Since Khan didn't exactly look like a Sikh, that makes sense. I wonder why McGivers thought he might be a Sikh, since he lacked the beard and turban that male Sikhs wear as part of their religion.
Orci's Official Explanation for appearance and eye color [SPOILER]
- Thread starter BlueMetroid
- Start date
IIRC, she paints his portrait to include a turban?
Maybe going by the name she was making certain assumptions about him? Maybe her assumptions were more romantic based on gossip instead of historical fact.
Maybe Khan was a metrosexual Sikh?
Sikhism is a religion, not a race, so a person of any ethnicity could be a Sikh. It's not common, since Sikhs don't actively try to convert others, but it happens (more often in the 21st century than before). And people who convert to Sikhism would change their names, with men taking the surname Singh and women taking the surname Kaur.
How Marla recognized him as a Sikh without the turban, beard, and kirpan is highly suspect. However, there's enough evidence in the episode to suggest that Marla knew, or suspected, that he was Khan Noonien Singh from the start, and kept that knowledge to herself because of her personal fascination with the man. Maybe saying that he was probably a Sikh, in the absence of visual evidence, was a slip-up on her part, a hint that she knew more about his identity than she admitted.
How Marla recognized him as a Sikh without the turban, beard, and kirpan is highly suspect. However, there's enough evidence in the episode to suggest that Marla knew, or suspected, that he was Khan Noonien Singh from the start, and kept that knowledge to herself because of her personal fascination with the man. Maybe saying that he was probably a Sikh, in the absence of visual evidence, was a slip-up on her part, a hint that she knew more about his identity than she admitted.
So people who are not of Indian ethnicity could take on the Sikh warrior way of life because they admired it - so Montalbam or Cumberbatch in real-life could be Sikhs - very interesting.
Yes, but the picture we see from the 1990s shows him without it.
There's so much more to it than being "warriors." That's something of a stereotype. At its heart, Sikhism is more about service, study, and meditation, about casting off illusion and worldly distractions (including the rituals and idolatry of other faiths) in order to find truth and achieve union with God. It's a devotional faith that stresses the personal, individual search for God over the trappings of church and ritual. They developed their skill as warriors in order to defend the independence of their community.
Surely that wasn't the only picture of him ever taken, though. Marla could have based her painting on another picture she'd seen, or simply extrapolated it from what she secretly knew or suspected about him.
