Although Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great (ruled 1556-1605) is well known in the history of India, few have heard of Fatehpur Sikri (villagers in the area call it Akbar’s “ghost city”).  Most of the many thousands of visitors to Agra’s Taj Mahal are not even aware that this UNESCO World Heritage site is just 40 km away.  I was no exception. Although I had been leading University of Manitoba students on Travel Study programs to India for several years – including the requisite visit to Agra’s Taj Mahal – it was not until I chanced upon reproductions of Persian miniature paintings by Nar Singh (early 17th century) that Fatehpur Sikri entered my consciousness.  To my delightful surprise, one of the paintings (used as illustrations in the Akbarnama; Book of Akbar; three volume record of his reign) shows two Jesuits from the Portuguese colony of Goa (Rodolfo Acquaviva and Francisco Henriques) as part of a group meeting with the Emperor Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri.  My curiosity led me to find out about this place and what the Jesuits were doing there.  

After Akbar had skilfully extended Mughal rule to include most of the Indian subcontinent, the Emperor still faced two major challenges.  He had to figure out a way to unite the diverse peoples he had conquered and, more immediately, if he wanted his vision to continue he would need a son — which he didn’t have, yet — to succeed him as emperor.

A Muslim “saint”, Sheikh Salim Chisti from the village of Sikri, accurately predicted that Akbar’s wife would give birth to a son, Jahangir. To mark Jahangir’s birth in 1569, Akbar went on pilgrimage to Sikri to meet this Sufi holy man and decided to build there a “City of Victory” — Fatehpur Sikri — to memorialize his conquests. Prominent among its monumental red sandstone buildings is the Friday mosque, entered from Sikri through a 45 metre high ‘Sublime Gateway’, which contains the exquisite white marble tomb of Salim Chisti.

Even more significant about Fatehpur Sikri is that it stands as a reminder of the extraordinary compromises which Akbar made in his efforts to bring peace, stability, and harmony to a land containing countless cultural, social and religious groups.  Early in his reign he abolished a hated tax that was applied against all non-Muslims. He had the Hindu Mahabharata translated into Persian to make it accessible to Muslim scholars.  Even more interesting is that Akbar had three wives — a Muslim from Persia, a Hindu from South India, and a Christian from Armenia — each living at Fatehpur Sikri in a distinctive palace/house which reflected their particular culture and religious beliefs.  As if this was not unusual enough at the time, Akbar invited Muslim, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Christian, and other religious scholars to engage him in spiritual dialogue.  For this specific purpose, he created the Diwan-i-Khas, a building designed and decorated to facilitate such interaction.

Of special interest to me is that in, September 1579, the Akbar sent an ambassador to Goa with a request that the Superior of the Jesuits send “learned Fathers and the books of Law, especially the Gospel” to Fatehpur Sikri so as to enlighten himself and his court (comprised largely of Muslims and Hindus) about the teachings of Christianity.   

From Jesuit sources, we know that the first Jesuit mission to the Mughal Court at Fatehpur Sikri (1580-83; comprised of three Jesuits) left Goa with a clear purpose – to convert the Emperor and then, through the newly baptised Emperor, his Empire.  Seen from this limited perspective, the mission was a failure and the Jesuits, excited and encouraged as they set out, were bitterly disappointed. Their conversion efforts were unsuccessful because Akbar had a different – far more ambitious – agenda.  From the Diwan-i-Khas discussions, the Mughal emperor pieced together a new hybrid religion, Din-i-Illahi (the Divine faith) in an effort to bring unity to his vast and diverse empire. It  

Although the 17th century Jesuits saw their missions to Akbar’s as a total failure, history has been far less harsh in its evaluation. The Christian witness and scholarship of the Jesuits probably helped to bring about a better understanding between Christianity and the other religions of India (especially Islam and Hinduism). Certainly the several Jesuits who visited Fatehpur Sikri enjoyed the friendship of the Emperor and later his heir Jahangir and others in the Mughal court. In 1605, Akbar even gave the Society of Jesus a piece of land in Agra on which to build a Christian house of worship. A Roman Catholic church stands there to this day. Locals call it “Akbar’s church”. So, although the Goan Jesuits were disappointed that they did not make conversions at the Mughal court, with hindsight we can see that their missions to Fatehpur Sikri represented an early and important chapter in the history of religious dialogue in India.

Last year I again accompanied a group of University of Manitoba students to Fatehpur Sikri. I always find the deserted, almost forgotten, Fatehpur Sikri to be perhaps the most haunting (locals do call it a “ghost city”) place I have visited in India. And again I came away with memories of it as a silent reminder of a glowing, golden moment in human history; a long vanished, Camelot-like, dream of religious harmony.