anti-Sikh POV would be; the NPOV policy means we should not portray any belief (or non-belief) as fact. Just because you believe something is true is not enough; NPOV is absolutely non-negotiable, as Jimmy Wales has said very clearly in the past.
  • The article should be about the turban in particular, not about Sikhism in general. There are several places - eg the "High Moral Values" section (which is another place where NPOV is probably violated) that could do with quite a bit of trimming down.
  • The article is not fully referenced. There are a number of assertions which are not backed up with specific citations of sources. The bibliography helps, but there are still some statements that could have come from anywhere.
  • The adaptation of an "article By Piara Singh Sambhi of Global Sikh Studies" at the end is also a problem, since without further information it looks like a copyright violation. Unless there is definite proof that the copyright holder allows said article to be redistributed under the GFDL or as public domain, then it is unacceptable. (If such proof does exist, it must be mentioned.)
  • The illustrations may also be a problem. Being a promotional picture is most certainly not enough on its own to mark it as GFDL, as has been done with these drawings. There has to be proof that it is specifically GFDL. Claiming fair use probably wouldn't work either, since it's not as if no free picture of someone wearing a turban could be created! As it stands those pictures may well get deleted for having inappropriate tags.

There may be other, more specialist, problems with this article that I as a non-specialist would not notice, but the above is probably enough to go on with! Loganberry (Talk) 16:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

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