Akbar Founds the Ibadat Khana

1575

At Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar opened the Ibadat Khana, a House of Worship where he invited Muslim theologians, Hindu brahmins, Jain monks, Zoroastrians, and eventually Jesuit fathers to debate religion before him late into the night. The emperor took copious notes and drifted further from orthodox Sunni Islam. Debates sometimes deteriorated into shouting matches, convincing Akbar that no single tradition possessed a monopoly on truth.