The Imperial Quarter: How Akbar’s Shaitanpura Reshaped the Mughal Urban Economy

In late sixteenth-century Fatehpur Sikri, urban growth spilled past the imperial red sandstone walls. Along with merchants and stonecutters came a booming population of sex workers whose presence disturbed court moralists. Mughal Emperor Akbar responded not with outright bans, but with spatial reorganisation and administrative oversight.

Evidence shows that around 1582, imperial decrees forced ordinary sex workers out of central residential urban zones and relocated them to a designated settlement on the city’s periphery. The administration assigned this segregated quarter a blunt label: Shaitanpura (Devil’s Quarter). The quarter was not designed simply as a place of exile. Instead, it operated as a bureaucratised, revenue-generating municipal organ of the Mughal state.

The Division of Urban Performance and Labor

Mughal society drew sharp distinctions between performing women based on elite status and state patronage. High-status courtesans (tawaifs, cultured female performers and companions) functioned within elite household networks and imperial assemblies. They moved through wealthy circles as trained artists in song and dance.

In contrast, ordinary street-level sex workers operated without elite patronage. Court chronicler Abul Fazl recorded in the Ain-i-Akbari (Administration of Akbar) that performative communities like the kanchanis (a state-designated caste of female dancers and singers) occupied a distinct social bracket managed under imperial oversight.

Tradition holds that elite imperial space required strict public morality, but practical urban administration required accommodating commerce. Rather than banning commercial sex work, Akbar’s administration converted it into a managed enterprise.

Bureaucracy at the Quarter Gate

Primary chronicles, including the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh (Selection of Histories) by contemporary historian Abdul Qadir Badauni, outline how the imperial state governed Shaitanpura. The quarter was placed under the authority of a imperial darogha (superintendent) assisted by state clerks.

[ Imperial Court / Fatehpur Sikri ]
               │
               ▼ (Periphery Relocation)
  ┌─────────────────────────┐
  │       SHAITANPURA       │
  │  (Segregated Quarter)   │
  └────────────┬────────────┘
               │
       ┌───────┴───────┐
       ▼               ▼
┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐
│  State Gate  │ │ State Clerk  │
│   Darogha    │ │ (Registrar)  │
└──────────────┘ └──────────────┘

The state established a strict registry system at the entrance of the quarter. Any customer entering Shaitanpura had to declare his name and identity to the state clerk. If an elite courtier or nobleman sought to take a woman out of the quarter or solicit a virgin, formal permission had to be requested directly from the emperor.

Badauni noted with bitterness that this registration system was frequently tested. Visitors used false identities to avoid the public record, and brawls occasionally broke out within the walls. Yet the administrative apparatus remained intact: the state logged transactions, regulated access, and extracted municipal revenue from the precinct.

Spatial Separation in the Mughal City

Shaitanpura was part of a broader urban zoning plan under Akbar. Imperial planning sought to separate functional, religious, and economic activities into distinct quarters outside the main walls.

During the same period, Akbar established Dharampura (Abode of Duty) for feeding poor Hindu residents, Khairpura (Abode of Charity) for poor Muslim residents, and Jogipura (Quarter of the Ascetics) to house itinerant Hindu ascetics.

By pushing these groups to the periphery, the administration preserved the central city for government offices, military officers, and sanctioned trade. For sex workers, forced relocation to Shaitanpura meant physical isolation from primary markets, but it also offered a recognized legal space to work under state regulation.

Morality as Statecraft

Scholars debate the primary motivation behind the creation of Shaitanpura.

One scholarly perspective emphasizes moral reform. Proponents of this view point to Akbar's legal changes regarding marriage, public modest behavior, and religious assembly. In this reading, creating Shaitanpura was an effort to clean up urban centers and align public spaces with elite standards of decorum.

Another scholarly perspective highlights economic and administrative utility. Proponents of this view argue that total prohibition was impractical in large early modern garrison cities filled with soldiers, laborers, and traders. By concentrating sex work in one guarded quarter, the state reduced street crime, kept track of noblemen’s habits, and collected regular revenue.

The establishment of Shaitanpura demonstrates how early modern South Asian empires managed complex urban realities. Rather than relying solely on religious edicts, Akbar's court used spatial planning, bureaucratic oversight, and registration to turn public morality into a functioning system of municipal governance.