Dr. Sunil Sharma is Professor of Persian & Indian Literatures at Boston University's Department of World Languages & Literatures. He has authored a number of books and articles on a broad range of subjects from Indo-Persian literature, visual cultures, and travel writing.


Descriptions of India featured centrally in the popular literary genres of mirabilia and aja'ib in medieval Europe and the Middle East respectively. The origin of much of this material can be found in the various offshoots of the Greek Alexander romance. In this lecture, we will trace several textual and visual articulations of India as the land of marvellous creatures as well as wise men, and the innovative way in which these views were expressed within Sultanate India by the poet-courtier Amir Khusraw of Delhi.