India Guide
Uttar Pradesh
Fatehpur Sikri
The ghost city of FATEHPUR SIKRI, former imperial capital of the great Mughal emperor Akbar, straddles the crest of a rocky ridge 40km southwest of Agra. The city was built here between 1569 and 1585 as a result of the emperor's enthusiasm for the local Muslim divine Sheikh Salim Chishti, though the move away from Agra may also have had something to do with Akbar's weariness of the crowds and his desire to create a new capital that was an appropriate symbol of imperial power. The fusion of Hindu and Muslim traditions in its architecture says a lot about the religious and cultural tolerance of Akbar's reign.
Shunning the Hindu tradition of aligning towns with the cardinal points, Akbar constructed his new capital following the natural features of the terrain, so the principal thoroughfare, town walls, and many important buildings face southwest or northeast. The mosque and most private apartments do not follow the main axis, but face west towards Mecca, according to Muslim tradition, with the palace crowning the highest point on the ridge.
Fatehpur Sikri's period of pre-eminence was brief, and after 1585 it never again served as the seat of the Mughal emperor. The reasons for its abandonment remain enigmatic. The theory that its water supply proved incapable of sustaining its population is no longer widely accepted – even after the city had been deserted, the nearby lake to its northwest still measured over 20km in circumference and yielded good water. A more likely explanation is that the city was simply the victim of the vagaries of the empire's day-to-day military contingencies. Shortly after the new capital was established, the empire was threatened by troubles in the Punjab, and Akbar moved to Lahore to deal with them. These military preoccupations kept him there for over a decade, aafter which he decided, for no particular reason, to return to Agra rather than Fatehpur Sikri.
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