Answer: It was his personal refuge to escape the burden of managing the empire.
The Taj Mahal was not built for any particular reason, but because Shah Jahan wanted his wife Mumtaz Mahal (his then-favorite wife), who died while giving birth to her fourteenth child, to be immortalized by an eternal architectural masterpiece that would "outlast eternity." As he said in his journals - "I shall build a monument larger than anything the world has ever seen. Then let them come and find me worthy or not." And indeed they did come - although looking at it you might think otherwise; only 35,000 people visited last year. But this isn't surprising considering how expensive it is just to enter.
**ANSWER MADE BY AN AI**