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Themes In World History Chapter 5 Nomadic Empires

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NCERT Solution For Class 11 History Themes In World History

Nomadic Empires Here is the CBSE History Chapter 5 for Class 11 students. Summary and detailed explanation of the lesson, including the definitions of difficult words. All of the exercises and questions and answers from the lesson's back end have been completed. NCERT Solutions for Class 11 History Nomadic Empires Chapter 5 NCERT Solutions for Class 11 History Nomadic Empires Chapter 5 The following is a summary in Hindi and English for the academic year 2021-2022. You can save these solutions to your computer or use the Class 11 History.

Question 1

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What is meant by the term ‘barbarian’?

Solution

The term ‘barbarian’ is derived from the Greek barbaros which meant a non-Greek, someone whose language sounded like a random noise: ‘bar-bar’. In Greek texts, barbarians were depicted like children, unable to speak or reason properly, cowardly, effeminate, luxurious, cruel, slothful, greed and politically unable to govern themselves.

The stereotype passed to the Romans who used the term for the Germanic tribes, the Gauls and the Huns. The Chinese had different terms for the steppe barbarians but none of them carried a positive meaning.

Question 2

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What are the sources of nomadic societies?

Solution

The steppe dwellers themselves usually produced no literature, so our knowledge of nomadic societies comes mainly from chronicles, travelogues and documents produced by city-based litterateurs.

These authors often produced extremely ignorant and biased reports of nomadic life.

Question 3

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Who had done the most valuable research on the Mongols? Describe.

Solution

Perhaps the most valuable research on the Mongols was done by Russian scholars starting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the Tsarist regime consolidated its control over Central Asia.

This work was produced within a colonial milieu and was largely survey notes produced by travellers, soliders, merchants and antiquarian scholars.

In the early twentieth century, after the extension of the the soviet republics in the regime, a new Marxist historiography argued that the prevalent mode of production determined the nature of social relations.

Question 4

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What is also mean by the transcontinental span of the Mongol empire?

Solution

The transcontinental span of the Mongol empire also meant that the sources available to scholars are written in a vast number of languages. Perhaps the most crucial are the sources in Chinese, Mongolian, Persian and Arabic, but vital materials are also available in Italian, Latin, French and Russian. Often the same text was produced in two languages with differing contents.

Question 5

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Describe the Capture of Bukhara as accounted by Juwaini.

Solution

Juwaini, a late-thirteenth-century Persian chronicler of the Mongol rulers of Iran, carried an account of the capture of Bukhara in 1220. After the conquest of the city, Juwaini reported, Genghis Khan went to the festival ground where the rich residents of the city were and addressed them: ‘O’ people know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you’… Now one man had escaped from Bukhara after its capture and had come to Khurasan. He was questioned about the fate of the city and replied: ‘They came, they [mined the walls], they burnt, they slew, they plundered and they departed.’

Question 6

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State the estimated extent of Mongol Destruction.

Solution

Estimated extent of Mongol Destruction:

All reports of Genghis Khan’s campaigns agree at the vast number of people killed following the capture of cities that defied his authority. The numbers are staggering: at the capture of Nishapur in 1220, 1,747,000 people were massacred while the toll at Herat in 1222 was 1,600,000 people and at Baghdad in 1258, 800,000. Smaller towns suffered proportionately: Nasa, 70,000 dead; Baihaq district, 70,000; and at Tun in the Kuhistan province, 12,000 individuals were executed.
Juwaini, the Persian chronicler of the Ilkhans stated that 1,300,000 people were killed in Merv. He reached the figure because it took thirteen days to count the dead and each day they counted 100,000 corpses.

Question 7

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“They came (mined the walls), they burnt, they slew, they plundered and they departed”. Who said these words ?

Solution

Juwaini, a latethirteenth -century Persian chronicler of the Mongol rulers of Iran, carried an account of the capture of Bukhara in 1220. After the conquest of the city, Juwaini reported, Genghis Khan went to the festival ground where the rich residents of the city were and addressed them: ‘O’ people know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins.
If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you’...... Now one man had escaped from Bukhara after its capture and had come of Khurasan.
He was questioned about the fate of the city and replied: ‘They came, they [mined the walls], they burnt, they slew, they plundered and they departed.’

Question 8

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Mention the estimated extent of Mongol Destruction.

Solution

All reports of Genghis Khan’s campaigns agree at the vast number of people killed following the capture of cities that defied his authority. The numbers are staggering: at the capture of Nishapur in 1220,1,747,000 people were massacred while the toll at Herat in 1222 was 1,600,000 people and at Baghdad in 1258, 800,000. Smaller towns suffered proportionately: Nasa, 70,000 dead; Baihaq district, 70,000; and at Tun in the Kuhistan province, 12,000 individuals were executed.

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(M.Imp)

Question 9

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Who was Juwaini?

Solution

Juwaini was a late-thirteenth-century Persian chronicler of the Mongol rulers of Iran.

Question 10

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Why was trade so significant to the Mongols ?

Solution

In fact, the scant resources of the steppe lands drove Mongols and other Central Asian nomads to trade and barter with their sedentary neighbours in China. This was mutually beneficial to both parties: agricultural produce and iron utensils from China were exchanged for horses, furs and game trapped in the steppe.

Commerce was not without its tensions, especially as the two groups unhesitatingly applied military pressure to enhance profit. When the mongol lineages allied they could force their Chinese neighbours to offer better terms and trade ties were sometimes discarded in favour of outright plunder. This relationship would alter when the Mongols were in disarray. The Chinese would then confidently assert their influence in the steppe.

These frontier wars were more debilitating to settled societies. They dislocated agriculture and plundered cities. Nomads, on the other hand could retreat away from the zone of conflict with marginal losses.

Question 11

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Why did Genghis Khan feel the need to fragment the Mongol tribes into new social and military groupings ?

Solution

Genghis khan felt the need of fragmentation of the Mongol tribes into new social and military groupings for the following reasons:

(i) Mongols were their own separate identities and were the inhabitants of the steppe region. Genghis khan wanted to bring then in contact with other tribals through social grouping or ties like mirage with other tribal communities.

(ii) Mongols were very brave taking the advantage of their bravery Genghis Khan organized them into military groups and established a formidable empire.

Question 12

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What do you know about the "Great wall of China".

Solution

Throughout its history, China suffered extensively from nomad intrusion and different regimes - even as early as the eighth century BCE - built fortifications to protect their subjects.

Starting from the third century BCE, these fortifications started to be integrated into a common defensive outwork known today as the "Great Wall of China" a dramatic visual testament to the disturbance and fear perpetrated by nomadic raids on the agrarian societies of north China.

Write a short note on the "Great wall of China".

Question 13

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How do later Mongol reflections on the yasa bring out the uneasy relationship they had with the memory of Genghis Khan?

Solution

By the middle of the thirteenth century the Mongols had emerged as a unified people and just created the largest empire the world had ever seen. They ruled over very sophisticated urban socities, with their respective histories, cultures and laws.

Although the Mongols dominated the region politically, they were a numerical minority. The one way in which they could protect their identity and distinctiveness was through a claim to a sacred law given to them by their ancestors.

The yasa was in all probability a compilation of the customary traditions of the Mongol tribes but in referring to it as Genghis Khan’s code of law, the Mongol people also laid claim to a ‘lawgiver’ like Moses and Solomon, whose authoritative code could be imposed on their subjects.

The yasa served to cohere the Mongol people around a body of shared beliefs, it acknowledged their affinity to Genghis Khan and his descendants and, even as they absorbed different aspects of a sedentary lifestyle , them the confidence to retain their ethnic identity and impose their ‘law’ upon their defeated subject.

It was an extremely empowering ideology and although Genghis Khan may not have planned such a legal code, it was certainly inspired by his vision and was vital in the construction of a Mongol universal dominion.

Question 14

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Describe the military system of Genghis Khan.

Solution

His army was organised according to the old steppe system of decimal units: in divisions of 10s, 100s, 1,000s and [notionally] 10,000 soldiers. In the old system the clan and the tribe would have coexisted within the decimal units. Genghis Khan stopped this practice.

He divided the old tribal groupings and distributed their members into new military units. Any individual who tried to move from his/her allotted group without permission received harsh punishment. The largest unit of soldiers, approximating 10,000 soldiers (tuman) now included fragmented groups of people from a variety of different tribes and clans.

This altered the old steppe social order integrating different lineages and clans and providing them with a new identity derived from its progenitor, Genghis Khan. The new military contingents were required to serve under his four sons and specially chosen captains of his army units called noyan.

Also important within the new realm were a band of followers who had served Genghis Khan loyally through grave adversity for many years. Genghis Khan publicly honoured some of these individuals as his ‘bloodbrothers’ (anda); yet others, freemen of a humbler rank, were given special ranking as his bondsmen (naukar), a title that marked their close relationship with their master.

This ranking did not preserve the rights of the old clan chieftains; the new aristocracy derived its status from a close relationship with the Great Khan of the Mongols.

Question 15

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'If history relies upon written records produced by city- based literati, nomadic societies will always receive a hostile representation.' Would you agree with this statement?

Does it explain the reason why Persian chronicles produced such inflated figures of casualties resulting from Mongol campaigns ?

Solution

Yes, I agree with the statement .The reasons are:

(i) Persian chronicles produced inflated figures of casualties resulting from Mongol campaigns to prove their cruelty or to prove them as cruel assassins.

(ii) There were vast difference between The secret society of Mongol and macro polo’s Travelogues in terms of event and their descriptions.

(iii) Being the transcontinental span of Mongol empire, the sources were written in different languages

The nature of documentation on the Mongols and any nomadic regime makes it virtually impossible to understand the inspiration that led to the confederation of fragmented groups of people in the pursuit of an ambition to create an empire.

Question 16

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Keeping the nomadic element of the Mongol and Bedouin societies in mind, how, in your opinion, did their respective historical experiences differ?
What explanations would you suggest account for these difference ?

Solution

The steppe dwellers themselves usually produced no literature, so our knowledge of nomadic societies comes Mongols are quite different and the Italian and Latin versions of Marco Polo’s travels to the Mongol court do not match.

Since the Mongols produced little literature on their own and were instead 'written about' by literati from foreign cultural milieus, historians have to often double as philologists to pick out the meanings of phrases for their closest approximation to Mongol usage.

The work of scholars like Igor de Rachewiltz on The Secret History of the Mongols and Gerhard Doerfer on Mongol and Turkic terminologies that infiltrated into the Persian language brings out the difficulties involved instudying the history of the Central Asian nomads.

As we will notice through the remainder of this chapter, despite their ineredible achievement there is much about Genghis Khan and the Mongol world empire still awaiting the diligent scholar’s scrutiny.

Question 17

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What do you know about the military achievements of Genghis Khan?

Solution

Genghis Khan died in 1227, having spent most of his life in military combat. His military achievements were astounding and they were largely a result of his ability to innovate and transform different aspects of steppe combat into extremely effective military strategies.

The horse-riding skills of the Mongols and the Turks provided speed and mobility to the army: their abilities as rapid-shooting archers from horseback were further perfected during regular hunting expeditions which doubled as field manoeuvres.

The steppe cavalry had always travelled light and moved quickly, but not it brought all its knowledge of the terrain and the weather to do the unimaginable: they carried out campaigns in the depths of winter, treating frozen rivers as highways to enemy cities and camps. Nomads were conventionally at a loss against fortified encampments but Genghis Khan learnt the importance of siege engines and naphtha bombardment very quickly.

His engineers prepared light portable equipment. Which was used against opponents with devastating effect.

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Question 18

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What do you know about Yasa of Genghis Khan?

Solution

Yasa:

In 1221, after the conquest of Bukhara, Genghis Khan had assembled the rich Muslim residents at the festival ground and had admonished them. He called them sinners and warned them to compensate for their sins by parting with their hidden wealth. The episode was dramatic enough to be painted and for a long time afterwards people still remembered the incident. In the late sixteenth century, ‘Abdullah Khan, a distant descendant of Jochi, Genghis Khan’s eldest son, went to the same festival ground in Bukhara. Unlike Genghis Khan, however, ‘Abdullah Khan went to perform his holiday prayers there. His chronicler, Hafiz-i Tanish, reported this performance of Muslim piety by his master and included the surprising comment: ‘this was according to the yasa of Genghis Khan’.

Tips: -

(M.Imp.)

Question 19

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How Genghis Khan worked to systematically erase the old tribal identities of different groups who joined his confederacy ?
Discuss.

Solution

1. Genghis Khan worked to systematically erase the old tribal identities of the different groups who joined his confederacy. His army was organised according to the old steppe system of decimal units: in divisions of 10s, 100s, 1,000s and [notionally] 10,000 soldiers.
In the old system the clan and the tribe would have coexisted within the decimal units. Genghis Khan stopped this practice. He divided the old tribal groupings and distributed their members into new military units. Any individual who tried to move from his/her allotted group without permission received harsh punishment.
The largest unit of soldiers, approximation 10,000 soldiers (tuman) now included fragmented groups of people from a variety of different tribes and clans.
This altered the old steppe social order integrating different lineages and clans and providing them with a new identity derived from its progenitor, Genghis Khan.

2. The new military contigents were required to serve under this four sons and specially chosen captains of his army units called Noyan. Also important within the new realm were a band of followeres who had served Genghis Khan loyally through grave adversity for many years. Genghis Khan publicly honoured some of these individuals as his 'blood-brothers' (anda); yet others, freemen of humbler rank, were given special ranking as his bondsmen (naukar), a title that marked their close relationship with their master.
This ranking did not preserve the rights of the old clan chieftains; the new aristocracy derived its status from a close relationship with the Great Khan of the Mongols.

3. In this new hierarchy, Genghis Khan assigned the responsibility of governing the newly-conquered people to his four sons. These comprised the four ulus, a term that did not originally mean fixed territories. Genghis Khan’s lifetime was still the age of rapid conquests and expanding domains, where frontiers were still extremely fluid.
For example, the eldest son, Jochi, received the Russian steppes but the farthest extent of his territory, ulus, was indeterminate: it extended as far west as his horses could roam. The second son, Chaghatai, was given the Transoxanian steppe and lands north of the Pamir mountains adjacent to those of his brother.
Presumably, these lands would shift as Jochi marched westward. Genghis Khan had indicated that his third son, Ogodei, would succeed him as the Great Khan and on accession the Prince established his capital at Karakorum.
The youngest son, Toluy, received the ancestral lands of Mongolia. Genghis Khan envisaged that his sons would rule the empire collectively, and to underline this point, military contingents (tama) of the individual princes were placed in each ulus.
The sense of a dominion shared by the members of the family was underlined at the assembly of chieftains, quriltais, where all decisions relating to the family or the state for the forthcoming season-campaigns, distribution of plunder, pasture land and succession were collectively taken.

Question 20

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Describe the administrative system of the Mongols.

Solution

The Mongol rulers recruited administrators and armed contingents from people of all ethnic groups and religions. Theirs was a multi-ethnic, multilingual, multi-religious regime that did not feel threatened by its pluralistic constitution. This was utterly unusual for the time, and historians are only now studying the ways in which the Mongols provided ideological models for later regimes (like the Mughals of India) to follow.

Question 21

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How does the following account enlarge upon the character of the Pax Mongolica created by the Mongols by the middle of the thirteenth century?

The Franciscan monk, William ofRubruck, was sent by Louis IX of France on an embassy to the great Khan mongke’s court. He reached Karakorum, the capital ofMongke, in 1254 and come upon a woman from Lorraine(in France) called Paquette, who had been brought from Hungary and was in the service of one of the prince’s wives who was a Nestorian Christian. At the court he came across a Parisian goldsmith named Guillaume Boucher, ‘whose brother dwelt on the Grand Pont in Paris’. This man was first employed by the Queen Sorghaqtani and then by Mongke’s younger brother. Rubruck found that at the great court festivals the Nestorian priests were admitted first, with their regalia, to bless the Grand Khan’s cup, and were followed by the Muslim clergy and Buddhist and Taoist monks.

Solution

The account depicts the character of the Pax Mongolica by the middle of the 13th century.

(i) Mongol rulers were not fanatics and anxious to get the blessings of all the people. They recruited administrators and armed forces from people of all ethnic groups and religions. There was a multilingual, multi- religious regime that did not feel threatened by its pluralistic constitution.

(ii) It became clear from the above incident that the French MONARCH LOUIES iX had sent his ambassador William of Rubruck to Karakorum , the capital of Mongke in 1254 this depicts that Mongols rulers had established a well-knit with their neighbours.

(iii) Guillaume Boucher provides that Mongol rulers lived with great pomp and show and they had brought servants to serve them from different parts of the world.They were paid good salaries. That is why they reached to serve Mongol court from far away.

Question 22

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Elaborate the research followed by David Ayalon regarding the code of law of Genghis Khan.

Solution

Following the research of David Ayalon, recent work on the yasa, the code of law that Genghis Khan was supposed to have promulgated at the quriltai of 1206, has elaborated on the complex ways in which the memory of the Great Khan was fashioned by his successors.

In its earliest formulation the term was written as yasaq which meant 'law', 'decree' or 'order'. Indeed, the few details that we possess about the yasaq concern administrative regulations: the organisation cf the hunt, the army and the postal system. By the middle of the thirteenth century, however, the Mongols had started using the related term yasa in a more general sense to mean the ‘legal code of Genghis Khan’.

We may be able to understand the changes in the meaning of the term if we take a look at some of the other developments that occurred at the same time. By the middle of the thirteenth century the Mongols had emerged as a unified people and just created the largest empire the world had ever seen.

They ruled over very sophisticated urban societies, with their respective histories, cultures and laws. Although the Mongols dominated the region politically, they were a numerical minority.
The one way in which they could protect their identity and distinctiveness was through a claim to a sacred law given to them by their ancestor. The yasa was in all probability a compilation of the customary traditions of the Mongol tribes but in referring to it as Genghis Khan’s code of law, the Mongol people also laid claim to a 'lawgiver' like Moses and Solomon, whose authoritative code could be imposed on their subjects.

The yasa served to cohere the Mongol people around a body of shared beliefs, it acknowledged their affinity to Genghis Khan and his descendants and, even as they absorbed different aspects of a sedentary lifestyle, gave them the confidence to retain their ethnic identity and impose their 'law' upon their
defeated subjects.
It was an extremely empowering ideology and although Genghis Khan may not have planned such a legal code, it was certainly inspired by his vision and was vital in the construction of a Mongol universal dominion.

Tips: -

(Imp)

Question 23

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Who was the Persian chronicler of the Mongol rulers of Iran?

Solution

Juwaini

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