UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q123: Shahjahan gave the title of ‘Shah Iqbal’ to which of his

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q123?

A. Correct — A, Dara Shikoh. The honour belongs to Shah Jahan's eldest son, **Dara Shikoh**, whom the Persian sources style Shah-e-Buland Iqbal, 'king of high fortune'. Shah Jahan had made him vali-ahad, or heir-apparent, in 1633, and formally confirmed him as heir on 10 September 1642. The grant was a succession announcement rather than a courtesy. Dara stayed close to the court, holding his provinces through deputies, so his standing was built out of rank and honours; his three brothers built theirs on frontier and provincial commands. The idea to carry away: **the Iqbal title marks the designated heir**, so a stem that quotes it is asking which son Shah Jahan meant to succeed him.

UKPSC Prelims 2024 General Studies Paper-I · Question 123 of 147

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per UKPSC's provisional answer key.

Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2024 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

Shahjahan gave the title of ‘Shah Iqbal’ to which of his sons?

(a)Dara Shikoh
(b)Shuja
(c)Aurangzeb
(d)Murad

Answer

Why

Correct — A, Dara Shikoh.

The honour belongs to Shah Jahan's eldest son, Dara Shikoh, whom the Persian sources style Shah-e-Buland Iqbal, 'king of high fortune'. Shah Jahan had made him vali-ahad, or heir-apparent, in 1633, and formally confirmed him as heir on 10 September 1642.

The grant was a succession announcement rather than a courtesy. Dara stayed close to the court, holding his provinces through deputies, so his standing was built out of rank and honours; his three brothers built theirs on frontier and provincial commands.

The idea to carry away: the Iqbal title marks the designated heir, so a stem that quotes it is asking which son Shah Jahan meant to succeed him.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Shuja — Shuja's career was made in the east. Shah Jahan appointed him subahdar of Bengal and Bihar from 1641, with Odisha added in 1648, and he ruled from Dhaka.
He is the right answer to which son crowned himself emperor in Bengal in November 1657 and later fled to Arakan — a style he assumed himself, after his father's illness, not one conferred on him.
He lost at Bahadurpur near Varanasi, then at Khajwa on 5 January 1659, and reached Arakan in 1660.
(c)
Aurangzeb — Aurangzeb did receive a title from his father, but a different one and much earlier: Shah Jahan gave him 'Bahadur' after he rode at a rampaging war elephant on 28 May 1633. It was a reward for a single act of nerve by a teenage prince.
He is the right answer to which son took the regnal title Alamgir, which he adopted on his own accession, crowned at Delhi on 31 July 1658 after the victories at Dharmat and Samugarh.
(d)
Murad — Murad Bakhsh was the youngest of the four and Shah Jahan's subahdar of Gujarat from March 1654, so his command lay in the west of the empire.
He is the right answer to which son proclaimed himself emperor at Ahmedabad on 30 November 1657. He fought alongside Aurangzeb, was then imprisoned in Gwalior fort, and was executed there on 14 December 1661.

Concept

In Mughal administration a khitab, or title, was a public act of the emperor. Numerical rank was carried by the mansab, in its zat and sawar figures; the khitab announced what the emperor wanted understood about a man's place.

Applied to a prince, that made a title a signal about the succession. Mughal practice recognised no fixed rule of primogeniture, so an emperor's preference had to be displayed — by an honorific, by a raised mansab, by keeping the prince at court.

Shah Jahan fell seriously ill in September 1657, and the preference he had already declared shaped everything that followed. The son with the Iqbal title held the court and the capital; the other three held provinces, treasuries and armies.

Reading the honours tells you the sides before any battle is named. Dara was defending a designated inheritance, while Shuja from Bengal, Murad from Gujarat and Aurangzeb from the Deccan were contesting it.

Key facts

Shah Jahan appointed Dara Shikoh vali-ahad, heir-apparent, in 1633.
On 10 September 1642 Shah Jahan formally confirmed Dara Shikoh as his heir and granted him the title Shahzada-e-Buland Iqbal, 'prince of high fortune'.
Dara Shikoh was also styled Padshahzada-i-Buzurg Martaba, 'prince of high rank'.
Shah Jahan conferred the title Bahadur on Aurangzeb after the prince charged a rampaging war elephant on 28 May 1633.
Shah Shuja was subahdar of Bengal and Bihar from 1641, with Odisha added in 1648, and had his seat at Dhaka.
Shah Shuja crowned himself emperor in November 1657, lost the Battle of Khajwa on 5 January 1659, and reached Arakan in 1660.
Murad Bakhsh was subahdar of Gujarat from March 1654 and proclaimed himself emperor at Ahmedabad on 30 November 1657.
Murad Bakhsh was imprisoned in Gwalior fort and executed there on 14 December 1661.
Aurangzeb was crowned at Delhi on 31 July 1658 and took the regnal title Alamgir.
Dara Shikoh wrote the Majma-ul-Bahrain and had the Upanishads rendered into Persian as the Sirr-i-Akbar.

Shah Jahan's four sons: honour and posting

Dara Shikoh, eldest→Vali-ahad 1633; Shahzada-e-Buland Iqbal, 10 September 1642

Shah Shuja→Subahdar of Bengal and Bihar from 1641, seat at Dhaka

Aurangzeb→Given 'Bahadur' in 1633; regnal title Alamgir from 1658

Murad Bakhsh, youngest→Subahdar of Gujarat from March 1654

One son honoured at court, three placed on provincial commands, on the eve of the succession war of 1657-59.

Study next

The Mughal war of succession, 1657-59: Dharmat, Samugarh, Khajwa and DeoraiThe mansabdari system: zat and sawar ranks, and how a prince's mansab was raisedDara Shikoh as scholar: Majma-ul-Bahrain and the Sirr-i-AkbarProvincial administration under Shah Jahan: subahs held by princes and governed through deputiesTitles conferred by Mughal emperors, and the difference between a conferred khitab and a self-assumed regnal style

Common traps

The word Iqbal in the stem is the whole clue: the honours recorded for Dara Shikoh include Shah-e-Buland Iqbal and Shahzada-e-Buland Iqbal, and a shortened form in a stem still points to him.
Aurangzeb genuinely held a title from his father, 'Bahadur', so remembering only that Shah Jahan titled a son is not enough to pick between them.
Alamgir was taken on accession in 1658, after Shah Jahan had been set aside, so it belongs to Aurangzeb's own reign rather than to his father's gift.
Shuja and Murad both took imperial styles in November 1657 on their own authority; a style a prince assumes is a different thing from an honour the emperor confers.
1633 and 1642 both attach to Dara Shikoh — the first for the vali-ahad appointment, the second for the formal confirmation with the title — so a year-based option has to be read against which act is named.

The idea appears as a one-line pairing: an honorific in quotation marks, then four names underneath. The options do no work, because all four princes are Shah Jahan's sons, so the answer has to be recalled rather than reasoned out.

The same pair can be reversed. A stem may give the prince and ask for his title, or quote a title and ask which emperor granted it, or hang the fact on a year. Holding the three parts together — Shah Jahan, Dara Shikoh, 1642 — covers all of those.

Related PYQs

UPPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q42024

Same device — a Mughal emperor conferring a title on a named individual, here Akbar granting Bairam Khan the style Khan-i-Khana. What differs is the demand: that item turns on when the title was given relative to Bairam Khan's appointment as vazir, so it needs a sequence, while this one needs only the pair of emperor and recipient.

UPPSC_2022_PRE_GSI_Q432022

Also a 'who gave the title' stem, but what is named is a book — Tutinama, for a Persian version of Chintamani Bhatta's Suka Saptati — rather than a prince. The transferable habit is storing a title with its holder and its giver; the period and the content do not overlap with Shah Jahan's household.

HPSC_2021_MAINS_GSI_Q792021

The same shape run the other way: the title 'Naib Bakshi and Rao' is quoted and the options are the possible conferrers, so it asks who gave rather than who received. Its four options name other emperors, so it sits in a different reign — the two items share the question type, not the fact.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
In which year did Shah Jahan grant Dara Shikoh the title Shahzada-e-Buland Iqbal and formally confirm him as his heir?
- (a)1633
- (b)1642
- (c)1657
- (d)1658
Answerb — the title was granted, with the formal confirmation as heir, on 10 September 1642.
(a) 1633 is a real Dara Shikoh date, but for a different act: his appointment as vali-ahad, heir-apparent, which carried no such title.
(c) 1657 is the year Shah Jahan fell ill and Shuja and Murad proclaimed themselves emperor. (d) 1658 belongs to Aurangzeb, crowned at Delhi on 31 July that year.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which of Shah Jahan's sons proclaimed himself emperor at Ahmedabad on 30 November 1657?
- (a)Dara Shikoh
- (b)Shah Shuja
- (c)Aurangzeb
- (d)Murad Bakhsh
Answerd — Murad Bakhsh was subahdar of Gujarat, and Ahmedabad was his provincial seat.
(b) Shah Shuja also crowned himself in November 1657, but in the east, from his Bengal government — the place named in the stem separates the two.
(a) Dara Shikoh was already the confirmed heir and remained with his father at the capital. (c) Aurangzeb proclaimed himself in February 1658 and was crowned at Delhi on 31 July 1658.
practice — not a real PYQ
Shah Jahan conferred the title 'Bahadur' on which of his sons, after the prince rode at a rampaging war elephant in 1633?
- (a)Dara Shikoh
- (b)Shah Shuja
- (c)Aurangzeb
- (d)Murad Bakhsh
Answerc — the incident of 28 May 1633 is Aurangzeb's, and 'Bahadur' was his father's reward for it.
(a) Dara Shikoh's honours from Shah Jahan are the heir's honours — vali-ahad in 1633 and Shahzada-e-Buland Iqbal in 1642.
(b) Shah Shuja's standing came from the Bengal and Bihar government he held from 1641. (d) Murad Bakhsh held Gujarat from March 1654 and ended his life in Gwalior fort in 1661.