Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c12.s1.46

c12.s1.46

² Briggs’ note : “After the capture of Bidar by Aurangzib, in the latter end of the seventeenth century, this splendid range of buildings was appropriated to the double purpose of a powder-magazine and barrack for a body of cavalry, when by accident, the powder, exploding, destroyed the greater part of the edifice, causing dreadful havoc around. Sufficient of the work remains, however, even at the present day, to afford some notion of its magnificence and beauty. The outline of the square, and some of the apartments, are yet entire and one of the minarets is still standing. It is more than 100 feet in height, ornamented with tablets, on which sentences of the *Qur'ān* in white letters, 3 feet in length, standing forth on a ground of green and gold, still exhibits to the spectator a good sample of what this superb edifice once was. The college is one of the many beautiful remains of the grandeur of the Bahmanī and Burīd dynasties, which flourished at Bīdar; and they render a visit to that city an object of lively interest to all travellers, but particularly to those who may peruse this history.”—*Ferishta* vol. ii, p. 510.