UPSC Prelims 2014 · Question 33 of 100
UPSC Prelims 2014 question on Ibadat Khana
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2014
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectArt and Culture
- TopicIndian Architecture
- DifficultyMedium
- TypeDirect
Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri was
Show answer
Answer: C. the hall in which Akbar held discussions with scholars of various religions.
Verdict
The answer is the hall in which Akbar held discussions with scholars of various religions. The Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri was Akbar's house of worship in the sense of a debating hall.
Analysis
Akbar built the Ibadat Khana in 1575 and initially convened Muslim theologians there, later opening it to Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians and Jesuit Christians. Those debates fed directly into his later formulation of sulh i kul and the Din i Ilahi. The fourth option is the closest distractor because it also describes interreligious discussion, but it removes Akbar himself and makes it a gathering of nobles, which inverts the point: the debates were convened and presided over by the emperor. A royal mosque and a private prayer chamber both describe worship rather than discussion.
Source
NCERT Class VII, Our Pasts II, page 54.
How to crack it
When two options describe the same activity and differ only in who is doing it, the agent is the thing being tested. Akbar's religious policy is remembered precisely because the emperor personally hosted the debate, so the option that centres him is the intended one. This agent test recurs across medieval history questions on institutions built by rulers.