Sultanate Period Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Zil-i-Ilahi (Zillullah), 'the shadow of God', as a concept of kingship is associated with Balban. He held that the king's authority was a trust from God, and he raised the dignity of the throne with court ceremony such as sijda and paibos, and the Persian New Year festival of Nauroz.

Iltutmish received the investiture from the Caliph, Firoz Tughlaq ruled by appealing to Islamic law and the Caliph's approval, and Bahlol Lodi stressed the equality of the Afghan nobles with the king, so the divine-shadow idea does not fit them.

Answer: C

Shaikh Bahauddin Zakaria did not belong to the Chishti order; he was the great saint of the Suhrawardi silsilah, based at Multan. That is why he is the answer to 'did not belong'.

Shaikh Hamiduddin Nagori, Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki and Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya are all Chishti saints: Qutbuddin Kaki was the successor of Muinuddin Chishti, Hamiduddin Nagori was another of his disciples, and Nizamuddin Auliya was in the line that followed Farid-ud-din Ganj-i-Shakar.

Answer: B

The correct name of the mosque built at Mehrauli is Quwwat-ul-Islam, meaning 'the might of Islam'. Qutbuddin Aibak began it in about 1192 and Iltutmish extended it; it stands next to the Qutb Minar, and was built partly from the materials of demolished temples.

The other names, Qubbat-ul-Islam, Nur-ul-Islam and Qamar-ul-Islam, are not the name of this mosque; they are invented variants of the correct name.

Answer: C

Amir Khusrau is traditionally credited with innovating the sitar, said to have been formed from the Persian setar and the Indian veena. This is a traditional attribution, and it is the one the key follows.

The violin and the guitar are European instruments that came much later, and the flute is an ancient Indian instrument, long known before Khusrau. So the sitar is the instrument he is linked with. He is also credited with the tabla and with forms of qawwali, though that is again by tradition.

Answer: C

The sultan who brought the Ashokan pillar to Delhi was Firoz Shah Tughlaq.

Firoz Shah moved two Ashokan pillars, one from Topra in Ambala district and one from Meerut, to Delhi in the fourteenth century. He set them up at Firozabad, his new city, and on the Ridge.

Aibak, Jalaluddin Khilji and Muhammad bin Tughlaq are not credited with moving these pillars. Muhammad bin Tughlaq is better known for the token currency and the transfer of the capital.

Answer: B

The khutba is the recital of the sermon after the congregational Friday prayer.

In Islamic practice the khutba is the sermon delivered at the Friday congregational prayer, in which the name of the ruler is recited. Reading the khutba in one's own name was a sign of sovereignty.

The right to coin money is sikka, a different sign of sovereignty. A robe of honour is khilat. So the first and third options describe other terms.

Answer: D

The decline in the position of women in Vijayanagar is attributed to both sati and polygamy.

The sources on Vijayanagar, including the travellers, mention the practice of sati and of polygamy among the nobles, and historians connect these with a fall in the position of women.

Purdah is generally linked with the Muslim states of the north, and was not the cause in Vijayanagar. Sati and polygamy each give part of the answer, so the combined option is the key.

Answer: B

Sama, the listening to devotional music, was mainly practised by the Chishti silsilah.

The Chishti Sufis, such as Nizamuddin Auliya, held sessions of sama with qawwali, which they saw as a way to reach spiritual ecstasy, and so they show a liberal outlook.

The Suhrawardis were more tied to the state and to orthodox practice, and the Naqshbandis were opposed to sama and to music. The Firdausi silsilah was a branch of the Suhrawardis in Bihar.

Answer: D

The Malfuz records the doings and sayings of Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya.

The Fawaid-ul-Fuad is the best known record of the conversations of the Chishti saint Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, and the key gives him as the answer. The paper names Mir Khurd as the compiler, while the work is usually credited to Amir Hasan Sijzi.

Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, Shaikh Farid Ganj-i-Shakar and Shaikh Salim Chishti are other figures of the Chishti line and are not the subject of this work.

Answer: C

The birth of Urdu is attributed to the interaction among Arabic, Persian and the indigenous Indian languages.

Urdu grew in the camps and cities of north India after the Turkish conquest. It has the grammar and base vocabulary of the local speech of the Delhi region and a large borrowed stock of Persian and Arabic words.

Turkish and Persian alone, or Persian and Arabic alone, leave out the Indian base. Persian and the medieval south Indian dialects point to the wrong region, since the language took form in the north.