Super Interesting Facts about Akbar (The Legendary Mughal Emperor)

Shot at Sikandra, Agra. I believe Ashish’s expression and looks totally intrigue interest 🙂

Akbar the Great (Akbar-e-Azam) was the third and one of the greatest rulers of the Mughal dynasty in India. Akbar was enthroned as emperor at a tender age of 13 on February 14, 1556.

• Akbar could neither read nor write but that did not stop him from having a great library of over 24,000 volumes spanning across Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Greek, Latin and Arabic and every book was read through to him from beginning to end

• No less than 5,000 women lived in Akbar’s palace ( i.e Fatehpur Sikri near Agra) but only about 300 were his official wives or concubines
• The princess of Amber (Salima) (Akbar’s first Hindu wife and Jahangir’s mother) was a highly astute business woman, who ran an active international trade in spices, silk, etc., and thus owned a huge private fortune
• Salim (Jahangir) was his only surviving son and successor
• Akbar had remarkably open-minded attitude and invited several missions of Jesuit priests to his court, to learn more about Christian faith and to debate with representatives of Islam and other faiths
• Though a Muslim by religion, Akbar believed that all humankind constitutes a single brotherhood, created by the same God, and fundamentally equal before Him
• Akbar was a conscious father and kept his children under his own care and did not appoint any guardian to them
• He abolished two obnoxious taxes on Hindus – the pilgrimage tax in 1563 CE and Jizya in 1564 CE. Jizya or jizyah is a religiously required per capita yearly tax levied by a Muslim state on certain non-Muslim subjects permanently residing in Muslim lands under Islamic law. Jizya is mandated by the Quran and the Hadiths
• On 3 October 1605, Akbar fell ill with an attack of dysentery at Fatehpur Sikri. Akbar could not recover from illness and is believed to have died on or about 27 October 1605

Legendary emperor’s body was buried at a mausoleum in Sikandra, Agra.

Akbar’s palace is located in Fatehpur Sikri near Agra, Uttar Pradesh. The city was founded in 1569 by the Emperor and served as the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1571 to 1585.

#Lets Travel Together

For our foreign tourist’s friends we are arranging day tours to the City of Love – Agra and extended tours covering Golden Triangle ( Delhi – Agra – Jaipur). With us, you don’t have to worry about anything related to your travel to India. Do let us know so that we can share all the details.

Cheers 🙂

References:
https://archive.org/stream/handbooktoagrata00haveuoft/handbooktoagrata00haveuoft_djvu.txt