Detailed, Step-by-Step NCERT Solutions for 11 History Chapter 5 Nomadic Empires Questions and Answers were solved by Expert Teachers as per NCERT (CBSE) Book guidelines covering each topic in chapter to ensure complete preparation.
Nomadic Empires NCERT Solutions for Class 11 History Chapter 5
Nomadic Empires Questions and Answers Class 11 History Chapter 5
Question 1.
Why was trade so significant to the Mongols?
Answer:
The steppes of Central Asia had extreme climate and nomadic as, also hunter-gatherer tribes could only live there. Food grains was not grown there hence, only trade could help their survival. The scant resources of the steppe lands drove Mongols and other Central Asian nomads to trade and bartar with settled people in China.
Question 2.
Why did Genghis Khan feel the need to fragment the Mongol tribes into new social and military groupings?
Answer:
Reasons for fragmentation of Mongol tribes—
(i) There were a number of tribes divided into patrilineal lineages. There were some richer families but a majority
of them was poor. This caused conflicts between them, particularly, when game and stored provisions ran out or drought be fall in steppe.
(ii) The society was splited and exploited by the rulers of China because of no confederacy formed till then.
(iii) An organised military pressure could only make the raids successful and enhance their profit in the trade i.e. exchange of game, horses etc. for agricultural produce and iron utensils.
(iv) During to lack of unity, Genghis Khan (Temujin) himself had to suffer a lot during his youth. His blood-brother Jamuqa also had turned hostile to him.
The above bitter experiences during youth were formed motive that pressed Genghis Khan to fragment the Mongol tribes into new social and military groupings.
Question 3.
How do later Mongol reflections on the yasa bring out the uneasy relationship they had with the memory of Genghis Khan?
Answer:
This fact is revealed from the research of David Ayacon who has stated the “Yasa” was written as Yasaq when Genghis Khan promulgated it as the quilt of 1206.
It was then meant law, decree or order i.e. administrative regulations, the organisation of the hunt, the army and the postal system. However, his descendants in thirteenth century, started using the term “Yasa” purported to legal code of Genghis Khan.
Perhaps, they would have felt shame to confine his term only to tribal communities especially because, till then, they began to rule over very sophisticated urban societies with respective histories, cultures and laws. They wanted to claim their ancestor as big as Moses and Soloman who were great rulers and not merely a chieftain of a nomadic tribe.
The second proof on their uneasy relationship is apparent from record of Hafiz-a-Tanish, a chronicler to Abdullah Khan, one of distant descendants of Genghis Khan who states his visit at the festival ground in Bukhara where Genghis Khan had extorted hidden money from rich Muslim residents under a myth that they were sinners and would attain purgation only when said wealth is handed over to him. Hafiz-i-Tanish says that Abdulla had gone there to perform his holiday prayer.
Question 4.
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 casualities resulting from Mongol campaigns?
Answer:
Yes, we are agree to this statement on the basis of following grounds
Reasons for contradiction in written history of nomadic societies .
(i) The work of scholars like Igor-de-Rachewiltz on “The secret History of the Mongols and Gorhard Doerfer. On Mongol and Turkic terminologies had infiltrated into the Persian language and made history of the central Asian nomads more difficult to understand.
(ii) Being the trans-continental span of the Mongol empire, the sources are written in several different languages.
(iii) There is difference between Mongqol-unniueatobeaan (The secret history of the Mongols) and Marco Polo’s travelogues in term of events and their description.
(iv) As we see in the chapter, in contrast to an eye witness report that 400 soldiers defended the citadel of Bukhara, II-Khanid chronicle reported that 30,000 soldiers were killed in the attack on the citadel. The reports also carried a statement of relief that times had changed and the great killings of the past were over.
Legacy of Genghis Khan was important, but for his descendants to appear as convincing heroes to a sedentary audience, they could no longer appear in quite the same way as their ancestor. On the basis of above grounds, we affirm the statement given for our opinion. Hence-opinion expressed on the basis of records described in the theme.
Question 5.
Keeping the nomadic element of the Mongol and Bedouin societies in mind, how, in your opinion, did their respective historical experiences differ? What explainations would you suggest account for these differences?
Answer:
| Historical | Bedouins |
| (i) These were tribes in the steppes of central Asia, a diverse body of people linked by similarity in language to Tatars, Khitan and Manchus in east and Turkic tribes to the west. | (i) These were Arab Tribes moving frequently from dry to green areas of the desert in search of food (dates) and fodder for cattle. |
| (ii) Some Mongols were pastoralists while others were hunter-gatherers. | (ii) These were pastoralists, agriculturist and trader because of central Islamic lands surrounded by seas from four sides. |
| (iii) A practice to erase the old tribal identities was adopted by Mongols. | (iii) Missionary practices were given colour of ruling instincts. Idolatry was given up. Caliphate was accepted as system of governance. |
| (iv) “Might is right” and plunder, massacre, arson etc. all unfair means were adopted to suppress the subject. | (iv) Expeditionary raids (ghazw) were made essential even in modified structure of Islam. It was practised regularly in the period of 400 years. All Caliphates and Sultanates under facade of Caliphate practised it one or other ways. |
| (v) Monarchy prevailed all the time of ruling period i.e. from 1167 to 1921 CE. | (v) Internal conficts or civil wars and sect envies took place. |
| (vi) These tribes were organised in a topography and landform unhabitable by common man. | (vi) The rivers and seas had provided simple opportunity of trading to the people. |
Explanation
(i) The neglected and suppressed tribes i.e. Tatars, Khitan, Manchus and the Mongols by rulers of China and conditions being tough to survive after the great wall of China built, they adopted fair and unfair means to rule over trans-continental empire.
(ii) The topography being prosperous with the opportunity of trade, agriculture etc., the caliphates were formed instrument of ruling which remained for as long as 600 years. In Sultanate also, Caliphate was accepted as a facade. Eg. Mahmud also wished to receive a title of Sultan from the then Caliph (Abbasids) because originally, he was belonged to a slave’s son.
Question 6.
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 Francis 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 came 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 Guillanme Boucher, whose brother dwelt on the Grand Point in Paris’.
This man was first employed by the queen Sorghagtani 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
Answer:
The above account makes it ex-facie that owing to climax develoment of trade connections through silk route, a number of facilities and incentives were provided with the traders under Mongol i.e. nomadic empire. This was the period when said empire was extended from Europe to China.
Trade was continued norm into Mongolia and to Karakorum. Travellers were given a pass (paiza) in Persia or gerege in Mongolian for safe conduct of the business. Baj tax was imposed on traders in order to raise capital for investment on such facilities.
Earlier attitude of massacre of all peasantry and the conversion of their fields into pasture lands had been restricted to a large extent. In the 1290’s, the Mongol ruler of Iran, Ghazan Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan’s youngest son Toluy, warned family members and other generals to avoid pillaging the peasantry.
Multi-culture administration we see, during Pax Mongolica as civil administrators were recruited from the conquered subordinated subjugated societies. Chinese secretaries deployed in Iran and Persian secretaries were in China. Gradually, the aristocratic pattern of ruling was turned into individual dynasties each ruling their separate Ulus (i.e. territorial administration).