Wajihuddin's Tomb

The tomb of Wajihuddin, also called Hazrat Wajihuddin Dargah, stands in Ahmedabad's Khanpur area. Wajihuddin Alvi, born in the city in 1504 to a family of Sufi scholars, founded the Alawi Madrasa in 1528, for some 150 years the city's leading centre of Islamic learning. A Shattari Sufi who taught the remembrance of God's names, he preached peace between sects. During the Mughal conquest of Gujarat he sheltered the sons and supporters of the deposed sultan Muzaffar Shah III, and he died at his madrasa in 1590.

His disciple Syed Murtuza Khan Bukhari raised the tomb; he was governor of Ahmedabad from 1606 to 1609 under Jahangir. Its central dome rises well above several smaller domes around it, and the walls are set with pierced stone windows. Below ground is a reservoir, and a cistern here is said to heal and never to have dried up. The neighbouring mosque, built by Wajihuddin's grandson Shaikh Haidar, was visited by Jahangir in 1608.