Fatehpur Sikri
Fatehpur Sikri, town, western Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It lies about 23 miles (37 km) west-southwest of Agra. It served as the Mughal emperor Akbar’s capital from about 1571 to 1585. Thereafter Akbar moved his capital to Lahore, and Fatehpur Sikri fell into decline, becoming almost a ghost town in subsequent years. Now maintained as a historic site, Fatehpur Sikri was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986.
In 1568–69 Akbar, who was until then childless, had visited the Muslim hermit Chishti, who was residing in the village of Sikri. Chishti correctly foretold that Akbar’s wish for an heir would be gratified with the birth of a son; the child, Salim, was born in Sikri in 1569, and he would later rule as the emperor Jahangir. The grateful Akbar decided that the site of Sikri was auspicious and made it his capital. To mark the emperor’s conquest of Gujarat in 1573, the prefix Fatehpur, meaning “city of victory,” was added to the city’s name.
Akbar personally directed the building of the Jama Masjid (1571; “Congregational Mosque”), which stretches some 540 feet (165 meters) in length and contains an ornate tomb for Chishti. The mosque’s southern entrance, the colossal gateway Buland Darwaza (1575; “Lofty Gate”), is one of India’s greatest architectural works. The monumental gateway is constructed out of red sandstone and is attractively carved.
Fatehpur Sikri contains other early Mughal structures, exhibiting both Muslim and Hindu architectural influences. They include the palaces of Akbar’s wife Maryam-uz-Zamani (popularly conflated with the possibly fictional figure Jodha Bai) and his trusted courtier Birbal, a private audience hall, and houses. The city’s status declined precipitously after about 1585, when Akbar moved his capital to Lahore, and Fatehpur Sikri was almost completely deserted by 1610. The reasons for its decline is debated among scholars. Though the city’s inadequate water supply is often cited as a possible reason, it may also have been that Fatehpur Sikri lost its significance simply because Akbar’s attention had shifted elsewhere amid military campaigns in the Punjab region. Pop. (2001) 28,804; (2011) 32,905.