The century opens with the completion of the Adi Granth in 1604 and the execution of Guru Arjan Dev Ji at Lahore in 1606, the first Sikh martyrdom and the point at which the community's relationship with the state changes.
Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji builds the Akal Takht, raises horse, fights four defensive actions and moves to Kiratpur. Guru Har Rai Ji and Guru Har Krishan Ji hold the guruship through a period of Mughal succession war. Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji founds Anandpur and is executed at Delhi in 1675.
Guru Gobind Singh Ji becomes Guru at nine in 1675, fights Bhangani in 1688 and Nadaun in 1691, and creates the Khalsa at Anandpur in 1699.
Lahore and Multan reach their architectural height: the Wazir Khan mosque in 1634, the Shalimar Gardens in 1641, the Badshahi Mosque in 1673.
Bulleh Shah is born around 1680. Sultan Bahu dies in 1691.
The province is prosperous, heavily taxed and increasingly ungovernable at its edges, and the Khalsa is created five years before the century's end.
The century holds the fifth to the tenth Gurus, two executions in Mughal custody, the taking up of arms, and the founding of the Khalsa in its last year but one.
It also holds the compilation of the Adi Granth in 1604, which fixed the tradition in a text before it had a state, an army or a territory.
By its end the community had a scripture, an initiation, a rehat, a set of fortified towns and a war with the empire. All of that was assembled in about a hundred years.