CRQ Dar al Islam
Analyze the documents and answer the short-answer questions that follow each document.
Document 1: Expansion of Islamic Caliphates
Document 2
I left Tangier, my birthplace, on Thursday, 2nd Rajab 725 [June 14, 1325], with the intention of making the Pilgrimage to the Holy House [at Mecca] and the Tomb of the Prophet [at Medina].
Tripoli Some time later I joined a pilgrim caravan...Then we set out for Tripoli, accompanied for several stages by a hundred or more horsemen as well as a detachment of archers, out of respect for whom the Arab robbers kept their distance. . . . There is an uninterrupted chain of bazaars from Alexandria to Cairo, and from Cairo to Assuan [Aswan] in Upper Egypt.
Cairo I arrived at length at Cairo, mother of all cities and seat of Pharaoh the tyrant. It is said that in Cairo there are twelve thousand water-carriers who transport water on camels, and thirty thousand hirers of mules and donkeys, and that on the Nile there are thirty-six thousand boats belonging to the sultan and his subjects which sail upstream to Upper Egypt and downstream to Alexandria and Damietta, laden with goods and profitable merchandise of all kinds. . . .The madrasas [Islamic colleges] of Cairo cannot be counted. . . . As for the Maristan, which lies "between the two castles" near the mausoleum of Sultan Qala'un, no description is adequate to its beauties.
Damascus I entered Damascus on Thursday 9th Ramadan 726 [9th August, 1326], and lodged at the Malikite college. Damascus surpasses all other cities in beauty, and no description can do justice to its charms. The Cathedral Mosque, known as the Umayyad Mosque, is the most magnificent mosque in the world.
Mecca I got rid of my tailored clothes, bathed, and putting on the pilgrim’s garment, I prayed and dedicated myself to the pilgrimage. The inhabitants of Mecca have many excellent and noble activities and qualities. They are good to the humble and weak, and kind to strangers. When any of them makes a feast, he begins by giving food to the religious devotees who are poor and without resources. Source: “Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354 in “Internet History Sourcebooks,” Fordham University. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1354-ibnbattuta.asp found through the Stanford History Education Group https://sheg.stanford.edu/ibn-battuta.
The following are excerpts from Ibn Battuta’s accounts of his travels (1325-1354). After traveling throughout the Muslim world, Ibn Battuta was instructed by the Sultan of Morocco to record his stories. Twenty years after they took place, he dictated his tales to a writer named Ibn Jazayy who wrote them into a travel guide called the Rihla. Some scholars believe that some of his Ibn Battuta’s accounts were made up or based on what he heard from other travelers and that Ibn Jazayy filled in some of the gaps in Ibn Battuta’s recollections with descriptions from the writings of other travelers.
Question 1
Explain the historical circumstances that led to the development of the Islamic Caliphates depicted in Document one ( the map above. )
Group 2
Using document 2, explain Ibn Battuta’s audience for writing about his travels in Asia and Africa.
Question 2a
Explain the extent to which Ibn Battuta’s Rihla is a reliable source of evidence for understanding the Muslim world in the 1300s. In your response, be sure to include your evaluation of the source’s reliability and your reasoning for that evaluation. [
Question 3
Identify and explain a cause-and-effect relationship associated with the historical developments in documents 1 and 2. Be sure to use evidence from both documents 1 and 2 in your response.
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