Which of the following Mughal period canals, was constructed by restoring the Rajabwah of Firuz Shah ?

Question

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Correct — B, Shahab Nahr (Shihab Nahr). Firuz Shah Tughlaq (r. 1351-1388) built the Rajabwah, a canal drawing Yamuna water westward toward Hisar Firuza, but over the next century it silted up and stopped flowing. Under Akbar the canal was cleared and revived — Akbar's sanad of 1568 records that its water had not reached Hisar Firuza for over a hundred years — and the restoration was carried out by Shihabuddin Ahmad Khan, then governor of Delhi. The revived canal came to be named after him as the Shihab Nahr / Shahab Nahr. That is the canal the question describes as 'constructed by restoring the Rajabwah of Firuz Shah'.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) A deliberately close trap: 'Shekhnu-Ni' (Shaikhu-ni) is a name also recorded for this same Yamuna canal in Akbar-era farmans (alongside the older name Ulughkhani). But the name the standard account and the official key attach to the RESTORATION of Firuz Shah's Rajabwah is the Shahab Nahr, after its restorer Shihabuddin Khan.  (c) The Nahr-i-Bihisht ('Canal of Paradise') was a NEW canal of the Shah Jahan period that carried Yamuna water south to his new capital, Shahjahanabad (Delhi), excavated in the 1630s-1640s (commonly linked with the engineer Ali Mardan Khan). It is the most famous Mughal canal — hence tempting — but it was a fresh Shahjahani work, not the restoration of Firuz Shah's Rajabwah to Hisar.  (d) Nahr-i-Agra is named for the Agra region's water supply, not for Firuz Shah's Yamuna-to-Hisar Rajabwah, so it does not fit the description of restoring that canal.

Concept: Firuz Shah Tughlaq is remembered as the greatest canal-builder of the Delhi Sultanate; his best-known works are the Rajabwah and Ulughkhani canals drawn off the Yamuna to water the dry tract around Hisar Firuza, a town he founded. These Sultanate canals decayed and were revived under the Mughals: Akbar's officials restored the Yamuna line (Shahab Nahr, 1568), and Shah Jahan later built a fresh 'Canal of Paradise' (Nahr-i-Bihisht) to bring Yamuna water to Delhi. This lineage is the historical ancestor of today's Western Yamuna Canal.

State PCS 2020 Q42 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2020 Q42 — History PYQ with Answer