Raziya Sultan was the first and only female ruler of the Sultanate, who ascended the throne in:
- (a)1238 AD
- (b)1242 AD
- (c)1241 AD
- (d)1236 AD
Answer
Why
Correct — D. Iltutmish died in 1236, and after the nobles' short-lived choice of Ruknuddin Firuz collapsed, his daughter Raziya took the throne in that same year. She ruled until 1240.
The dates close the option list on their own. She was deposed and killed in 1240, so 1241 and 1242 fall after her reign had ended, and 1238 sits in the middle of it rather than at its start. Option (d).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)1238 AD — 1238 falls two years into Raziya's rule, not at its beginning. The stem asks for the year of accession, not for a year within the reign.
- (b)1242 AD — 1242 is after her death in 1240. No accession of hers can fall in a year when she was no longer alive.
- (c)1241 AD — 1241 likewise comes after her deposition in 1240, so it cannot be the year she took the throne.
Concept
Raziya belongs to the Slave or Mamluk dynasty, 1206 to 1290, the first line of the Delhi Sultanate.
Iltutmish nominated her over his surviving sons, and the Turkish nobility — the corps of forty he had himself built up — resisted a woman on the throne throughout her reign.
She took the title Sultan rather than Sultana, appointed non-Turks to high office, and was overthrown by a revolt of the nobles in 1240. The reign is brief, and it stands out as the exception in a long list of male rulers.
The stem's own phrase, the first and only female ruler of the Sultanate, fixes the person. Everything then rests on a single year, with three near years offered against it.
Key facts
- Raziya ascended the throne of Delhi in 1236, after the death of her father Iltutmish.
- She ruled until 1240, when she was deposed and killed.
- She belonged to the Slave or Mamluk dynasty, which ruled from 1206 to 1290.
- Iltutmish had built up the corps of forty Turkish nobles whose opposition ran through her reign.
Study next
Common traps
- Anchoring on 1240, the year the reign ended rather than the year it began.
- Assuming she succeeded Iltutmish the moment he died. Ruknuddin Firuz held the throne briefly first, within the same year.
- Reading 1236 as too early because the Sultanate itself is dated 1206.
Other Slave dynasty rulers appear at 25 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q20, which asks who introduced the silver tanka and the copper jital (Iltutmish), and at 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q18, which asks which department Balban reorganised (Diwan-i-Arz).
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.