“I have heard that you have made Bidar the envy of Rome. It would be a pleasure to visit the city,’’ wrote Abdul Rehman Jami, the 15 th Century Persian poet in a letter to Mahamud Gawan, the wazir or chief minister of the Bahmani kingdom.
He was responding to an invitation to travel to the Deccan and lecture students of the medieval university in Bidar, now called Mahamud Gawan Madrasa, on poetry. However, the writer of the influential poem Haft Awrang, politely refused. He said he was old and infirm and could recommend other young poets instead. His letters are quoted by Haroon Khan Sherwani, Hyderabad-based historian and principal of Nizam’s College.
Gawan invited some of the greatest men of learning in the Orient to deliver lectures in this college. A verse of the Koran, that still adorns the main gate, beckons everyone to come and partake of the “intellectual food” provided there.
