Khwaja Bande Nawaz Dargah, Gulbarga, Karnataka India

The tomb of the great Sufi saint Khwaja Bande Nawaz, a magnificent building in the Indo-Saracenic style, Hindus and Muslims visit the dargah each day to pay homage to the saint. It is the venue of an annual urus (festival) attended by nearly one hundred thousand people, both Muslims and Hindus. At festivals held on the 15th of every lunar month, you can see devotees spontaneously dancing like the dervishes in the Sufi shrine at Konya in Turkey. The dargah library houses almost 10,000 books on various subjects in Urdu, Persian and Arab .

The Khwaja Bande Nawaz Dargah is the tomb of the great Sufi saint, Khwaza Syed Mohammad Gesu Daraz, popularly known as Khwaza Bande Nawaz. The venue of annual 'Urs', over thousands of people from all faiths visit the dargah to offer their respects.

This magnificent building was built in the Indo-Saracenic style and very clearly exhibits the varying styles of these two cultures. While the arches are a specialty of Bahmani architecture, the paintings on the walls and the domes are Turkish and Iranian in style. The Dargah Library stocks as many as 10000 books in Urdu, Persian and Arabic on eclectic subjects ranging from history and literature. The mosque near the tomb has been ascribed to Aurangzeb. The Aiwane-Shahi building where the Nizams used to stay when they visited the Dargah is now the Divisional Commissioner's office. There is also a circuit house nearby.