Agra Fort

The origins of Agra Fort predate the Mughals. An earlier brick fort stood on the site, although its date and builders are uncertain. The earliest known written reference to a fort at Agra appears in accounts of a Ghaznavid raid between 1068 and 1070, when Prince Mahmud (Saif al-Dawla Mahmud), son of Sultan Ibrahim of Ghazna, captured a fortress at Agra from a ruler identified as Gopala of the Rashtrakuta dynasty.

After the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, Babur's son Humayun, who was sent ahead to Agra, captured the family of Bikramajit, the ruler of Gwalior, and received from them a celebrated diamond which has traditionally been identified with the Koh-i-Noor. The Mughals now had control of Agra and its fort; Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire in South Asia, subsequently arrived at Agra and ruled from the palace of Ibrahim Lodi in the fort. Humayun was crowned as successor to his father at the fort in 1530.

It was during the reign of Akbar's grandson, Shah Jahan, that the site took on its current state. Within the fort, Shah Jahan added a number of white marble structures, including the Diwan-i-Am, the Diwan-i-Khas, the Khas Mahal, the Moti Masjid, and the Musamman Burj. Shah Jahan also built the nearby Taj Mahal in the memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal; unlike his grandfather, he favoured buildings made of white marble rather than red sandstone. In 1638, Shah Jahan moved the Mughal capital from Agra to the newly built city of Shahjahanabad in Delhi, ending Agra's status as the primary seat of Mughal government.