Akabar the great mughal emperor had multi faceted personality who was a great commander, a good administrator, a better judge and was far ahead of his times. He was a great patron of art and architecture.
He had a pragmatic approach in diverse fields. He made drastic changes in taxation, land revenue and divided his empire into provinces headed by good governors. Good governance and public welfare was his utmost priority. This is the reason that same of the tyrant governors had to lose the posts and royal favours instanty while he had the news of atrocities on the common folks.
He without formal schooling learnt the intricacies of administration from his patron Bairam khan and the nine jewels of his court. He was very inquisitive in the field of religion philosophy and theology. It was his progressive approach that led him to construct Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri. This building was a sort of assembly hall where Akabar used to hold discourses on religion and about the ultimate realty.
If we talk about secularism in Insia we have to keep in mind the history and purpose of Ibadat Khana of Fatehpur Sikri. Akabar’s tilt towards spiritual inquisitives is thought to be derived from Suleiman Kirani, the governor of Bengal.
Ibadat Khana HistoryIbadat khana was conceptualized in 1575 A.D and the building was erected for them. Like Sulaiman who is said to spend the night in the midst of hundreds of spiritual leaders, Akabar also spent his Thursday in the building. Here in the edific he invited mystics and theologies from different religions such as Hindusim, Jainism, Buddhism, and Christianity, Zoroastrianism (Parsis, Islam and also the non believers in him. Each of these spiritual leaders had a congregation at Ibadat Khan and discussed with Akabar about the respective features of their religions. The origin controversies by the historians of different ages.
Deen–I-Ilahi-The Firrst secular religionIn due course of time as akbar got to know about the tenets of major religion and he thought that all the religions have almost same principles with a little different approach and even the goal is the same. This thing struck his mind of all of the religion have same goal then why all suvh hatred, dissent, sectarian violence and mist must among these is predominant.
This thought became the key factor of starting of Deen –I –ilahi or divine religion which was propagated in 1580. Akbar as a liberal ruler did not impose this religion on the nobles either or on the common folk. An eminent English poet Alfred local Tennyson in this poem “Akbar’s dream” praised Akabar for his effort to bring all religion together unfortunately there were only 18 followers of the new religion.
This tomb has elegant style of architecture this entire structure is erected by using the Kakayya bricks. Like the roman bricks and the facades have fillings of earthen pots like the Romans and Egyptians just to reduce the weight of concrete. The dome of the tomb is single donate and not also improvised like to Taj Mahal dome. In the main structure there is the burial of Shukar Ulaah and there is also a replica. The entire edifice used to be decorated with tiles.
The building of ibadat khana is nonexistent now. The archeologist claim to excavate the place in between archeologists claim to excavate the place in between jodhabai palace and the mosque the archeologist made the basis of their study a contempary painting of the Jesuit missionary discussing with the emperor. In this building Akbar discussed the questions about the metaphyried world. The british historians narrated the Deevan-i-Khaas as Ibadat Khana but the modern researches prove that this places was not the right place.
