SikhiWiki:Weekly featured article/Week 3

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International Turban Day is celebrated on April 13th every year. This event was started in 2004 to bring awareness of the strict requirement on Sikhs to don the turban as a mandatory part of their religion.

In the West since 9/11 in 2001, the turban, has attracted negative attention due to the wrongful linking of this garment with Osama bin Laden, the Muslim leader of al Qaeda who has often been pictured wearing a turban.

Due to the vast news and media coverage of Osama bin Laden following 9/11, many men wearing a turban and beard and Punjabi styled clothing articles (long vest or longer shirt) have been looked upon with suspicion, with some innocent people even being killed or wounded by uninformed and even deranged westerners bent on revenge, who just assumed that any bearded man, wearing a turban and beard was a Muslim.

However, this perception is wrong, as the vast majority of people in Western countries who wear turbans are actually Sikhs. Given that many thousands of Sikhs died fighting against the same sort of Muslim fundamentalist terrorists that bin Laden's group al Qaeda and the Taleban espouse today, the irony of such an uninformed assumption is tragic, especially since most Muslims living in the West do not wear turbans. .....More