Ibn Battuta - Appoquinimink High School



Work for “Over the Break”! Name ________________

• READ – chapter 12 and complete the questions attached

• Complete the Ibn Battuta assignment (Read it!; Map it!; Answer it!)

• Check out the attached mid-term review study guide, make sure you know it all!

• Celebrate and be Merry.

Here are the chapter 12 reading questions: (if you need more space, feel free to use another sheet of paper)

1) What are trade diasporas?

2) What happened to the Grand Canal around 1400? WHY?

3) WHY did paper making spread to Europe from China through Muslim soldiers?

4) What were some of the major trading communities of the eastern Mediterranean?

5) According to your text, what was the central attraction of trade in the fourteenth century?

6) What kingdom dominated trade in the Red Sea in the fourth century?

7) Which region held the most prominent Jewish community in the world around the eighth and ninth century?

8) What was generated after the Incas merged their empire in the early fifteenth century?

9).How did the Incans keep track of their trade and transactions?

10) What were some of the items the “pochteca” exchanged from Gulf coast?

11) What did the American Indians use to carry goods across trade routes?

12) Trade flourished in which part of South America?

13) What were the guild of long distance traders in the Aztec society called?

14) The domestication of what animal opened the way for Sub Saharan trading?

15) How did Muslim Trade influence Africa?

16) Discuss the role of slaves in African societies.

17) What role did Great Zimbabwe play in African trade?

18) Why was it so difficult to trade along the North-South Axis of Africa (from the Sahara to the Kalahari desert)?

19) What insect kept camels and other large pack animals from crossing the dense jungle into South Africa?

20) Who controlled the Silk Road during the eighth and ninth century?

21) Who was the predominate trader on the Silk Road?

22) These people were among the greatest sailors in pre-modern times. Their boats were 100 to 150 ft long, wooden, and held together with cords. Throughout their travels they reached destinations such as Hawaii, New Zealand, and the Easter Islands. Who were they?

Read this account, 2. Read the quotes from Ibn, 3. Draw Ibn’s route on the map provided, 4. answer all the questions!

The Story of Ibn Battuta

The House of Islam

During the life of Ibn Battuta, Islamic civilization stretched from the Atlantic coast of West Africa across northern Africa, the Middle East, and India to Southeast Asia. This constituted the Dar al-Islam, or “House of Islam.” In addition, there were important communities of Muslims in cities and towns beyond the frontiers of Dar al-Islam. People in the whole “umma,” or community of people believing in one god and his sacred law (“shari’a”), shared doctrinal beliefs, religious rituals, moral values, and everyday manners. In the early 1300s this community was expanding dramatically.

Ibn Battuta was born in Tangier, part of modern-day Morocco, on February 25, 1304. This port city on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean lies 45 miles west of the Mediterranean Sea, close to the western side of the Strait of Gibraltar — where Africa and Europe nearly collide.

The men in Ibn Battuta’s family were legal scholars and he was raised with a focus on education; however, there was no “madrasa,” or college of higher learning, in Tangier. Thus, Ibn Battuta’s urge to travel was spurred by interest in finding the best teachers and the best libraries, which were then in Alexandria, Cairo, and Damascus. He also wanted to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, called the “hajj,” as soon as possible, out of eagerness and devotion to his faith.

At the age of 21, Ibn Battuta embarked on his travels. Like all faithful Muslims, he wanted to make the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca. Furthermore, traveling east would take him to the heartland of Islam, where he could study with the finest scholars.

Leaving Tangier in 1325, Ibn Battuta traveled eastward across the Maghrib, the Arabic name for the western part of North Africa (the present-day countries of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia). After about nine months of travel, he reached the great port of Alexandria in 1326. He had entered the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt, the greatest Islamic power of its day. There, Ibn Battuta began his decades-long habit of sightseeing excursions.

Instead of pushing on to Mecca with the pilgrims' caravan from Cairo, he explored the Nile River delta. Sailing down the Nile River, he traveled across the desert to the port of Aydhab on the Red Sea. Unable to make a crossing to Jidda, he went back up the Nile to Cairo and from there went to Damascus, the Syrian capital of the Mamluks, in August 1326. After visiting with legal scholars, he joined a pilgrimage caravan bound for Medina and Mecca.

During the first 15 months of his travels, Ibn Battuta learned that traveling gentlemen-scholars like himself were the frequent objects of almsgiving by pious, prosperous Muslim merchants. As a scholar, Ibn Battuta was a welcome guest at the many madrassas, or colleges, dedicated to the study of Islam and its laws that liberally dotted the landscape of Muslim countries. Through his strong interest in Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, Ibn Battuta also received a ready welcome and hospitality from the Sufi lodges located in most Islamic towns of any size or importance. Thanks to that network of benefactors and colleagues, Ibn Battuta traveled with the expectation of generous hospitality and gifts throughout the lands of Islam.

Ibn Battuta reached Mecca in mid-October 1326, after visiting Medina and the tomb of the prophet Muhammad along the way. He participated in the rites of the great pilgrimage, or hajj, for the first time. After completing that complicated religious observance, Ibn Battuta set out to the north for Baghdad in November 1326. He traveled for a year in the khanate of the Il-Khanid dynasty of Persia and visited such cities as Mosul, Tabriz, Basra, and Isfahan.

Returning across the Arabian Desert, Ibn Battuta went back to Mecca, which he reached in the fall of 1327. After making a second hajj, he remained in Mecca for at least one year, possibly three. Between either 1328 and 1330 or 1330 and 1332, Ibn Battuta visited various cities and ports on the Red Sea, the coast of East Africa, and the southern coast of Arabia, including the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. His stops included Aden, Mogadishu, Kilwa, Muscat, and Oman. He returned to Mecca in the winter of 1330 (or 1332) for his third pilgrimage by crossing the Arabian Desert.

Ibn Battuta did not stay long in Mecca. News circulated through the Islamic world that Muhammad ibn Tughluq, the sultan of Delhi, was hiring foreign Islamic scholars to help him run his kingdom. The ambitious Ibn Battuta decided to seek employment in India. Always the eager sightseer, he took the very circuitous and unlikely route of traveling through Asia Minor, the steppe lands north of the Black Sea, and the region of the Caspian Sea to get there. He visited such cities as Bukhara, Samarkand, and Kabul along the way. In the spring of 1334 (or 1336), Ibn Battuta arrived at last in Delhi. He met with the sultan, who (as was rumored) generously appointed Ibn Battuta to be a qadi, or judge. He served in that post until 1341.

Under the ineffectual Muhammad ibn Tughluq, the Delhi sultanate was a disintegrating state. Ibn Battuta soon realized that he was in a dangerous situation. Unfortunately, Muhammad ibn Tughluq did not take kindly to foreign scholars leaving his service. Meanwhile, envoys arrived from China, and Muhammad ibn Tughluq wanted to return the favor and send back an embassy of his own. In 1341, he asked the well-traveled Ibn Battuta to be his envoy and carry expensive gifts back to the emperor of China. Ibn Battuta readily agreed and departed from Delhi in August 1341.

The mission was disastrous. Among other hindrances, a storm struck the harbor and destroyed the ship containing the sultan's rich gifts for the emperor of China. However, Ibn Battuta decided to continue on to China as a private person rather than risk painful execution for failure in Delhi.

Meandering around the Malabar coast of India for about two years, Ibn Battuta reached the Maldive Islands off the southwest coast of India in December 1343. He found it to be a tropical paradise that had converted to Islam. The Maldivians needed a qadi, and Ibn Battuta needed a job. He served in that position until August 1344, at which time he became deeply involved in local political intrigues that ultimately forced his departure.

Resuming his journey to China, Ibn Battuta stopped at the fabled island of Ceylon and then sailed into the Bay of Bengal. By the time he passed through the Strait of Malacca in April 1346, he had stopped at the port of Chittagong and the island of Sumatra. Following the monsoons, he reached the south coast of China in the summer of 1346 and visited Guangzhou and Quanzhou. Although he claimed to have reached Beijing, many scholars are skeptical because his departure for India in the fall of 1346 did not give him enough time. In December 1346 or January 1347, Ibn Battuta returned to Quilon on the Malabar coast of India. Then he began the long journey that would ultimately take him back to Tangier in Morocco.

When Ibn Battuta journeyed into the central lands of Islam, that vast region was being hit by a great outbreak of bubonic plague known as the Black Death. He was fortunate not to contract it because it killed about one-third of the population wherever it struck. Leaving India, Ibn Battuta reached Zafar on the south coast of Arabia in April 1347. Sailing up the Arabian Sea, he stopped at Hormuz and then continued up the Persian Gulf to Baghdad, which he reached in January 1348. Crossing over the desert to Damascus during the late winter season of 1348, he stayed in the plague-ravaged city until July 1348. By the fall of 1348, he was in Cairo. From there, he made his fourth and final pilgrimage to Mecca. After completing the rituals, he returned to Cairo and departed from Egypt on a ship sailing along the coast of North Africa. In May 1349, he reached Tunisia. Soon arriving at his home in Tangier, he learned that his mother had died mere weeks before his arrival. He went on to Fez, the capital of Marinid Morocco, and arrived in November 1349. He had traveled for 24 years in Asia and Africa.

After returning from a military expedition and brief tour of Granada in 1350, Ibn Battuta decided to make one last great journey: a visit to the empire of Mali, a Muslim state on the other side of the fearsome Sahara Desert and the only major Islamic land he had not visited. By July 1352, he had reached the capital of the empire of Mali (the capital was probably the town of Niani, but scholars are not certain). Leaving the Malian capital in February 1353, he traveled along the Niger River to visit the important cities of Timbuktu and Gao. By early 1354, he was back in Fez.

The trip to Mali marked the end of Ibn Battuta's prodigious journeys. He was 50 years old and ready to settle down to a sedentary career as a Muslim jurist. However, after Ibn Battuta's return to Morocco, Sultan Abu Inan ordered him to produce a rihla (a genre of travel literature that focused on religious pilgrimage) based on his travels. In collaboration with an accomplished young Andalusian scholar named Ibn Juzayy, Ibn Battuta worked on the manuscript between 1354 and 1355. Ibn Juzayy apparently put the finishing touches on the book, and Ibn Battuta probably did not read—let alone correct—the final version. Ibn Juzayy then died prematurely in 1356 or 1357.

The rihla was not greatly appreciated in its day. The great Moroccan historian Ibn Khaldun, who would have been a youth when Ibn Battuta's rihla appeared, commented that many people at the Moroccan court found the great traveler to be a mediocre scholar with a tendency toward exaggeration and puffery. It was not a universal judgment, but Ibn Battuta's rihla quickly became a forgotten classic of Arabic literature. It survived only in fragments until the mid-19th century, when two complete manuscripts were discovered in Algeria. Ibn Battuta owes the revival of his reputation as the greatest traveler of the premodern era to Western scholars, a circumstance that would probably come as a great surprise to a man who spent his last years in obscurity as a minor qadi in a Moroccan town. He died in 1368 or 1369.

 

Quotes from Ibn Battuta’s Manuscript!

I felt so sad at heart on account of my loneliness that I could not restrain the tears that started to my eyes, and wept bitterly. But one of the pilgrims, realizing the cause of my distress, came up to me with a greeting and friendly welcome, and continued to comfort me with friendly talk until I entered the city, where I lodged in the College of the Booksellers. - Tunis

TThere are endowments for the aid of persons who cannot undertake the Hajj [such as the aged and the physically disabled], out of which are paid the expenses of those who go in their stead. There are endowments to dower poor women for marriage. There are others to free prisoners [of warj. There are endowments in aid of travelers, out of the revenues of which they are given food, clothing, and the expenses of conveyance to their countries. There are civic endowments for the improvement and paving of the streets, because all the lanes in Damascus have sidewalks on either side, on which foot passengers walk, while those who ride the roadway use the center. - Damascus

When a vessel arrives from India or elsewhere, the sultan's slaves go down to the shore, and come out to the ship in a sambuq carrying with them a complete set of robes for the oivner of the vessel [and his officers].... Three horses are brought for them, on which they mount with drums and trumpets playing before them from the seashore to the sultan's residence.... Hospitality is supplied to all who are in the vessel for three nights.... These people do this in order to gain the goodwill of the shipowners, and they are men of humility, good dispositions, virtue, and affection for strangers.

- Oman

Then certain other men quarreled with them for doing so, and the altercation between them grew so hot that some of them drew knives. All this time we had no idea what they were saying [Ibn Battuta did not speak Turkish], and we began to be afraid of them, thinking that they were the [brigands] who infest the roads.... At length God sent us a man, a pilgrim, who knew Arabic, and I asked what they wanted of us. He replied that they belonged to the fityan...and that each party wanted us to lodge with them. We were amazed at their native generosity. – Denizli (in Modern Turkey)

China, for all its magnificence, did not please me.... When I left my lodging I saw many offensive things which distressed me so much that I stayed at home and went out only when it was necessary. When I saw Muslims it was as though I had met my family and my relatives. - China

QUESTIONS

1. Why did Ibn Battuta embark on his journey?

2. How long did his journey take?

3. How did dar-al-Islam (the House of Islam) provide a comfortable environment for Ibn Battuta to travel in?

4. How many times did Ibn Battuta go on Hajj?

5. Write a short essay below that answers the question below. Use evidence from the reading to support your answer. “What was the Muslim world (Dar-al-Islam) like in the 1320s?”

AP World History Midterm Exam Study Guide

8000 BCE to 600 CE

Hunting, Gathering, and Controlling Nature

• Neolithic Era (Agricultural Revolution) 8000 to 3000 BCE

o farming and herding, subsistence living, agricultural surplus, specialization of labor, new introduction of farming tools (bronze), agricultural husbandry, tundra, alluvial plains, swampland, irrigation systems, changing role of women from hunter/gatherer society to agricultural society

Ancient River Valleys

• Mesopotamia (location on a map)

o polytheistic beliefs, ziggurats, Code of Hammurabi, Epic of Gilgamesh, Sumer Civilization, cuneiform, purpose of writing and having scribes, , treatment towards women

• Egypt (location on a map)

o hieroglyphics, purpose of writing and having scribes, importance of Nile River and flooding

• India

o The Vedas and the importance of these writings, birth of the caste system and the role the Aryans played in it, types of castes – Brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas, shudras, untouchables

 

• Early Society and East Asia

o Yellow River Valley (Shang Dynasty 1600 BCE to 1100 BCE and the Zhou 1100 BCE to 256 BCE), importance of bronze metallurgy for the Shang

o patriarchal system, Zhou mandate of heaven,  oracle bones, worship of ancestors, centralization of the Zhou dynasty, reasons for Zhou demise, inability to monopolize iron metallurgy, definition of the Period of Warring States (403 to 221 BCE)

o Shang social order – what merchants did, role of peasants, characteristics of their patriarchal society, importance of oracle bones

• Bantu Civilization

o major components of migration, languages, agricultural lifestyle, religious practices, engagement in trade with Muslims, be familiar with the map of their movements, use of farm tools, metallurgy

Classical Civilizations

• Greece

o the Mediterranean as a highway of cultural exchange, city-states, crops grown, economic livelihood, Aristotle, domination by Alexander the Great

 

• Sub-Saharan African Civilizations and Northern Africa

o Islamic influence on its people, the Great Zimbabwe, Swahili people and their trade along the Indian Ocean, Trans Saharan Slave Trade and Atlantic Slave Trade (differences among them, time periods, etc.)

o why Islam spread so widely in north Africa

o goods wanted from western African kingdoms (Ghana, etc.)

 

Empires

India

• Asoka and belief systems (200 BCE), how Aryans introduced the caste system, Gupta belief systems and their accomplishments

• Importance of trade in the Indian Ocean

Rome/Byzantine Empires

• birth of Christianity, Constantine, Diocletian, Constantinople, Hagia Sofia, when it collapses, Justinian and his contributions to legal code and unifying Christianity among his peoples

Persian Empire

• advances made in technology, transportation, and trade, relationship with Greece, importance of Persepolis, Zoroastrianism definition

Unification of China and its Dynasties

• Qin – Legalism, public works

• Han

o major accomplishments during its time

o reasons for its stability from 200 BCE to 200 CE, reasons for faltering, belief systems practiced during this time

o Han use of silk textiles and paper

• Tang - feelings toward Buddhism, reasons for decline (618 to 907 CE)

o transportation and communications, distribution land according to equal field system (governed agricultural land, ensure equal distribution of land to elites plus individual and families according to land fertility), Grand Canal principal route for long distance trade within China, roads, horses, postal stations, stables

o had rising population and surge in agricultural production

o Confucian education,

o Mid 700s was rebellion, rebellious forces within China, invited the Uighurs to bring army in  China

o Daoism characteristics

o Legalism characteristics

 

• Song - Neo Confucianism, contributions to culture

o     power in the late 960 to 1279 (southeast China)

▪  civil administration, industry, education, and arts rather than just military affairs but this weakened the empire and invasions occurred

▪ centralized imperial government but devoured the Song treasury and surplus production

▪ surge in agricultural production

▪ rebirth of truly worshipping ancestors

▪ very strong resurgence of patriarchal authority

▪ foot binding begins for upper class families, not lower class women who needed to farm

▪ 1100s printing, block printing, produce texts cheaply

 

600 CE to 1450

Asia and Middle Eastern Empires

• Islamic Empire

o Muhammad and the 5 pillars, Ibn Battuta, important and significance of Mecca, extent of Islamic spread, significance of the Koran and its meanings, ways in which Islam differed and was the same throughout the empire, creation of Swahili languages

o Sunni, Shia differences and conflicts

o Map of Islamic Empire, dar al Islam,

o African Empires

 

• Mongol Empire

o Genghis Khan contributions, Kublai Khan contributions, reasons for Mongol decline and rise of Ottoman Empire, characteristics of military and steppe life

Belief Systems and Religions

• Buddhism

o Siddhartha, Noble Truths, Eight Fold Path, Nirvana, Zen, the Silk Road's role in spreading these beliefs, component of neo-Confucianism starting in 1100, Lotus Sutra

• Christianity

o Jesus' original teaching, Catholic dogma, Christian humanism (aka northern humanism), treatment of Christians prior to Constantine

• Confucianism (including Neo)

o major books, relationship to government and politics

• Daoism (Laozi)- the way, link to Neo Confucianism

• Hinduism

o Rig Vedas, caste system

• Islam

o 5 Pillars, Mecca, Muhammad, Sunni and Shi'a, Dome of the Rock, areas where it spreads, the Silk Road's role in spreading these beliefs

• Judaism

o historical/biblical figures, Abraham, covenant, roles and expectations of women

• Legalism

o definition, beliefs, treatment towards people based on this system and how Confucianism is different, when it is practiced

• Zoroastrians

o     location, beliefs

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