South India Travel --› Karnataka Cities --› Gulbarga City

Gulbarga City Tour

Awe- inspiring. Strikingly bare. With a beauty all its own.

A Hindu city before the Muhammadan conquest, Gulbarga is unique synthesis of two cultures. When Bhaman Shah ascended the throne of Daulatabad, it was this City that he chose as his capital.

He filled it with beautiful palaces, mosques, stately buildings and bazaars. The later rulers added to Bahman Shas's vision and Gulgarga blossomed.

Start your tour in Gulgarga with the Fort. Built by Raja Gulchand and later strengthened by Al-ud-din Bahmani, the fort has 15 towers and 26 guns-one of them measuring 25 feet in length! Inside the fort is the Jumma Masjid fashioned on the lines of the great mosque of Cardova in Spain. To the southern entrance of the fort is a group of royal tombs.

The most important monument in Gulgbarga is the Khwaja Bande Nawaz Durgah. The tomb of the great Sufi saint, Khawaja Syed Mohammad Gesu Daraz. This magnificent building in the Indo-Saracenic style, is the venue of an annual urus, attended by nearly one hundered thousand people, both Muslims and Hindus.

The Durgah Library houses almost 10,000 books in Urdu, Persain and Arabic. Also worth seeing are Sultan Hanan's tomb, the tomb of Ghias-ud-din, the fine mausoleum of Feroze Shah and his family, the Haft-Gumbaz outside the city, the elegant mosques, the well-kept lawns of Mahboob Gulshan and the Shrine of Shri Sharanabasaveshwara, a famous pilgrim cente standing near the Gulbarga talab.

If time permits, take in sme of the important sot around Gulbarga Ganigapur, Malkhed, Sonthi, Shorapur, the Chhaya Bhagavati and the Narayanpur Dam.