Fatehpur Sikri

A friend spent 21 days in India between December to January 2011. We like the nature and the culture of Fatehpur Sikri. He was a former student of Anglo-Chinese School in Melaka. This is part of about 1,000 photographs taken during the trip.

Fatehpur Sikri (Hindi: फ़तेहपुर सीकरी, Urdu: فتحپور سیکری‎) is a city and a municipal board in Agra district in the state ofUttar Pradesh, India. The city was founded in 1569 by the Mughal emperor Akbar, and served as the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1571 to 1585.^[1] After his military victories over Chittor and Ranthambore, Akbar decided to shift his capital from Agra to a new location 23 miles (37 km) W.S.W on the Sikri ridge, to honor the Sufi saint Salim Chishti. Here he commenced the construction of a planned walled city which took the next fifteen years in planning and construction of a series of royal palaces, harem, courts, a mosque, private quarters and other utility buildings.^[2] He named the city, Fatehabad, with Fateh, a word of Arabic origin in Persian, meaning "victorious." it was later called Fatehpur Sikri.^[3] It is at Fatehpur Sikri that the legends of Akbar and his famed courtiers, the nine jewels or Navaratnas, were born.^{[citation needed]}Fatehpur Sikri is one of the best preserved collections of Mughal architecture in India.^[4]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri