Syed Shah Gesudaraz Khusro Hussaini, Chancellor.
By A Staff Writer
Kalburgi (formerly Gulbarga): The Khaja Bandanawaz Group of Institutions will come under the Khaja Bandanawaz University shortly. The application for approval of the new university has been sanctioned and the notification has been published in the gazette.
This was announced by Syed Shah Gesudaraz Khusro Hussaini, the Sajjadanashin of the Dargah Hazrath Khaja Bandanawaz, who would be the Chancellor of the University. He told newsmen recently that the new University has a 37-acre campus in the heart of the city of Kalburgi, which is well above the specified 35-acre land. The University will be launching a few new post- graduate courses this year and a series of degree and diploma courses in the following years. Prof. Abdul Jaleel Khan M. Pathan has been appointed the Vice Chancellor of the University. Dr. Veerapakshaiya is the Pro-Chancellor. The University will be taking up several job-oriented courses too. The Advisory Committee has Prof. P. S. Shankar, Dr. Raja, Prof. Mustafa Sharief and Muhammad Jamal.
The Khaja group of institutions currently has an engineering college, a medical college, a law college, and a centre of advanced studies in English. Speaking to Islamic Voice on the phone, Chancellor Khusro Hussaini said nearly 12,000 students are pursuing studies in these institutions while over 2,000 persons are working as teaching and non-teaching institutions.
The Engineering and Medical Colleges under the Khaja Group of Institutions are likely to be affiliated with the new University from the next academic session delinking them from the Rajiv Gandhi Health University and Visveswaraya Technical University.
The journey of the Khaja Group of Institutions began in 1958, when the then Sajjadanashin of the Dargah, Hazrat Syed Shah Muhammad Al-Hussaini set up the Bibi Raza Middle School and Khaja School for Boys. The Girls School upgraded to a High School in 1975. Bibi Raza Degree College was added in 1977. An engineering college was opened in 1980, and the Khaja Bandanawaz Institute of Medical Sciences was founded in 2000. Since then, several institutions have been added to the group.
Khaja Bandanawaz was born in Delhi in 1321 and was a disciple (mureed) of Nasiruddin Chiragh Dehalvi (popularly called Chiragh Dilli) in the Mehrauli area of Delhi. He migrated to Daulatabad around 1400 AD after Timur Lang invaded Delhi and the Tughluq dynasty ruling Delhi was facing frequent rebellions. He set up his seat in Gulbarga to spread the message of peace. He died in 1322 AD (he lived for 104 years according to the Islamic Hijri Calendar), leaving behind a great mass of devotees among followers of all faiths.
The Bandanawaz Dargah has taken up several progressive measures to divert its resources for the welfare of the local people. It came up with 600-bed Khaja Bandanawaz Teaching and General Hospital in 1988, which later got attached with the Khaja Bandanawaz Institute of Medical Sciences. It now runs a nursing school too.
The Bibi Raza Degree College for Women came as a boon for purdah-bound Muslim girls in Kalburgi and its outskirts. But for this college, many Muslim women in the area would have remained without higher education. Still later, the Group added the Bibi Raza Study Centre for Distance Education, Bibi Raza Post Graduate Centre for English for Women and Bibi Raza PG Centre for Mass Communication and Journalism.
The Khaja Bandanawaz Dargah Committee presided by Mr. Khusro Hussaini has considerably modernized the arrangements at the Dargah in recent years, with clean guest houses, efficient parking lots, an air-conditioned mosque, CCTV studded public arena around the shrine, polite staff, a shopping area for women visitors, and a digitized library stocked with medieval manuscripts and other memorabilia.
The transformation of the Group of educational institutions into a modern university is a crowning glory for the efficiently-managed Dargah, which has followers all across the Indian subcontinent.
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