A report on Din-i Ilahi

Disillusioned with orthodox Islam and perhaps hoping to bring about religious unity within his empire, Akbar promulgated Din-i-Ilahi, a syncretic creed derived mainly from Islam and Hinduism as well as some parts of Zoroastrianism and Christianity.

Akbar allowed freedom of religion at his court, and attempted to resolve socio-political and cultural differences in his empire by establishing a new religion, Din-i-Ilahi, with strong characteristics of a ruler cult.

By the late 1580s CE, Akbar began an attempt to reconcile the differences of all religions by creating a new faith, the Din-i-Ilahi ("Faith of the Divine"), which incorporated both pantheistic versions of Islamic Sufism (most notably Ibn Arabi's doctrine of Wahdat al wajood or Unity of Existence) and bhakti or devotional movements of Hinduism.

Ibadat Khana: (House of Worship) was a meeting house built in 1575 CE by the Mughal Emperor Akbar, where the foundations of a new Syncretistic faith, Din-e-Ilahi were laid by Akbar.

Akbar allowed freedom of religion at his court and attempted to resolve socio-political and cultural differences in his empire by establishing a new religion, Din-i-Ilahi, with strong characteristics of a ruler cult.

The text is best known for its chapter on the Dīn-i Ilāhī, the syncretic religion propounded by the Mughal emperor Jalāl ud-Dīn Muḥammad Akbar ("Akbar the Great") after 1581 and is possibly the most reliable account of the Ibādat Khāna discussions that led up to this.

Muhammad Iqbal, considered the spiritual founder of Pakistan, compared him favorably to the prophet Abraham for his warfare against Akbar's Din-i Ilahi and idolatry, while Iqbal Singh Sevea, in his book on the political philosophy of the thinker, says that "Iqbal considered that the life and activities of Aurangzeb constituted the starting point of Muslim nationality in India."

He has been described by some followers as a Mujaddid, meaning a “reviver", for his work in rejuvenating Islam and opposing the newly made religion of Din-i Ilahi and other problematic opinions of Mughal emperor Akbar. While early South Asian scholarship credited him for contributing to conservative trends in Indian Islam, more recent works, notably by ter Haar, Friedman, and Buehler, have pointed to Sirhindi's significant contributions to Sufi epistemology and practices.

For example, he was a Sunni during the reign of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, became a Naqshbandi during the Sur period, was a Mahdavia during the reign of Humayun and a protagonist of liberal thought under Akbar.

In the 16th century, the Mughal emperor Akbar proposed a new religion called the Din-i Ilahi ("Divine Faith") that was intended to merge some of the elements of the religions of his empire and thereby reconcile the differences that divided his subjects.