Founded by Ahmed Bin Mohammed Bafna in 1972, the treasury has a collection of more than 10,000 antiques from around the world.
Post Date – 11:23 PM, Wednesday – December 7th
The 50-year-old Haziq and Mohi bookshop in the Old Town gets a special mention in one of William Dalrymple’s masterpieces, ‘White Mughals’. The author stumbled across this store while looking for some literature on Bidri. — Photo: Anand Dharmana.
Hyderabad: In the crowded Murgi Chowk area of Hyderabad’s old city, the narrow alleys and rundown little shops hardly conjure up “Haziq and Mohi” – a 50-year-old store stocked with tattered rare books, It is a paradise for scholars, historians and bibliophiles from all over the world.
Founded by Ahmed Bin Mohammed Bafna in 1972, the treasury has a collection of more than 10,000 antiques from around the world. Eclectic subjects, including history, literature, philosophy, mysticism, religion, medicine, Islamic art, architecture, Urdu and Persian dictionaries – you name it, Haziq and Mohi have it.
The books in the shop are from the personal collection of Ahmad Bhafna, who inherited a large collection from his grandfather, Salim bin Ali Bhafna. Ahmed Bafna graduated in Linguistics from Osmania University and is an avid reader, fluent in French, German, English, Persian and Arabic. Over the years, Telugu, Persian and French books have also been added to the collection.
“It was my uncle who opened the shop to pass on the knowledge he inherited from his grandfather to the next generation. He named the shop after a famous ‘pir’ or Sufi master,” says Ahmad Ibrahim Bafna, de Ahmed Bafna’s nephew, said he now runs the store with his father, Khaled Bafna.
Interestingly, this bookstore is featured in one of William Dalrymple’s masterpieces, “The White Mughal”, which tells how Dalrymple stumbled across the bookstore inadvertently while looking for some literature on Bidri.
The bookstore has only one space for one person to pass through, and there are piles of books everywhere from floor to ceiling, which seem to be out of order. “With so many books in the bookstore, cataloging and even storing them would be tedious work, so we decided not to add any new collections for now,” said Ibrahim. Bafna has several other stores in the cities where he keeps his collection, which may number more than 50,000 volumes.
“Haziq and Mohi remains one of the last resources for those looking for books including Urdu literature, history of Hyderabad and several other manuscripts not available on the internet,” says Ai Mohi, a regular at the store and a history buff. Ahmed said.
The store is also a popular destination for foreign scholars. Pricing for these books depends on how antique they are. If the book is decades old, you can buy it for between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000. If they are a hundred years old, the price may soar to Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000.
