Which Sufi Saint was called ‘Mahbub-e-Ilahi’?

The answer is D) Sheikh Nizamuddin Auliya. He was the great Chishti saint of Delhi (1238-1325), a disciple of Baba Farid, and people called him Mahbub-e-Ilahi, the beloved of God. He ran a khanqah at Ghiyaspur, and his langar and open door for all communities made him the most popular Sufi of the Delhi Sultanate. He also had a famously tense relationship with the court of Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, which is a favourite Mains angle on state and religion.

Why the others are wrong:

• A) Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti founded the Chishti order in India and is buried at Ajmer. He is known as Gharib Nawaz, not Mahbub-e-Ilahi.
• B) Baba Farid (Fariduddin Ganj-i-Shakar) was based at Pakpattan and is remembered for his Punjabi and Hindavi verses that entered the Guru Granth Sahib.
• C) Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki was Moinuddin's spiritual successor in Delhi in the time of Iltutmish, and his dargah is in Mehrauli.

The core concept here is the Chishti silsila and its practices, such as sama, langar and the khanqah system, which link to the bhakti-sufi interaction and composite culture topics in Ancient and Medieval History.

Trap: Candidates tend to attach the title to the founder of the silsila in India, or to the saint with the most famous dargah. Titles like Gharib Nawaz, Ganj-i-Shakar and Mahbub-e-Ilahi belong to different saints, so memorise them as pairs.