Who was popularly known as Chiragh-i-Delhi?
- (a)Shaikh Nizamuddin
- (b)Nasiruddin Mahmud
- (c)Fariduddin Masud
- (d)Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki
Correct — B, Nasiruddin Mahmud.
Chiragh-i-Delhi means "Lamp of Delhi", and it is the personal title of Shaikh Nasiruddin Mahmud, the Chishti shaikh who took charge of the order's Delhi hospice after Nizamuddin Auliya and who died in 1356.
The south Delhi locality of Chirag Dilli grew up around his dargah and still carries that title in its name.
Carry away the device rather than the single name: these shaikhs belong to one silsila and largely one city, so the epithet is what tells them apart.
- (a)Shaikh Nizamuddin — Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya's own title is Mahbub-i-Ilahi, "Beloved of God"; he is also styled Sultan-ul-Mashaikh. He died in 1325 and his dargah stands at Nizamuddin in Delhi.
He is the teacher of the keyed saint, which is precisely why the two are swapped: same order, same city, adjacent generations.
- (c)Fariduddin Masud — Fariduddin Masud is Baba Farid, whose title is Ganj-i-Shakar, "Treasure of Sugar". He died in 1265 and is buried at Ajodhan, the town now called Pakpattan in Pakistan.
He stands a generation before Nizamuddin Auliya in the Chishti line of teachers, and his verses were later included in the Guru Granth Sahib.
- (d)Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki — Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki is remembered by the epithet Kaki, and his dargah at Mehrauli in Delhi is known as Qutub Sahib. He died in 1235.
He was the successor of Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, which places him at the Delhi end of the order's earliest generation — well before the shaikh the stem is describing.
In the Sufi orders a shaikh is remembered less by his given name than by a laqab — an honorific title fixed on him by his followers and his circle. The title is personal to the man, and in popular memory it often outlives the name itself.
Chiragh-i-Delhi, "Lamp of Delhi", is one such title. It reads like a description of a city, but it is an honorific borne by one man, and the whole question rests on that distinction.
The Chishti silsila was among the most widely followed Sufi orders of the Delhi Sultanate period, and its Delhi khanqah passed down a recognised line of shaikhs from teacher to chosen disciple.
Because several of those shaikhs lived and were buried in the same city, an identification question turns on something personal to the man — his title, his place in the teacher-disciple chain, or the malfuzat text attached to his name.
Delhi's own map preserves these names: the Nizamuddin area and Chirag Dilli are each called after the shaikh buried there.
- Chiragh-i-Delhi means "Lamp of Delhi" and is the title of Shaikh Nasiruddin Mahmud, who died in 1356.
- Nasiruddin Mahmud was the principal khalifa of Nizamuddin Auliya and headed the Chishti hospice at Delhi after him.
- His assemblies were compiled as the malfuzat Khair-ul-Majalis by his disciple Hamid Qalandar.
- Nizamuddin Auliya (died 1325) bears the title Mahbub-i-Ilahi; his dargah is at Nizamuddin in Delhi.
- Fariduddin Masud (died 1265), titled Ganj-i-Shakar, is buried at Ajodhan, today Pakpattan in Pakistan.
- Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (died 1235), successor of Moinuddin Chishti, is buried at Mehrauli in Delhi.
- The Chishti line of teachers ran Moinuddin Chishti, Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, Fariduddin Ganj-i-Shakar, Nizamuddin Auliya, Nasiruddin Mahmud.
- The south Delhi locality Chirag Dilli takes its name from the dargah of Nasiruddin Mahmud.
Four Chishti shaikhs, three Delhi dargahs — the personal title is the discriminator.
- Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud, the son of Iltutmish who reigned from 1246 to 1266 with Balban as his naib, shares the name; the title in the stem belongs to the Chishti shaikh, not to the throne.
- Three of the four names have dargahs in Delhi, so "he is buried in Delhi" narrows nothing — only the title does.
- Reading Chiragh-i-Delhi as a description of the city rather than as a personal honorific, and then picking the most famous Delhi saint.
- Learning the epithets as a loose list and then attaching Ganj-i-Shakar or Mahbub-i-Ilahi to the wrong shaikh.
- Assuming the best-known figure in a group carries whichever title is being asked about; the titles that belong to Nizamuddin Auliya are Mahbub-i-Ilahi and Sultan-ul-Mashaikh.
The idea arrives as a one-line identification: a title is given and four names follow, or the name is given and four titles follow.
It also arrives indirectly — through the malfuzat attached to a shaikh, through the teacher-disciple chain of the silsila, or through the Delhi locality that took its name from a dargah.
Pair-matching formats stack two of these at once, asking which saint-and-title pair is correctly matched.
CDS_GK_2021_I_Q582021The same device in the same shape: a popular title is given and four personal names follow, so the mark turns on holding one title to one man. What differs is the field — that item sits in nineteenth-century Maharashtra social reform, where Lokahitwadi is the pen-name of Gopal Hari Deshmukh, while this one sits in the Chishti silsila of the Delhi Sultanate.
CAPF_GAI_2022_Q552022Also an alternative-name recall — Rakshasi-Tangadi is the same engagement as Talikota. What differs is the kind of object named: a battle carries two place-based names for one event, whereas a Sufi title is an honorific conferred on a person, which is why the Chishti item needs the teacher-disciple chain to be settled rather than a map.
UPSC_1996_GS1_Q811996Shares the 'popularly known as' framing, matching a formal designation to the name in common use — the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act to the Rowlatt Act. What differs is that a statute's popular name comes from the man who chaired its committee, while Chiragh-i-Delhi is a devotional title, so preparation for the two draws on different material.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The malfuzat compiled by Hamid Qalandar under the title Khair-ul-Majalis records the assemblies of the Sufi saint popularly known as:
- (a)Mahbub-i-Ilahi
- (b)Ganj-i-Shakar
- (c)Chiragh-i-Delhi
- (d)Qutub Sahib
Answerc — Khair-ul-Majalis was put together by Hamid Qalandar from the assemblies of his teacher Shaikh Nasiruddin Mahmud, whose title is Chiragh-i-Delhi.Mahbub-i-Ilahi is Nizamuddin Auliya, whose conversations were recorded by Amir Hasan Sijzi in Fawaid-ul-Fuad. Ganj-i-Shakar is Fariduddin Masud of Ajodhan and Qutub Sahib is Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki of Mehrauli; the compilation named in the stem belongs to the Chiragh-i-Delhi assemblies.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following pairs of a Sufi saint and the title he is popularly known by is correctly matched?
- (a)Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya — Ganj-i-Shakar
- (b)Fariduddin Masud — Mahbub-i-Ilahi
- (c)Nasiruddin Mahmud — Chiragh-i-Delhi
- (d)Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki — Sultan-ul-Mashaikh
Answerc — Nasiruddin Mahmud is the shaikh titled Chiragh-i-Delhi, and the locality of Chirag Dilli is named after his dargah.Option (a) hands Nizamuddin Auliya his teacher's title, since Ganj-i-Shakar is Fariduddin Masud. Option (b) reverses that same pair, giving Fariduddin the title Mahbub-i-Ilahi, which belongs to Nizamuddin Auliya.
Option (d) misplaces Sultan-ul-Mashaikh, also a title of Nizamuddin Auliya; Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki is remembered as Kaki, his shrine as Qutub Sahib.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Shaikh Nasiruddin Mahmud, popularly known as Chiragh-i-Delhi, was the principal spiritual successor of:
- (a)Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti
- (b)Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki
- (c)Shaikh Fariduddin Ganj-i-Shakar
- (d)Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya
Answerd — Nasiruddin Mahmud was the chief khalifa of Nizamuddin Auliya and led the Chishti hospice at Delhi after his teacher's death in 1325.The line of teachers runs Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, then Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki at Mehrauli, then Fariduddin Ganj-i-Shakar at Ajodhan, then Nizamuddin Auliya. Options (a), (b) and (c) each name a shaikh who stands earlier in that chain, separated from Nasiruddin Mahmud by one or more intervening generations.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Consider the following statements about Shaikh Nasiruddin Mahmud: 1. He belonged to the Chishti silsila. 2. His dargah is at Ajodhan, the town now called Pakpattan. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Answera — Statement 1 is correct: Nasiruddin Mahmud was a Chishti shaikh, the successor of Nizamuddin Auliya at the order's Delhi hospice.Statement 2 is incorrect: the dargah at Ajodhan, now Pakpattan in Pakistan, is that of Fariduddin Masud, Ganj-i-Shakar. Nasiruddin Mahmud's dargah is in south Delhi, at the locality named Chirag Dilli after him.
So (b), (c) and (d) all fail on the treatment of statement 2 or statement 1.