The Original Akbar’s Chamber: Inter-Religious Dialogue at the Court of a Mughal Emperor

In 1575, the Mughal emperor Akbar established the Ibadat-khana, or ‘House of Worship,’ at his Indian capital of Fatehpur Sikri. Over the following years, it would act as a space of religious dialogue between Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians, and Jews, along with Christian missionaries of the Jesuit order. By emphasizing the use of aql, or ‘reason,’ these discussions fostered a deeper understanding of other religions that fed in turn into translations of Christian and Hindu religious works into Persian. Through examining the surviving evidence, both architectural and textual, we’ll ask what motivated Akbar, as well as what topics were discussed in the original “Akbar’s chamber.” Nile Green talks to Nadeem Rezavi, the author of Fatehpur Sikri Revisited (Oxford University Press, 2013).