The Urs festival is an annual festival held at Ajmer, a city in the Indian state of Rajasthan, which commemorates the death anniversary of the Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti, (founder of the Chishtiya Sufi order in India). It is held over six days and features night-long dhikr/zikr qawwali singing. The anniversary is celebrated in the seventh month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Thousands of pilgrims visit the shrine from all over India and abroad.
The dargah of Moinuddin Chishti ( Gharib Nawaz -Benefactor of the Poor), known as Ajmer Sharif Dargah or Ajmer Sharif, is an international waqf, an Islamic mortmain managed by the "Dargah Khwaja Saheb Act, 1955" of the government of India. Ajmer Sharif Dargah is 2km away from the main central Ajmer Railway station and situated at the foot of the Taragarh hill, and consists of several white marble buildings arranged around two courtyards, including a massive gate donated by the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Akbari Mosque, built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. It contains the domed tomb of the saint. Akbar and his queen used to come here by foot on pilgrimage from Agra every year in observance of a vow when he prayed for a son. The large pillars called "Kose ('Mile') Minar", erected at intervals of two miles (3 km) along the entire way between Agra and Ajmer mark the places where the royal pilgrims halted every day. It has been estimated that around 150,000 pilgrims visit the site every day.
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