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It is occupied by a lineal descendant of Salîm Chishti, and is only rarely shown to visitors. The Houses of Abul Fazl and Faizi. The houses where these two famous brothers, the friends of Akbar, lived, are close under the north wall of the great mosque. Their father, Sheikh Mubarak, was one of the most learned men of the age, and the sons were as distinguished as the father.
On the left of the gateway are two buildings, the so-called Pigeon's House, probably intended for a magazine; and the Sangin Burj, a great bastion supposed to be part of the fortifications begun by Akbar and left unfinished, owing to the objections of Shaikh Salîm Chishti. A little beyond this, on the right, are the remains of the waterworks which supplied the whole city.
It was formerly merely a village, called Sikri, celebrated as the abode of Sheikh Salîm Chishti, a Muhammadan pîr, or saint. In 1564, Akbar, returning from a campaign, halted near the cave in which the saint lived. The twin children of his Rajput wife, Mariam Zâmâni, had recently died, and he was anxious for an heir. He consulted the holy man, who advised him to come and live at Sikri.
The mosque itself was built in honour of the Saint of Fatehpur, Sheikh Salîm Chishti, whose tomb, enclosed in a shrine of white marble, carved with the delicacy of ivory-work, glitters like silver on the right of the quadrangle.
On the side window over the eastern doorway is a painting of a winged figure, in front of a rock cave, supporting a new-born babe in its arms. In all probability it refers to the birth of Jahangir in the cell of the Saint Salîm Chishti, which Akbar, no doubt, thought miraculous.
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