Mahamud Gawan
- Rishikesh Bahadur Desai Madrassa of Mahamud Gawan On the night before he was executed, Mahamud Gawan wrote a poem and completed two letters he was writing. In the poem he praised the rule of his king Mohammad – III Lashkari who had ordered his execution just hours ago. All night, he thought of three things. Saint Qualimulla Kirmani of Chowkhandi, visiting whom was the reason he came to Bidar, his home town of Quawan in modern day Iran, and the Madrassa, the seat of higher learning he set up in Bidar, with his personal savings. The Madrassa, modeled on the middle eastern structures like the Samarkhand university in Uzbekistan, was a centre for secular, ecclesiastical education. The form and intricately detailed glazed tile work shows the influence of the architecture of Persian madrasas. Gawan was a student of mathematics and astronomy scholars like Ulugh Beg at the Samarkhand university. The Samarkhand university, established in medieval periods, still functions as an academic instit...