The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c16.34

v4.c16.34

When Mun‘im Khān, after returning to Tāndā, had expelled the local Afghāns who during his absence had occupied all the territory to the east of the Ganges, Bengal, though the seeds of future trouble remained, was at length quiet, and Akbar had leisure to turn his thoughts to other matters. For his favourite amusement he built at Fathpur Sīkrī his famous ‘*Ibādat-Khāna*, or “Hall of Worship”, which would have been more accurately styled a hall of debate. Its exact design has never been ascertained, but it seems to have been cruci-form in plan, the four arms of a Greek cross forming four halls for the accommodation of four classes of disputants and their supporters: (1) Shaikhs, or those who had acquired a reputation for sanctity or for the possession of peculiar spiritual gifts, (2) Sayyids, or descen-dants of Muhammad, (3) the ‘*Ulamā*, or jurists and doctors of the sacred law of Islām, and (4) nobles of the court interested in specula-tive theology. None but Muslims were at first admitted to the discussions, for Akbar, though much attracted by the pantheistic mysticism of the Sūfīs, was still a professing Muslim, and even had he desired to admit professors of other faiths the strength of the orthodox party was then so strong that he could not have done so.