Gulbarga, the district
and divisional head-quarters was formely in the Nizam's state, and
is 623 km from Bangalore, and was the first capital
of the Bahmanis
from 1347. The Fort here was originally built by one Raja Gulchand, a feudatory
of the Orangal Kakatiyas, and was rebuilt by Allah-ud-din Bahmani with
15 majestic towers. Inside
the fort is the huge wonderful mosque built by Muhammed Bahmani in 1367 and it
covers 38,000 sq. feet area. The place has a huge sprawling complex housing the
tomb of Bande `Nawaz, the great Sufi Saint, who came to Gulbarga in 1413. His
tomb's walls have paintings and a mosque built by the Mughuls is near the tomb.
The Khandar Khan's mosque and Hirapur mosque (1585) built by Chandbibi
are some other monuments here, and the tomb of Sultan Hassan and Firoze
Shah are imposing structures. The state Archeology Museum here has Buddhist
plaquest brought from Sannati. Durgah Library Houses almost 10000 books on Urdu, Persian and Arabic.
