A city built on a saint's promise
The emperor went to the sheikh, and the sheikh told him he would have three sons. In 1569 Akbar's Rajput queen, the princess of Amber remembered as Mariam-uz-Zamani, gave birth at Sikri to a boy. He was named Salim after the saint, and he later ruled as the emperor Jahangir.
No heir: by the late 1560s Akbar had ruled for more than a decade with no surviving son.
The saint on the ridge: at Sikri, about forty kilometres west of Agra, lived Sheikh Salim Chishti, a Sufi of the Chishti order.
- Salim born
- 1569, at Sikri
- Building began
- 1571
- Named Fatehpur
- After the 1573 conquest of Gujarat
- Court left
- Around 1585, for Lahore
- UNESCO listing
- 1986
- The Ajmer link: the order was founded in India by Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, whose shrine at Ajmer Akbar already venerated.
- Gratitude in stone: from 1571 Akbar built a new capital around the sheikh's home, with a great mosque, palaces, offices, workshops and an artificial lake for water.
- The city of victory: after Akbar conquered Gujarat in 1573, the town took the name Fatehpur.
- Heart of an empire: for about fourteen years ambassadors, Jesuit priests from Goa, poets, painters and generals all climbed the ridge to find the emperor.
- The departure: around 1585 Akbar left for the north-west frontier and moved his court to Lahore. He never really came back.
- Left intact: the city emptied quietly. Unlike Delhi or Agra, nothing much was built over it, so you walk through the rooms of a single reign, in the shape Akbar left them.
- For our family: it has always been the midpoint of the road home from Agra, where the plains of Braj start to give way to the Rajasthan we know.
- Our own kings: it is where the long relationship between the Mughals and the Kachwaha kings of Amber is easiest to feel.
How to read the red city
One stone: the city is built almost entirely from the red sandstone of the ridge it stands on, quarried on the spot and carved by local masons.
One colour: with no change of material, the whole city has one colour and one texture.
How it changes: deep rust at sunrise, pinkish and pale at noon, glowing like coals in the last light.
- Who carved it: Akbar's builders drew on Persian and Central Asian planning, but much of the craft came from Indian masons, including traditions from Gujarat and Rajasthan.
- What to look for: flat beams instead of arches, heavy carved brackets, deep eaves called chhajjas, and stone worked as if it were wood.
- Learn the vocabulary: our guide to reading Rajasthani architecture explains these elements. Once you know them you will spot them at Amer and Jaipur too.
- Two parts: the religious complex, with the Jama Masjid, Buland Darwaza and the tomb of Salim Chishti, is a living place of worship.
- And the palaces: the royal complex, with the palaces and halls of state, is a protected monument. They sit side by side, and each needs time.
- The usual mistake: most people rush the palaces and skip half the courtyards.
The palaces and halls of the emperor
The Diwan-i-Am, the hall of public audience
The court: a huge rectangular courtyard ringed by colonnades, with a raised pavilion where the emperor sat to hear petitions and dispense justice.
- Imagine it: full of courtiers, soldiers and supplicants, with elephants waiting at the gates.
- Start here: usually quiet in the first hour, and a good place for your guide to explain the layout of the whole city.
The Diwan-i-Khas and its single pillar
Deceptively simple: from outside, a two-storeyed block with corner kiosks. Inside, one of the most remarkable rooms in India.
- The pillar: a single carved column rises from the floor into a great circular capital of brackets, from which four narrow stone walkways run to the corners of the gallery.
- Akbar at the centre: many believe he sat on the central platform while scholars and ministers debated around him.
- A picture of his rule: the brackets mix motifs from several traditions. It is easy to read the room as Akbar at the centre, listening to everyone.
The Panch Mahal, five storeys of air
The pillars: five storeys that grow smaller as they climb, from 84 pillars on the ground floor to just four under the little domed kiosk at the top, 176 in all.
- Built for the breeze: the ladies of the court once looked out over the city from here, behind screens that have long since gone.
- Look closely: the carving on the lower pillars varies from one column to the next.
Anup Talao and the Pachisi court
Anup Talao: a square ornamental tank with a stone platform at its centre, reached by four narrow causeways.
- Tansen: tradition says the great singer performed here for Akbar.
- The Pachisi court: a courtyard paved as a giant board for pachisi, the ancestor of ludo.
- Living pieces: the story that Akbar played with people as counters is told at every visit. True or not, it reminds you this was a home as well as a capital.
The palace of Mariam-uz-Zamani
Its popular name: guides often call it Jodha Bai's palace.
- The largest residence: built around a big inner courtyard and closed to the outside world.
- Its look: carved pillars, brackets and balconies recall the temples and havelis of Gujarat and Rajasthan, and patches of turquoise glazed tile survive on the roof.
- Why it feels familiar: to us it is the building on the ridge that feels most like home, and we think it is meant to. The queen who lived here grew up in Amer.
Birbal's house and the smaller palaces
Birbal's house: a compact two-storeyed palace near the women's quarters, named after Akbar's witty Brahmin minister.
- Probably not his: historians doubt he lived here, and it may have been built for royal women instead.
- Its carving: as fine as any in the city.
- The house of the Turkish Sultana: a small pavilion covered in carved panels of trees, birds and vines, so delicate they look like wood.
Hiran Minar and the old road
The tower: below the palace ridge, round and studded with stone projections shaped like elephant tusks.
- Its story: tradition links it to a favourite elephant of Akbar. Others see a marker or lookout over the hunting grounds and the lake that once lay beyond.
- Worth the walk: few visitors go down. On a clear winter morning the view back up to the palaces is one of the best on the site.
The Jama Masjid, the Buland Darwaza and the saint's tomb
- Buland Darwaza
- Completed around 1575
- Height
- About 54 m from the ground
- Saint died
- 1572
- Dress code
- Shoulders and knees covered
- Shoes
- Off at the courtyard entrance
- An active shrine: women may wish to cover their heads.
- Etiquette: our temple etiquette guide applies here as much as anywhere in Rajasthan.
The Buland Darwaza, the gate of magnificence
Why it was built: to mark Akbar's conquest of Gujarat.
Its scale: one of the tallest gateways in the world, standing on a high plinth above a great flight of steps.
- Its materials: red sandstone trimmed in white and black marble, with Quranic verses running round the arch.
- The inscription: one Persian line repeats a saying attributed to Jesus, that the world is a bridge to cross and not a place to build a house.
- Why it moves us: it is a strange thing to read on a gate raised to celebrate a conquest.
The Jama Masjid
Among the first buildings: Akbar raised the great mosque early, and its courtyard is one of the largest of any mosque in India.
- The prayer hall: crowned with domes and lined with arcades. The inside of the central bay is painted and inlaid with intricate patterns.
- Watch your feet: at midday the courtyard stone can be very hot, one more reason to come early or late.
The tomb of Sheikh Salim Chishti
Another world: a small white building in the middle of the red courtyard, built by Akbar after the saint's death.
- The marble: its present facing was probably added under Jahangir, the son whose birth the saint foretold.
- The jali: the marble screens are among the finest lattice work in India, so thin that light passes through them like lace.
- The brackets: the serpentine brackets under the eaves are each cut from a single piece of stone, and worth a long look.
The threads of hope
A wish: pilgrims of every faith tie red and yellow threads to the marble screens, often wishing for a child, as Akbar did.
- The promise: when the wish comes true, tradition says they return to untie a thread.
- Who comes: women from villages across Braj and Rajasthan, in their best clothes. On many days you will hear qawwali in the courtyard.
- Islam Khan's tomb: next to the saint's stands the larger red tomb of one of his descendants, crowned with small domed kiosks.
The court that met on the ridge
The house of worship: Akbar built the Ibadat Khana here. It does not survive, but what happened there is well recorded.
Who debated: Sunni and Shia scholars, and later Hindu pandits, Jain monks, Zoroastrian priests and Jesuit fathers from Goa.
What came of it: the arguments were often fierce. Out of them grew sulh-i-kul, and later the small court circle known as the Din-i-Ilahi.
- Ibadat Khana
- Built 1575, now gone
- Debates
- Thursday nights
- Big idea
- Sulh-i-kul, peace with all
- Chronicler
- Abul Fazl
- Abul Fazl: who wrote the great chronicle of the reign.
- Raja Todar Mal: the finance minister whose land revenue system outlived the empire.
- Birbal: the minister whose quick wit became a whole genre of folk tales.
- Tansen: the singer said to light lamps with a raga.
- Raja Man Singh of Amber: the Kachwaha general and nephew of Akbar's Rajput queen, who led imperial armies across India and brought back the wealth that built his palace at Amer.
- A personal devotion: before Fatehpur Sikri existed Akbar made pilgrimages to Ajmer, and after Salim's birth he is said to have walked there from Agra.
- The same road: visit the Ajmer Sharif Dargah on a Rajasthan journey and you follow it.
- The Rajput marriages: our piece on Akbar and Jodha looks at how they shaped this court.
Why the city was left behind
There is no ruin here in the romantic sense, no broken walls and fallen domes. The roofs are mostly on, the courtyards are swept, and you half expect someone to come round the corner. Sit in the Diwan-i-Khas on a winter morning and that feeling is very strong.
No river: the ridge has none. Akbar's engineers dammed a valley to make a large lake north-west of the palaces.
- Lifting water: step tanks, wells and channels carried it up the hill.
- Never secure: in dry years the lake shrank, and a capital of tens of thousands of people, with elephants, horses and workshops, needs a great deal of water.
- War in the north-west: in 1585 Akbar faced trouble on the frontier and moved his court to Lahore, where he stayed for well over a decade.
- No longer needed: by the time the empire's centre shifted back towards Agra, the emperor was older and his priorities had changed.
- Left, not destroyed: the villagers of Sikri moved into its edges, as they still live today.
Where to stay when you visit Fatehpur Sikri
On the road: most of our guests see Fatehpur Sikri between Agra and Jaipur, leaving Agra after an early Taj morning or setting out from Jaipur at dawn.
From Agra, by the Taj: stay the night before at The Oberoi Amarvilas, where every room faces the Taj.
- From Agra, in gardens: or at the garden-wrapped ITC Mughal.
- Timing from Agra: leave after breakfast to reach Sikri by mid-morning, or better, leave early and arrive as the gates open.
- For birders and slow travellers: base yourself in Bharatpur. Keoladeo is a short drive away, and an evening there pairs well with a morning on the ridge.
- Heading west: the road continues to the Abhaneri stepwell and on to Jaipur, where the palace hotels begin.
Lunch, tea and what to buy
Lunch elsewhere: we plan it in Agra, Bharatpur or a good highway hotel.
In the car: water, fruit and a flask of chai.
- At the foot of the ridge: small stalls sell fresh samosas, hot tea and, in winter, roasted peanuts and sweet gajak made with jaggery and sesame.
- Snack safely: choose stalls that are busy and frying fresh.
- On the steps: you will be offered everything from carved soapstone boxes to marble coasters and sacred threads.
- Soapstone: some of it is genuinely local and charming.
- Marble: much of it is not what it claims to be. The real inlay workshops are in Agra.
- Our rule: buy only what you like at a price you are happy with. Our shopping guide explains how to tell good inlay from the rest.
When to come and how to get there
October to March: the season. December and January mornings can be foggy and cold, but by ten the sun is out and the stone warms quickly.
April to June: the courtyards are fierce by late morning. If you must come, arrive as the site opens.
- Best season
- October to March
- From Agra
- About 40 km, an hour
- From Jaipur
- About four hours
- From Delhi
- About four hours, via Agra
- Summer visits
- Leave before eleven
- The monsoon: from July to September the sky is dramatic and the fields turn green, but bring an umbrella and expect slippery stone.
- From Agra: west on the Jaipur highway.
- From Jaipur: we stop at Abhaneri on the way, as in our note on driving Agra to Jaipur via Abhaneri.
- Nearby: Bharatpur and the Keoladeo sanctuary are close, and Delhi is reached on the expressways via Agra.
- Arrival: vehicles stop at a parking area below the site, and a shuttle or a short walk takes you up to the gates.
Half a day on the ridge, the way we do it
Early morning, the royal courts
Gates open: go straight to the royal complex.
- In shadow: begin at the Diwan-i-Am, then cross to the Diwan-i-Khas and the Panch Mahal while the courtyards are still cool.
- The private courts: walk through Anup Talao, the Pachisi court, the palace of Mariam-uz-Zamani and Birbal's house.
- Allow: two unhurried hours.
Late morning, the mosque and the saint
- The shrine: walk across to the Jama Masjid, leave your shoes and spend time at the tomb of Salim Chishti. Tie a thread if you wish.
- The best view of the gate: step out through the Buland Darwaza and look back up from the bottom of the steps. Only then do you see how big it is.
Midday, onward
- Lunch: back in Agra, in Bharatpur for an afternoon with the birds, or west towards Abhaneri and Jaipur.
- On our journeys: our classic Golden Triangle journey builds this stop into the Agra to Jaipur day.
How long to allow, and who it suits
History lovers: you walk through the rooms of a single reign, almost exactly as Akbar left them, which no other Mughal city offers.
Architecture lovers: brackets, chhajjas and stone carved like wood make this the best place to learn the vocabulary you will see again at Amer and Jaipur.
- Royal complex
- Two unhurried hours
- The shrine
- About an hour
- Whole visit
- Half a day
- Best hour
- As the gates open
- Good for
- History, architecture, photography
- Photographers: the red stone changes colour from dawn to dusk, and the early courtyards are empty and full of long shadows.
- Pilgrims and the curious: the tomb of Salim Chishti is a living shrine where people of every faith still come to ask for a child.
- Families: the courts are flat and open, but shade is scarce, so keep it to the morning and bring water and hats.
- Who may struggle: anyone visiting at midday in summer. The stone is fierce, and the walk barefoot across the mosque courtyard can be painful.
What we tell our own cousins about Fatehpur Sikri
Book a registered guide in advance: self-appointed guides on the steps can be persistent, and their stories are often more colourful than true.
Palaces first, shrine second: the palaces are best in the early light and the shrine is lovely later in the morning.
- Slip-off shoes and socks: you walk barefoot in the mosque courtyard, and the stone gets hot.
- Dress modestly for the shrine: carry a light scarf to cover your head if you wish.
- Carry small notes: for the shoe keeper and an offering at the tomb. Don't be pressured into buying a costly chadar.
- Look up: the best carving is on the brackets, the eaves and the ceilings, and most visitors never raise their eyes.
- Bring water and a hat: there is very little shade on the ridge.
