Who said that “Victory of Mandu was the key of Victory of South”?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Amir Khusro. Amir Khusrau (1253-1325), the celebrated Persian-language poet, musician and scholar of the Delhi Sultanate court and a disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya, chronicled Alauddin Khalji's campaigns in his work Khazain-ul-Futuh (Tarikh-i-Alai). Capturing the hill-citadel of Mandu opened up Malwa and cleared the road southward, which is why the fall of Mandu was described as the 'key' to conquering the Deccan (south).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) He was Alauddin Khalji's slave-general who actually LED the great expeditions into the Deccan (Devagiri, Warangal, Dwarasamudra, Madurai) — a commander, not the poet-chronicler who penned this observation.  (b) Offered as a distractor name; not the author of this remark, which comes from the court poet-historian Amir Khusrau.  (c) Ainul Mulk Multani was a noble under Alauddin Khalji, made governor of Malwa after its conquest — a soldier-administrator, not the writer who recorded this line.

Concept: Amir Khusrau is a central source for the Khalji period: he travelled with the Sultanate armies and turned their campaigns into Persian verse-histories. Mandu (Mandavgarh), a naturally fortified plateau in Malwa guarded by the Vindhyas and the Narmada, was the strategic gateway between north India and the Deccan.

State PCS 2020 Q23 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2020 Q23 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer