Medieval Indian History Mixed Practice — MCQs with Answers (Set 4)

Historical accounts disagree on whether the young Akbar or his regent Bairam Khan struck the fatal blow against the captured Hemu.

An arrow struck Hemu in the eye at the Second Battle of Panipat, causing him to lose consciousness — his army scattered once its leader fell.

Hemu was crowned emperor at Purana Qila on 7 October 1556, taking the title Hem Chandra Vikramaditya.

Hemu won 22 consecutive battles between 1553 and 1556, an unmatched military record for the period.

In 1553, Adil Shah Suri appointed Hemu as Wazir, effectively handing him control of both military command and civil administration.

Prince Khurram defeated Malik Ambar in 1617 and 1621. Emperor Jahangir rewarded him with the title Shah Jahan, the same prince who later built the Taj Mahal.

Malik Ambar was born around 1548 in Harar, Ethiopia, enslaved as a child, and eventually brought to India via Baghdad and Arabia.

Chand Bibi died in 1600 during the chaos of the second siege. Accounts of her death differ, some describing betrayal and murder, others suicide or an attempted escape.

Chand Bibi, regent of Ahmadnagar, personally led the fort’s defence in 1595, holding off Prince Murad’s Mughal army until a settlement in March 1596.

The Red Fort’s design fuses Islamic, Persian, Timurid, and Hindu architectural traditions, reflecting the mature style Mughal building reached under Shah Jahan.

The Nahr-i-Bihisht channel carried water through several palace halls, cooling them and framing their reflections, not serving a purely functional drainage role.

Aurangzeb added the Moti Masjid, a small white marble mosque, to the Red Fort in 1659 for his own private worship.

Bahadur Shah II was tried at the fort in January 1858 and, rather than executed, was exiled to Rangoon, where he died in 1862.

Damarla Venkatapathy Nayak governed the Chennai area under Venkata III. In 1639 he granted the English a strip of coastal land. Fort St George was built there.

Babur’s guns fired on Lodi’s line. The frightened elephants turned back and threw Lodi’s own ranks into disorder. In the Baburnama, Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa of Rum handled the guns.

A daughter of Salim Chishti served as Emperor Jahangir’s foster mother, tying the saint’s family to the throne he had blessed.

Correct: Baba Farid, also called Shaikh Farid-i-Shakarganj, who lived in the thirteenth century. Shaikh Salim was a descendant. Muinuddin Chishti, Nizamuddin Auliya and Ahmad Sirhindi are other saints.

All three sons the prophecy foretold, Salim, Murad, and Daniyal, were later born and named accordingly.

The Akbarnama, among other contemporary Mughal chronicles, documents Akbar’s visits to Sikri and the births that followed, though the prophecy itself comes down through tradition built on that documented history.

Correct: three. The saint told Akbar that three sons would be born to him. Salim, Murad and Daniyal followed. The tale comes down through Mughal-era accounts.

Balban had risen through the Chahalgani himself, as one of “the Forty” Turkic slave-nobles, before becoming Naib and then Sultan. The irony is that he crushed the very clique that had once been his own power base.

Prince Muhammad died in March 1285 defending Multan against a surprise Mongol attack, earning the title Khan-i-Shahid, “the Martyr Prince.” The loss was a severe blow to the elderly Balban, who had named him successor.

Balban had his own cousin, Sher Khan, poisoned to remove a rival within the Chahalgani. Malik Baqbaq, a provincial governor, was publicly flogged for abusing a subordinate, sending a warning to every noble watching.

Balban became Naib-i-Mamlakat under Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud around 1246, and effectively ran the government for nearly two decades. He took the throne directly when Nasiruddin Mahmud died in 1266 with no heir.

A muqti collected revenue, ran local administration and kept troops for the Sultan. Under the Mughals the jagirdar mostly held a revenue right. Administration and military command lay with a separate appointee.