UPSC History Sources Of Medieval Period NCERT Extracts - Al-Biruni, Ibn Battuta and Bernier

NCERT Extracts - Al-Biruni, Ibn Battuta and Bernier

Category : UPSC

Through the Eyes of Travellers Perception of Society

Al-Biruni

Al-Biruni was born in 973, in Khwarizm in present day Uzbekistan.
Al-Biruni received the best education available at the time. He was well versed in several languages: Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit.
In 1017, when Sultan Mahmud invaded Khwarizm, he took several scholars and poets back to his capital, Ghazni; Al-Biruni was one of them. He arrived in Ghazni as a hostage.
Al-Biruni's Kitab-ul-Hind, written in Arabic, is simple and lucid.
Al-Biruni adopted a distinctive structure in each chapter, beginning with a question, following this up with a description based on Sanskritic traditions, and concluding with a comparison with other cultures.
Al-Biruni depended almost exclusively on the works of Brahmanas, often citing passages from the Vedas, the Puranas, the Bhagavad Gita, the works of Patanjali, the Manusmriti, etc., to provide an understanding of Indian society.
Al-Biruni tried to explain the caste system by looking for parallels in other societies.
Al-Biruni's has given account of the system of vamas.

Ibn Battuta's

Ibn Battuta's book of travels, called Rihia, written in Arabic, provides extremely rich and interesting details about the social and cultural life in the subcontinent in the fourteenth century.
This Moroccan traveller was born in Tangier into one of the most respectable and educated families known for their expertise in Islamic religious law or shari'a.
Travelling overland through Central Asia, Ibn Battuta reached Sind in 1333.
The Sultan was impressed by his scholarship, and appointed him the qazi or judge of Delhi.
Some of the best examples of Ibn Battuta's strategies of representation are evident in the ways in which he described the coconut and the paan, two kinds of plant produce that were completely unfamiliar to his audience.
Ibn Battuta described Delhi as a vast city, with a great population, the largest in India. Daulatabad (in Maharashtra) was no less, and easily rivalled Delhi in size.
The state evidently took special measures to encourage merchants. Almost all trade routes were well supplied with inns and guest houses. Ibn Battuta was also amazed by the efficiency of the postal system which allowed merchants to not only send information and remit credit across long distances, but also to dispatch goods required at short notice.

Francois Bernier

Francois Bemier, a Frenchman, was a doctor, political philosopher and historian
Bemier was closely associated with the Mughal court, as a physician to Prince Dara Shukoh, the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, and later as an intellectual and scientist, with Danishmand Khan, an Armenian noble at the Mughal court.
Bemier's book 'Travels in the Mughal Empire9 is marked by detailed observations critical insights and reflection. His account contains discussions trying to place the history of the Mughals within some sort of a universal framework.
He constantly compared Mughal India with contemporary Europe, generally emphasising the superiority of the latter. His representation of India works on the model of binary opposition, where India is presented as the inverse of Europe.
He also ordered the perceived differences hierarchically, so that India appeared to be inferior to the Western world.
This is perhaps one of the most poignant descriptions of Sati practice by Bernier: “At Lahore I saw a most beautiful young widow sacrificed, who could not have been more than twelve years of age.

Timeline - Some travelers who Left Accounts

(Note: Unless otherwise indicated, the dates mentioned are those of the lifespan of the traveller.)