Through the Eyes of Travellers | CBSE Class 12 History Notes

This note covers the journeys and writings of Al-Biruni, Ibn Battuta and François Bernier, their descriptions of caste, cities, trade, communication, landownership, slavery and women, the circulation of travel accounts, and the interpretation of travellers’ perspectives on society.

Why did people travel, and what was the context of their accounts?

Journeys for work, learning and opportunity

Women and men travelled to find work, escape natural disasters, trade, serve as soldiers, undertake pilgrimages or seek adventure. Travelling brought them into contact with unfamiliar landscapes, languages, beliefs and customs. Some adapted to these differences; others recorded the features that seemed unusual or remarkable.

Travel accounts therefore cover different subjects. Some describe courts, while others concentrate on religion, buildings or social customs. Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi, a diplomat from Herat, provided an important description of fifteenth-century Vijayanagara. Mughal administrators sometimes travelled within their own empire and recorded local customs and traditions.

Seeing ordinary life from outside

Travellers often noticed everyday activities that local writers took for granted. Their different social and cultural backgrounds made familiar practices seem worthy of description. This gives their accounts particular value for understanding social life, while also making their assumptions important to examine.

The surviving record is uneven. Women travelled, but practically no accounts written by women survive. Nor did every traveller notice every aspect of society. An account can illuminate a particular activity without representing the experiences of everyone who lived in the region.

What does the timeline reveal about travellers and their journeys?

The timeline places the three principal travellers within a longer history of movement. Visitors came from different regions and at different times. Their experiences cannot be treated as a single description of an unchanged society extending across several centuries.

Most dates below indicate lifespans. Where a date instead records a visit, years spent in India or a death, that distinction is stated. This matters because a traveller’s lifetime and the period of his Indian journey are different kinds of information.

The central journeys have their own sequence: Al-Biruni was taken to Ghazni in 1017; Ibn Battuta reached Sind in 1333; Bernier stayed in India from 1656 to 1668. These dates locate their observations in substantially different historical settings.

Note: A lifespan is not a period of residence in India. Keep the type of date attached to each traveller when comparing accounts or arranging events chronologically.

How did Al-Biruni’s background shape the Kitab-ul-Hind?

Learning across languages

Al-Biruni was born in 973 in Khwarizm, an important centre of learning in present-day Uzbekistan. He knew Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit. Although he did not know Greek, Arabic translations gave him access to Plato and other Greek philosophers.

In 1017, Sultan Mahmud invaded Khwarizm and took scholars and poets to Ghazni. Al-Biruni arrived there as a hostage. He gradually became attached to the city and developed an interest in India. Earlier translations of Sanskrit scientific works into Arabic formed part of this intellectual setting.

Al-Biruni spent years with Brahmana scholars, learning Sanskrit and studying religious and philosophical texts. His exact itinerary is uncertain, though he probably travelled widely in the Punjab and parts of northern India. Contacts expanded when the Punjab became part of the Ghaznavid empire.

His linguistic knowledge supported exchanges in both directions. He translated Sanskrit works, including Patanjali’s work on grammar, into Arabic. For his Brahmana friends, he translated the works of the Greek mathematician Euclid into Sanskrit.

Organisation and intended readers

The Kitab-ul-Hind was written in clear Arabic and divided into 80 chapters. Its subjects include religion, philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, customs, social life, weights and measures, iconography, laws and metrology. Metrology is the science of measurement.

A chapter generally begins with a question, presents an explanation based on Sanskritic traditions, and ends with comparison with other cultures. This pattern was frequent rather than universal. Some scholars connect its precision and predictability with Al-Biruni’s mathematical interests.

He wanted to assist people discussing religious questions with Hindus and those wishing to associate with them. His probable readers included people living along the subcontinent’s frontiers. Although few people in India would have read him before 1500, many outside India may have done so.

Comparison was therefore both an organising method and a way to make another society intelligible. Yet the range of a book’s topics does not remove the need to ask whose explanations supplied its information.

What barriers did Al-Biruni identify, and how did he interpret caste?

Words and their changing meanings

The word Hindu originally had a geographical meaning. Old Persian usage referred to the region east of the Sindhu or Indus. Arabs called the region al-Hind and its people Hindi; Turks used Hindu, Hindustan and Hindavi for people, land and language. Religious meanings developed later.

Three obstacles to understanding

Al-Biruni recognised that understanding an unfamiliar society involved more than recording what he saw. He identified difficulties of language, differences in religion, and what he regarded as the local population’s self-absorption and insularity. These were his assessments of the obstacles confronting him.

Despite recognising these problems, he relied almost exclusively on Brahmanical works. He cited the Vedas, Puranas, Bhagavad Gita, works of Patanjali and Manusmriti. These helped him explain learned traditions but also shaped the boundaries of his account.

Comparison, pollution and social practice

To explain caste, Al-Biruni compared it with four social categories in ancient Persia: knights and princes; monks, fire-priests and lawyers; physicians, astronomers and other scientists; and peasants and artisans. His comparison suggested that social divisions were not peculiar to India.

He also contrasted such divisions with the Islamic principle that men were equal, differing in piety. In describing the varnas, he reproduced the Brahmanical ranking of Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. This was a presentation of a particular social explanation, not an independent proof of its claims.

Although he accepted the Brahmanical account of caste, he rejected the idea of social pollution. He argued that nature restores purity: the sun cleanses the air, while salt prevents seawater from becoming polluted. Permanent pollution therefore appeared to him contrary to natural processes.

Definition: Normative texts lay down rules about how society should be organised. Their prescriptions must be distinguished from the ways people actually lived and worked.

Al-Biruni’s dependence on normative Sanskrit texts could make social divisions appear more rigid than they were in practice. People classified as antyaja, literally born outside the system, faced social oppression but often supplied inexpensive labour to peasants and zamindars.

Thus, exclusion in a social classification did not mean complete exclusion from economic activity. The relation between hierarchy and labour is essential: people could be treated as socially inferior while remaining closely connected to agricultural production and other economic networks.

How did Ibn Battuta’s journeys shape the Rihla?

Travel as a source of knowledge

Ibn Battuta was born in Tangier in Morocco into an educated family associated with Islamic religious law, or shari‘a. He received literary and scholastic training, but valued knowledge gained through travel more highly than knowledge gained from books.

Before leaving for India in 1332 to 1333, he had visited Mecca and travelled through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Yemen, Oman and East African trading ports. Travelling overland through Central Asia, he reached Sind in 1333 and then approached Delhi through Multan and Uch.

Muhammad bin Tughlaq, impressed by his scholarship, appointed him qazi of Delhi. He later lost the Sultan’s favour and was imprisoned. After the misunderstanding was resolved, he returned to imperial service and in 1342 was instructed to travel to China as the Sultan’s envoy.

His route took him through central India to Malabar, then to the Maldives, where he served as qazi for eighteen months. He visited Sri Lanka, returned to Malabar and the Maldives, and visited Bengal and Assam before sailing through Sumatra towards China.

He reached Zaytun, now Quanzhou, travelled as far as Beijing and decided to return home in 1347. He finally reached his homeland in 1354. His Arabic travel account, the Rihla, offers rich details of fourteenth-century social and cultural life.

Danger, memory and narration

Travel was slow and dangerous. Ibn Battuta reported forty days from Multan to Delhi and about fifty from Sind to Delhi. Robbers attacked his caravan on the Multan route, killing companions and severely wounding survivors. Illness and loneliness also affected travellers.

Painting: Robbers attacking travellers, a sixteenth-century Mughal painting (NCERT Class 12 Figure 5.3). The painting shows figures struggling among trees and rocky ground, with weapons visible. This sixteenth-century Mughal painting illustrates attacks on travellers; it is not a contemporary portrait of Ibn Battuta’s own journey.

After his return, the Moroccan ruler ordered his stories to be recorded. Ibn Juzayy wrote down his dictated account. The work was intended to educate and entertain, combining places, rulers, learned people, saints and remarkable incidents remembered from his journeys.

What did Ibn Battuta find remarkable about everyday life and cities?

Explaining the unfamiliar through comparison

Ibn Battuta moved through a world of connected cities, shrines and courts. People speaking Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other languages exchanged information and stories. He highlighted unfamiliar things so that readers or listeners could imagine distant societies and remain interested in his account.

He compared coconut trees with date palms and the coconut itself with a human head. Its markings suggested eyes and a mouth, its inner part a brain, and its fibres hair. He also described fibre being made into cords for sewing ships and cables for vessels.

His description of paan explained cultivation by comparing it with the grapevine. He described chewing pieces of areca nut with betel leaves and a little chalk. Such comparisons reveal a writer translating unfamiliar practices into images his audience could understand.

Photographs: Paan leaves and A coconut (NCERT Class 12 Figures 5.1a and 5.1b). The photographs show green paan leaves with ingredients placed on them and a coconut opened to expose its white interior and brown outer covering.

Urban opportunities and their economic foundations

Ibn Battuta found many cities densely populated and prosperous, apart from disruptions caused by war and invasion. He regarded Delhi as India’s largest city and considered Daulatabad comparable in size. Their markets offered many goods and opportunities for people with resources and skills.

Bazaars were centres of social and cultural activity as well as exchange. Most contained a mosque and a temple; some provided spaces for dancers, musicians and singers. His account of Tarababad in Daulatabad describes a market associated with musical performance.

Historians connect urban prosperity with the appropriation of agricultural surplus from villages. Ibn Battuta noted fertile soil that permitted two crops a year. He also described Indian manufactures as highly valued in West Asian and Southeast Asian trade, bringing profits to merchants and artisans.

Cotton cloth, fine muslins, silks, brocade and satin were in demand. Some fine muslins were expensive enough to be worn only by nobles and the very rich. Urban wealth therefore existed alongside differences in access to costly goods.

Photographs: An arch in Tughlakabad, Delhi, and Part of the fortification wall of the settlement (NCERT Class 12 Figures 5.8 and 5.9). One photograph shows a pointed stone arch opening into a dark passage. The other shows a substantial stone fortification wall, projecting sections and an uneven line of battlements.

How did trade routes and the postal system connect distant places?

Facilities for merchants

The state took measures to encourage merchants. Almost all trade routes had inns and guest houses. These facilities accompanied a wider network of communication connecting the subcontinent with other parts of Asia and beyond.

Ibn Battuta admired the postal system because it carried information, enabled merchants to remit credit and helped dispatch goods needed at short notice. A journey from Sind to Delhi could take fifty days, while spies’ reports reached the Sultan through the post in just five.

How the runners worked

1. Men waited ready to run at pavilions near villages, with stations separated by one-third of a mile.
2. A courier ran carrying a letter and a rod with copper bells attached at the top.
3. The ringing alerted the men at the next station, allowing a runner to prepare before the courier arrived.
4. The next runner received the letter and continued towards the following station, repeating the relay until delivery.

The foot-post also carried desired fruits from Khurasan. The account therefore describes movement of goods as well as messages. Administrative communication and merchants’ needs were both served by the system.

Efficient relays did not mean that ordinary journeys were equally fast or safe. Ibn Battuta’s descriptions of robbery and long travel times belong alongside his admiration for the post. Different ways of moving through the same connected world involved different conditions.

How did Bernier compare Mughal India with Europe?

A physician close to the court

François Bernier was a French doctor, political philosopher and historian who sought opportunities in the Mughal Empire. During his residence from 1656 to 1668, he was associated with the imperial court and travelled to several parts of the country.

He served as physician to Dara Shukoh, Shah Jahan’s eldest son. Later, he worked as an intellectual and scientist with Danishmand Khan, an Armenian noble at the Mughal court. Such connections gave him access to courtly life and shaped the settings he observed.

Bernier dedicated his major writing to Louis XIV of France. Other works took the form of letters to influential ministers and officials. His intended audience helps explain why he discussed institutions and property in ways relevant to European political debates.

Comparison as a judgement

His Travels in the Mughal Empire contains detailed observations and attempts to place Mughal history within a wider framework. However, he repeatedly compared India with Europe, especially France, and generally presented Europe as superior.

This approach used binary opposition: India appeared as Europe’s opposite. The contrast was hierarchical because the differences were ranked, with Indian conditions treated as inferior. His bleak picture was therefore an interpretation shaped by particular intellectual and political concerns.

Ibn Battuta’s excitement about novelty contrasts with Bernier’s wish to influence policymakers. Both compared unfamiliar things with familiar ones, but their aims differed. One often sought to convey wonder; the other used comparison to support arguments about how states and societies should be organised.

The European visitors themselves were not a uniform group. Tavernier, a French jeweller, concentrated on trading conditions and visited India at least six times. Manucci, an Italian doctor, settled in India. Occupation, purpose and personal circumstances affected what different travellers chose to describe.

Why is Bernier’s explanation of landownership disputed?

The argument and its proposed consequences

Bernier believed that the Mughal emperor owned all the land and distributed it among nobles. A strong supporter of private property, he treated its supposed absence as the fundamental cause of India’s economic and social problems.

1. He assumed that landholders lacked secure private ownership because all land belonged to the crown.
2. He argued that landholders could not pass their holdings to their children.
3. Without that incentive, he thought they avoided long-term investment in agricultural production.
4. He linked this supposed failure to agricultural decline, peasant oppression and falling living standards outside the ruling aristocracy.

Bernier also portrayed society as a mass of impoverished people beneath a very wealthy ruling minority. He denied the existence of a substantial intermediate social group. His argument was intended partly as a warning to Europeans who did not recognise what he considered the merits of private property.

Evidence against a simple picture

Mughal official documents do not suggest that the state was the sole owner of land. Abu’l Fazl described revenue as a claim associated with sovereignty and the protection provided by the ruler, rather than rent on land personally owned by him.

The revenue was a tax on the crop. High demands may have encouraged European travellers to interpret it as rent. Confusing a ruler’s revenue claim with ownership changes the explanation of the relationship between state, cultivator and land.

His own account contains contradictory evidence. He described fertile Bengal, cultivated land and valuable manufactures, while also writing of widespread decline. Historians must consider both strands instead of selecting only the passages that fit a single picture of prosperity or poverty.

What do the accounts reveal about different social groups?

Peasants and rural labourers

Rural society was differentiated. Large zamindars enjoyed superior rights in land. Big peasants used hired labour and produced for exchange, while smaller peasants could struggle to produce enough for subsistence. At the other end were landless labourers subjected to the stigma of untouchability.

These differences challenge the picture of an undifferentiated rural population. They also help explain why social oppression and economic participation could coexist. The lives of a substantial cultivator and a landless worker cannot be treated as identical merely because both lived outside the court.

Merchants, artisans and urban professionals

About 15 per cent of the population lived in towns during the seventeenth century, a higher average proportion than in contemporary Western Europe. Bernier’s label of camp towns overlooked the varied foundations of urban activity.

Merchants in western India formed caste-cum-occupational bodies called mahajans, headed by a sheth. In Ahmedabad, the nagarsheth represented the merchant community collectively. Physicians, teachers, lawyers, painters, architects, musicians and calligraphers served the court, other patrons or ordinary customers.

Bernier described imperial karkhanas employing embroiderers, goldsmiths, painters, lacquer workers, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers and textile manufacturers. He also acknowledged exports and the inflow of gold and silver. These observations complicate his claim that artisans lacked incentives and manufactures were everywhere in decline.

Enslaved people

Ibn Battuta described slaves being sold in markets and exchanged as gifts. He bought horses, camels and slaves for Muhammad bin Tughlaq. Such details reveal how travellers could take profound inequalities for granted rather than question them.

Enslaved people performed different tasks. Some women at the Sultan’s court were accomplished musicians and dancers; others helped monitor nobles. Domestic slaves carried people in palanquins or dola. The price of slaves, particularly female slaves required for domestic labour, was very low, and most families who could afford them kept at least one or two.

Women’s work and the limits of attention

Bernier concentrated on sati, noting both women who appeared willing to die and women forced to do so. His account of a young widow at Lahore conveys horror at coercion. His estimate of her age should remain an estimate, not an exact established fact.

Women’s lives extended far beyond this practice. Their labour was crucial in agriculture and non-agricultural production. Women in merchant families participated in commerce and sometimes brought mercantile disputes before courts. It is therefore unlikely that women were confined to domestic spaces.

Travellers’ attention was selective. A striking ritual could receive extensive description while ordinary women’s daily work attracted much less notice. Reconstructing social life requires attention both to recorded details and to the limits of what observers chose to discuss.

What impact did these accounts have on later ideas about India?

From travel description to political theory

Bernier’s work influenced European interpretations of Asian societies. In the eighteenth century, Montesquieu drew on his account in developing the idea of oriental despotism. This theory portrayed Asian rulers as absolute masters whose subjects lived in poverty and subordination.

Its argument linked supposed royal ownership of all land with the absence of private property. According to this theory, everybody except the emperor and his nobles barely managed to survive. A traveller’s interpretation thus became part of a broader explanation of state and society.

In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx developed the concept of the Asiatic mode of production. He argued that the state appropriated surplus from autonomous village communities. The imperial court allowed their autonomy to continue as long as the surplus kept flowing.

These villages were imagined as internally egalitarian, and the arrangement was regarded as stagnant. Yet the differentiated rural society of zamindars, substantial cultivators, smaller peasants and landless labourers does not fit that uniform model.

Images of India could be challenged

European travel books helped create an image of India through print and circulation. After 1750, Indian visitors to Europe, including Shaikh Itisamuddin and Mirza Abu Talib, encountered these European perceptions and tried to influence them by presenting their own versions.

The importance of travel writing therefore extends beyond the original journey. Its effects depend on which descriptions circulate, how later readers interpret them, and whether other accounts challenge the picture they create.

How should historians evaluate travel accounts as sources?

Authorship, purpose and circulation

Travel accounts are valuable historical sources because they record activities that might otherwise receive little attention. Their evidence must nevertheless be related to the author’s background, purpose, audience and access to information. Detailed description does not automatically make every explanation accurate.

Circulation also differed. Bernier’s works appeared in France in 1670 to 1671 and were translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian within the next five years. Between 1670 and 1725, his account was reprinted eight times in French.

By 1684, it had been reprinted three times in English. Arabic and Persian accounts generally circulated as manuscripts and were not usually published before 1800. These different forms of circulation affected how travellers’ descriptions reached readers.

Reading description and explanation critically

1. Identify the writer’s position: Al-Biruni worked closely with Brahmana scholars, Ibn Battuta served as a qazi, and Bernier had courtly connections.
2. Ask what the account aimed to do: facilitate understanding, entertain and educate, or influence political judgements.
3. Distinguish what was observed from broader claims, such as Bernier’s explanation of agricultural conditions through supposed crown ownership.
4. Compare the account with other evidence and with its own conflicting details, including prosperous trade alongside descriptions of universal decline.

The silences matter as well. Women travelled, but their written accounts scarcely survive. Ordinary work could be overlooked, and experiences of people from the subcontinent travelling abroad remain relatively little known. No single traveller supplies a complete picture of social life.

A careful reading preserves the usefulness of these accounts without treating them as transparent records. Their observations illuminate earlier societies, while their comparisons also reveal the intellectual worlds from which the observers came.

Glossary

• Kitab-ul-Hind — Al-Biruni’s Arabic work covering religion, philosophy, customs, social life and other subjects in eighty chapters.
• Rihla — Ibn Battuta’s Arabic travel account, rich in details of fourteenth-century social and cultural life.
• Metrology — The science of measurement, included among the subjects discussed in the Kitab-ul-Hind.
• Shari‘a — Islamic religious law, an area of expertise associated with Ibn Battuta’s educated family.
• Qazi — A judge, the position Ibn Battuta held in Delhi and later in the Maldives.
• Normative texts — Works prescribing rules for social conduct and organisation, rather than simply describing actual practices.
• Antyaja — Literally born outside the system; groups facing social oppression while participating in economic networks.
• Uluq — The horse-post described by Ibn Battuta, using royal horses stationed every four miles.
• Dawa — The foot-post described by Ibn Battuta, with three relay stations for each mile.
• Binary opposition — A framework presenting India as Europe’s opposite, used by Bernier to rank their perceived differences.
• Camp towns — Bernier’s term for towns he believed depended on the imperial camp for existence and survival.
• Mahajans — Caste-cum-occupational merchant bodies in western India, each headed by a chief called the sheth.
• Nagarsheth — The chief collectively representing the merchant community in urban centres such as Ahmedabad.
• Karkhanas — Workshops where artisans worked, including the imperial establishments described in detail by Bernier.
• Oriental despotism — A theory portraying Asian rulers as absolute authorities over impoverished subjects, linked to supposed royal landownership.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: All travellers described the same historical society. Correct: Al-Biruni, Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote in different centuries, with different backgrounds, purposes and opportunities for observation.
• Misconception: Al-Biruni wrote the Rihla. Correct: Al-Biruni wrote the Kitab-ul-Hind; the Rihla records Ibn Battuta’s travels. Both works were in Arabic.
• Misconception: Al-Biruni accepted every aspect of caste ideology. Correct: Although he relied heavily on Brahmanical explanations, he rejected social pollution as contrary to natural processes.
• Misconception: People classified as antyaja were absent from economic life. Correct: They faced oppression but often supplied labour to peasants and zamindars and participated in economic networks.
• Misconception: Fast postal communication made ordinary journeys equally quick and secure. Correct: Relay messages travelled rapidly, while Ibn Battuta reported slow journeys, robber attacks, illness and hardship.
• Misconception: Bernier proved that the Mughal state owned every piece of land. Correct: This was his interpretation; official documents do not describe the state as sole owner, and revenue was a tax on the crop.
• Misconception: Mughal cities existed solely because of the court. Correct: Manufacturing, trading, port, sacred and pilgrimage towns had varied foundations, while many professionals served patrons beyond the emperor.
• Misconception: Women’s lives can be understood entirely through accounts of sati. Correct: Women also worked in production and commerce, and some merchant women brought commercial disputes to court.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Al-Biruni’s Kitab-ul-Hind was written in Arabic and divided into 80 chapters. State its language and the number of chapters. [2 marks]

1. The Kitab-ul-Hind was written in Arabic, the language Al-Biruni used for this work.
2. The work contains eighty chapters covering a broad range of subjects.

Q2. Al-Biruni identified three obstacles: Sanskrit concepts were difficult to translate into Arabic and Persian; religious beliefs and practices differed; and he considered local people self-absorbed and insular. Explain these three barriers using this information. [3 marks]

1. The linguistic barrier involved difficulty translating ideas, not merely replacing individual words. Sanskrit concepts could not easily be conveyed in Arabic or Persian.
2. The religious barrier arose because beliefs and practices differed, complicating understanding between people from different traditions.
3. The social barrier was Al-Biruni’s perception of local self-absorption and insularity. He believed this restricted engagement with outsiders and made mutual understanding harder.

Q3. Ibn Battuta described crowded markets, mosques and temples in most bazaars, performance spaces in some markets, fertile soil allowing two crops yearly, and Indian manufactures in demand in West and Southeast Asia. Using these details, explain four features of urban life and prosperity. [4 marks]

1. Crowded markets indicate active exchange and busy urban spaces where people gathered for transactions.
2. The presence of mosques and temples shows that bazaars also supported religious activity rather than serving exclusively commercial purposes.
3. Spaces for performances added a cultural role, bringing entertainment into the life of some markets.
4. Productive agriculture and demand for manufactures help explain prosperity. Fertile soil supported two annual crops, while trade connected Indian production with West Asian and Southeast Asian demand.

Q4. Ibn Battuta described uluq as a horse-post with royal horses every four miles. Dawa had three stations per mile, where runners passed letters onward; bells warned the next runner. He considered the foot-post faster and reported five-day postal delivery between Sind and Delhi against fifty days for a journey. Explain how the system enabled rapid communication. [4 marks]

1. The horse-post used royal horses stationed at intervals of four miles, providing an organised means of movement.
2. The foot-post divided the route into shorter stages, with three stations per mile and fresh runners passing letters onward.
3. Bells alerted the next runner before arrival, allowing him to prepare to receive the letter and continue.
4. The comparison illustrates the speed of organised relays: reports could travel between Sind and Delhi in five days, although an ordinary journey took fifty. Ibn Battuta described the foot-post as the faster postal method.

Q5. Bernier assumed that the emperor owned all land, preventing inheritance and discouraging investment; he linked this to agricultural decline. Mughal official documents do not identify the state as sole owner. Abu’l Fazl linked revenue to sovereignty and protection, and the revenue was a crop tax. Assess Bernier’s explanation using all this evidence. [5 marks]

1. Bernier’s reasoning began with an assumption about ownership: he believed all land belonged to the emperor. The reliability of his explanation therefore depends on that starting claim.
2. He connected ownership with inheritance, arguing that landholders could not pass holdings to their children and therefore lacked incentives for long-term investment.
3. He then used the supposed failure to invest to explain agricultural decline. This is a causal interpretation rather than simply a description of cultivation.
4. The official evidence challenges its foundation because it does not identify the Mughal state as the sole landowner. Abu’l Fazl instead connected revenue with sovereignty and protection.
5. A tax on the crop should not automatically be treated as rent from land owned by the emperor. Bernier’s ownership-based explanation consequently requires qualification.

Q6. Ibn Battuta valued travel experience and highlighted unfamiliar practices to educate and entertain. Bernier compared India with France, generally ranked Europe higher, and addressed kings, ministers and officials to influence political judgement. Compare their perspectives and explain why audience matters. [5 marks]

1. Ibn Battuta treated personal travel as an important way of learning. His interest lay in experiences and practices that appeared unfamiliar and would attract an audience’s attention.
2. His purpose combined education with entertainment. The selection of remarkable details helped readers or listeners imagine societies beyond their own experience.
3. Bernier used comparison for a different purpose. By measuring Indian conditions against France and generally ranking Europe higher, he organised difference into a hierarchy.
4. His audience included kings, ministers and officials, and he hoped to influence political judgement. This encouraged arguments about institutions and policies rather than novelty alone.
5. Audience therefore affects both selection and explanation. Their accounts should be read in relation to these distinct purposes, rather than treated as interchangeable descriptions.

Q7. Ibn Battuta described slaves sold in markets and exchanged as gifts, enslaved women performing music and dance, women helping watch nobles, and domestic slaves carrying people in palanquins. Explain what these details reveal about slavery. [3 marks]

1. Sale in markets and exchange as gifts show that enslaved people were treated as transferable property within social and political relationships.
2. Music and dance at court indicate differentiated roles and skills among enslaved women. Their work was not limited to domestic tasks.
3. Watching nobles connected some women to political surveillance, while carrying palanquins illustrates domestic service. Together, these details reveal varied uses of enslaved labour rather than one uniform experience.

Q8. Al-Biruni relied on normative Brahmanical texts, although antyaja groups participated in economic networks despite oppression. Bernier described general decline but also exports and prosperous merchants. Travellers focused on sati, while women also worked in agriculture, production and commerce. Give three reasons to read these accounts critically. [3 marks]

1. Prescriptive texts and social practice could differ: the economic participation of antyaja groups complicates an exclusively normative account of exclusion.
2. An account can contain conflicting evidence. Bernier’s observations of exports and prosperous merchants qualify his general picture of decline.
3. Attention could be selective. Emphasis on sati does not represent all women’s experiences, since women also participated in agriculture, other production and commercial activity.

Key takeaways

• Travel accounts reveal everyday practices that local writers sometimes overlooked, but reflect the observer’s background, interests and intended audience.
• Al-Biruni used Sanskrit learning and cross-cultural comparison, while his dependence on Brahmanical texts limited his account of social practice.
• Ibn Battuta’s Rihla records urban opportunities, markets, trade, communication and unfamiliar customs within a widely connected fourteenth-century world.
• The postal system used horse and foot relays, carrying information and serving merchants much faster than ordinary journeys.
• Bernier’s claim of universal crown ownership must be separated from official evidence describing revenue as a claim associated with sovereignty.
• Rural and urban societies contained varied groups, challenging accounts that reduced India to rich rulers and an undifferentiated poor population.
• Women’s agricultural, productive and commercial activities show why accounts concentrating on sati provide an incomplete picture of their lives.
• Historians compare observations, interpretations and silences, using conflicting evidence to qualify broad generalisations about society.

Test yourself

What was the usual chapter structure of the Kitab-ul-Hind?

A question was followed by an explanation based on Sanskritic traditions and then comparison with other cultures. This structure was frequent, not universal.

Why did Al-Biruni reject social pollution?

He argued that nature restores purity, citing sunlight and salt in seawater. Permanent social pollution therefore seemed contrary to natural processes.

Who recorded Ibn Battuta’s dictated memories?

Ibn Juzayy recorded the account after the Moroccan ruler ordered Ibn Battuta’s travel stories to be written down.

How were bazaars more than places for buying and selling?

Most contained mosques and temples, while some offered performance spaces for dancers, singers and musicians, making them centres of social and cultural activity.

What was the difference between uluq and dawa?

Uluq was the horse-post, with royal horses every four miles. Dawa was the foot-post, with three relay stations per mile.

What evidence in Bernier’s own account complicates his picture of decline?

He acknowledged fertile and cultivated regions, valuable manufactured exports, the inflow of gold and silver, and prosperous merchants involved in long-distance trade.

How did the sheth and nagarsheth differ?

A sheth headed a mahajan merchant body. The nagarsheth collectively represented the merchant community in centres such as Ahmedabad.

Why can normative texts not be treated as exact descriptions of life?

They prescribe rules, while actual practices may differ. Antyaja groups, for example, faced social oppression but remained part of economic networks.