Akbar's city at Fatehpur Sikri
Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh
Akbar's capital of 1571-85, where debates in the Ibadat Khana brought Sunni and Shia scholars, Brahmins, Jains and Jesuits before him.
Akbar began the city in 1571 on the ridge at Sikri, home of the Sufi Shaikh Salim Chishti, who had foretold the birth of his son Salim. The Ibadat Khana, built in 1575, began as a hall for Muslim scholars and was opened to other faiths; the first Jesuit mission arrived in 1580.
The Buland Darwaza, the great south gate of the mosque, is usually tied to the conquest of Gujarat in 1573, but its main inscription, dated 1601, celebrates the conquest of Khandesh in the Deccan. Akbar left for Lahore in 1585 to watch the north-west frontier and the court never settled here again; the popular story that the city was abandoned for want of water is disputed.
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