Ishna ji
Please forgive me! I am interrupting your flow of thought to interject a few contrary ideas and observations.
What are these rights that Muslim women now enjoy that did not exist before Islam? In the earliest days of Islam, and this is a matter of recorded history, women did have considerable equality, and they served as advocates, doctors, etc. Their freedoms were significantly less curtailed than they are today, and the reasons are cultural. As Islam spread the oppression of women increased ---- because Islam integrated cultural beliefs and practices as it spread in order to assimilate more easily.
As a side note: The Roman Church did exactly the same thing, which is why movable religious feasts in Christianity coincide with pagan observances. And why some of the Christian saints have counterparts in the folkloric record of pre-Christian times. In the same way, springs sacred to local pre-Christian traditions became holy bodies of water much later on.
One example of this point from Islam is the "veil," which was imported from conquered and Christian Greece to Turkey. The practice of taking the veil spread under the political domination of Islam and the Mughals. The more horrific example from Islam is the practice of clitoridectomy or female circumcision, where the clitoris and most of the vulva is removed in girls as soon as they reach menstruation, to "protect" their reputation for chastity. After they are mutilated they are then sown up, and then opened up the night of their marriage, only to be sown up again once pregnant. Beyond the danger of infection, the dangers that result during pregnancy are huge. The entire Muslim world does not practice female circumcision. It is however prevalent in Egypt, and in sub-Saharan Africa, where 85 percent of girls are estimated to undergo clitoral removal, in Oman, and in parts of Indonesia and Asian Pacific. The practice pre-dates Islam, and is the result of cultural assimilation.
My point is that religion absorbs cultural realities over long periods of time.
So it is really difficult for me to understand how Sikhs would be the group that would or even should "put culture aside," if that is even possible, since cultures are wound tightly into the experience of religion. There is good to be gained too from cultural experience. As Sikhs in the diaspora may find in more democratic societies a match with the democratic traditions of Sikhism itself. Sikhs may want to ensure that a Sikh homeland reflects that.
My final consideration comes from an article I read just yesterday about conversion experiences in Christianity. What is frequently seen as a kind of "truth strike," where someone is instantly reformed, may actually be the result of a novel religious philosophy finding its match, as it maps onto emotional needs that can sometimes be quite neurotic. Real conversion takes hold later when the salve of religious discovery results in behavioral changes. That is the part that takes time and can be either sublime or scary. Again forgive me.
