NCERT Solutions for Class 12 History Chapter 5: Through the Eyes of Travellers (NCERT 2026–27)
These Class 12 History Chapter 5 solutions cover Through the Eyes of Travellers – Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century), Theme 5 of Themes in Indian History – Part II, updated for the 2026–27 session. The chapter studies how the accounts of three foreign travellers — Al-Biruni from Uzbekistan (eleventh century), Ibn Battuta from Morocco (fourteenth century) and the Frenchman François Bernier (seventeenth century) — enrich our knowledge of the social, economic and cultural life of the subcontinent. Below you get step-by-step answers to every NCERT exercise question (including the map-work and project questions), plus key terms, extra practice, MCQs, Assertion–Reason and FAQs.
Class: 12Subject: HistoryBook: Themes in Indian History – Part IIChapter: 5 (Theme 5)Period: c. tenth to seventeenth centurySession: 2026–27
Travellers who came to the subcontinent from very different social and cultural worlds noticed everyday practices that local writers took for granted, leaving behind unusually rich descriptions of society. This chapter focuses on three of them. Al-Biruni (973–1048), a scholar from Khwarizm fluent in many languages, came to India after Sultan Mahmud’s invasions and wrote the Kitab-ul-Hind in Arabic, a careful, comparative study of religion, philosophy, the caste system, science and customs. Ibn Battuta (1304–77), a Moroccan globe-trotter who served as qazi of Delhi under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, recorded in his Rihla the excitement of unfamiliar things — the coconut and paan, busy cities and bazaars, the postal system, and the condition of slaves and women. François Bernier (1620–88), a French doctor and philosopher attached to the Mughal court, wrote Travels in the Mughal Empire, constantly comparing ‘East’ and ‘West’ and projecting Mughal India as a tyrannical land lacking private property — a view that later shaped ideas such as ‘oriental despotism’ and the ‘Asiatic mode of production’. Read together, and read critically, their accounts give us a tantalising glimpse of social life between the tenth and seventeenth centuries.
Key Terms & Concepts
Kitab-ul-Hind: Al-Biruni’s voluminous Arabic work in 80 chapters on Indian religion, philosophy, festivals, astronomy, customs, weights and measures, laws and metrology; written in a simple, lucid, almost geometric structure (question → Sanskritic description → comparison).
Rihla: Ibn Battuta’s book of travels in Arabic, recording the social and cultural life of the fourteenth-century subcontinent; dictated to Ibn Juzayy on the orders of the Moroccan ruler.
Travels in the Mughal Empire: Bernier’s account, marked by detailed observation and critical comparison of Mughal India with contemporary Europe, generally emphasising European superiority.
Barriers to understanding: the three obstacles Al-Biruni identified — language (Sanskrit being very different from Arabic/Persian), differences in religious beliefs and practices, and the self-absorption and insularity of the local population.
Varna / caste system: the four-fold social order (Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra) Al-Biruni described from normative Sanskrit texts; he sought parallels in ancient Persia but disapproved of the notion of pollution as contrary to the laws of nature.
Qazi: a judge administering Islamic law (shari‘a); Ibn Battuta served as qazi of Delhi and of the Maldives.
Uluq and dawa: the two kinds of Indian postal system Ibn Battuta admired — the horse-post (uluq) and the faster foot-post (dawa), which let news reach Delhi from Sind in just five days.
Camp towns: Bernier’s (oversimplified) term for Mughal cities, which he claimed owed their existence to and depended on the imperial camp, declining when the court moved out.
Karkhanas: the imperial workshops where artisans (embroiderers, goldsmiths, painters, etc.) worked under a master; Bernier used them to argue that there was activity but little progress.
Oriental despotism & Asiatic mode of production: later theoretical ideas — Montesquieu’s notion that Asian rulers held absolute power over subjugated, property-less subjects, and Karl Marx’s concept of a stagnant society of egalitarian villages with surplus appropriated by the state — both influenced by Bernier’s account.
Sati: the practice of widow-burning, which Bernier described in detail (including the ‘child sati’ at Lahore) as a marker of difference between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ societies.
NCERT Exercise — Full Solutions
All questions below are reproduced verbatim from the NCERT textbook’s end-of-chapter exercise. Answers are original, written in CBSE exam-ready style.
Answer in 100–150 words
1. Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.
ANSWERThe Kitab-ul-Hind was written in Arabic by Al-Biruni in the eleventh century. It is a voluminous text, simple and lucid in style, divided into 80 chapters on subjects such as religion and philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, manners and customs, social life, weights and measures, iconography, laws and metrology.Generally, Al-Biruni adopted a distinctive, almost geometric structure in each chapter: he began with a question, followed it with a description based on Sanskritic traditions, and concluded with a comparison with other cultures. Scholars trace this precise, predictable arrangement to his mathematical orientation.Al-Biruni was well versed in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and other languages, and depended largely on Brahmanical texts — the Vedas, Puranas, Bhagavad Gita, Manusmriti and the works of Patanjali. He probably wrote for peoples living along the frontiers of the subcontinent, and intended his work as both a help for discussing religion with the Hindus and a repertory of information for those wishing to associate with them.
2. Compare and contrast the perspectives from which Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote their accounts of their travels in India.
ANSWERIbn Battuta (fourteenth century) wrote with the curiosity of an inveterate traveller. He valued experience gained through travel above bookish knowledge and was excited by everything novel and unfamiliar — the coconut and paan, crowded cities and bazaars, the efficient postal system. He described these things vividly so that his audience, who had never seen them, could be impressed and entertained by accounts of distant yet accessible worlds.Bernier (seventeenth century) belonged to a different intellectual tradition. A doctor and political philosopher, he was preoccupied with comparing and contrasting India with Europe (especially France), almost always to show India as inferior. He worked on a model of binary opposition, presenting India as the inverse of Europe and ordering differences hierarchically, hoping to influence European policy-makers.In short: Ibn Battuta recorded wonders to delight and inform; Bernier criticised to instruct. One celebrated difference as marvel, the other judged it as deficiency.
3. Discuss the picture of urban centres that emerges from Bernier’s account.
ANSWERBernier described Mughal cities as “camp towns” — towns that he believed owed their existence to, and depended for survival on, the imperial camp; they came into being when the court moved in and rapidly declined when it moved out. He argued they lacked viable social and economic foundations and survived only on imperial patronage.This was an oversimplified picture. In fact about 15 per cent of the population in the seventeenth century lived in towns — on average higher than the proportion in Western Europe at the time. There were many kinds of towns: manufacturing towns, trading towns, port-towns, sacred centres and pilgrimage towns.Their existence reflected the prosperity of merchant communities and professional classes. Merchants had strong community and kin ties and were organised into bodies such as the mahajans (headed by the sheth; in towns like Ahmedabad represented collectively by the nagarsheth). Urban groups also included physicians, teachers, lawyers, painters, architects, musicians and calligraphers — some dependent on imperial patronage, others serving different patrons or ordinary people in the bazaars.
4. Analyse the evidence for slavery provided by Ibn Battuta.
ANSWERIbn Battuta’s account shows that slaves were openly sold in markets like any other commodity and were regularly exchanged as gifts. When he reached Sind he purchased “horses, camels and slaves” as gifts for Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq; at Multan he presented the governor with “a slave and horse together with raisins and almonds”; and the Sultan, pleased with a preacher’s sermon, gave him “a hundred thousand tankas and two hundred slaves”.There was considerable differentiation among slaves. Some female slaves of the Sultan were experts in music and dance — Ibn Battuta enjoyed their performance at the wedding of the Sultan’s sister; others were employed by the Sultan to keep a watch on his nobles, while female scavengers acted as spies.Most slaves, however, were used for domestic labour — carrying men and women on palanquins or dola. The price of female slaves required for domestic work was very low, so most families who could afford to do so kept one or two. This evidence shows that slavery was widespread, varied in function and woven into both elite and ordinary households.
5. What were the elements of the practice of sati that drew the attention of Bernier?
ANSWEREuropean travellers often saw the treatment of women as a key marker of difference between Western and Eastern societies, and Bernier chose sati for detailed description. He noticed that while some women seemed to embrace death cheerfully, others were forced to die against their will.His most poignant account is the ‘child sati’ he witnessed at Lahore: a beautiful young widow, he thought no more than twelve years of age, who appeared “more dead than alive” as she approached the pit. She trembled and wept bitterly, but three or four Brahmanas, helped by an old woman, forced the unwilling victim onto the wood, tied her hands and feet so that she could not run away, and burnt her alive.What drew Bernier’s attention, then, were the coercion and helplessness of the widow, the cruelty of those who forced her, and his own difficulty in repressing his feelings. At the same time he recognised that women’s lives revolved around much else besides sati — their labour was crucial in agriculture and other production, and women from merchant families took part in commerce and even legal disputes.
Write a short essay (about 250–300 words) on the following:
6. Discuss Al-Biruni’s understanding of the caste system.
ANSWERAl-Biruni tried to understand the Indian caste system by looking for parallels in other societies. He noted that in ancient Persia four social categories were recognised — knights and princes; monks, fire-priests and lawyers; physicians, astronomers and other scientists; and finally peasants and artisans. By this comparison he suggested that social divisions were not unique to India. He also pointed out that within Islam all men were considered equal, differing only in their observance of piety.His description of the four varnas drew on normative Sanskrit texts. He recorded that the highest caste, the Brahmanas, were said to be created from the head of Brahman; the Kshatriya from the shoulders and hands; the Vaishya from the thigh; and the Shudra from the feet. He noted that, much as these classes differed, they lived together in the same towns and villages.Although he accepted this Brahmanical framework, Al-Biruni disapproved of the notion of pollution intrinsic to caste. He argued that everything which falls into impurity strives and succeeds in regaining its original purity — the sun cleanses the air, salt keeps the sea from being polluted — and that without such self-purification life on earth would be impossible. The idea of permanent social pollution, he insisted, was contrary to the laws of nature.His account, however, was shaped by his sources. Because he relied so heavily on Brahmanical texts, his picture was more rigid than reality: in real life groups such as the antyaja (“born outside the system”), though socially oppressed, were still included within economic networks as providers of inexpensive labour.
7. Do you think Ibn Battuta’s account is useful in arriving at an understanding of life in contemporary urban centres? Give reasons for your answer.
ANSWERYes, Ibn Battuta’s account is very useful for understanding fourteenth-century urban life, though it must be read with care. He found cities in the subcontinent full of exciting opportunities — densely populated, prosperous and disturbed only occasionally by wars and invasions. He described Delhi as a vast city with the largest population in India and Daulatabad as rivalling it in size.He gives vivid details of crowded streets and bright, colourful markets stocked with a wide variety of goods. Bazaars, he shows, were not only places of economic exchange but also hubs of social and cultural activity — most had a mosque and a temple, and some had spaces for dancers, musicians and singers (the Tarababad market at Daulatabad).His account helps historians infer that towns drew much of their wealth from the appropriation of surplus from villages, that Indian agriculture was highly productive (two crops a year), and that the subcontinent was well integrated into inter-Asian trade, with Indian textiles — fine muslin, silk, brocade and satin — in great demand. He also admired the efficient postal system (uluq and dawa).Such richness of detail makes the Rihla valuable. Yet it has limits: as an outsider Ibn Battuta highlighted the unfamiliar and the impressive, was not concerned to explain why towns prospered, and noticed little of the lives of ordinary working women. Read critically alongside other sources, his account remains an important window into contemporary urban life.
8. Discuss the extent to which Bernier’s account enables historians to reconstruct contemporary rural society.
ANSWERBernier’s account helps historians reconstruct rural society only to a limited extent, because it was shaped by his theory rather than by careful observation. His central claim was that crown ownership of land — the supposed absence of private property — was the root of every problem. He argued that, unable to pass land to their children, landholders avoided long-term investment, which led to the ruination of agriculture, oppression of the peasantry and a continuous decline in living standards for all except the ruling aristocracy. He even declared that “there is no middle state in India”, picturing society as undifferentiated impoverished masses ruled by a tiny rich minority.This picture is misleading on several counts. No Mughal official document supports the idea that the state was the sole owner of land; Abu’l Fazl described land revenue as “remunerations of sovereignty” — a tax on the crop, not rent on royally owned land. Rural society was actually marked by considerable social and economic differentiation: at one end the big zamindars with superior rights in land, at the other “untouchable” landless labourers, and in between a big peasant using hired labour for commodity production and a smaller peasant barely producing for subsistence.Yet Bernier’s account is not without value. His own descriptions occasionally hint at a more complex reality — he conceded that Bengal surpassed Egypt in fertility, that India produced silks, cotton and indigo, that vast quantities of the world’s gold and silver flowed into Hindustan, and that there existed a prosperous merchant community. Used critically, these glimpses help historians correct his exaggerations and reconstruct a differentiated, productive rural society very different from the “stagnant” one he imagined.
9. Read this excerpt from Bernier:
EXCERPT (reproduced from NCERT)“Numerous are the instances of handsome pieces of workmanship made by persons destitute of tools, and who can scarcely be said to have received instruction from a master. Sometimes they imitate so perfectly articles of European manufacture that the difference between the original and copy can hardly be discerned. Among other things, the Indians make excellent muskets, and fowling-pieces, and such beautiful gold ornaments that it may be doubted if the exquisite workmanship of those articles can be exceeded by any European goldsmith. I have often admired the beauty, softness, and delicacy of their paintings.”List the crafts mentioned in the passage. Compare these with the descriptions of artisanal activity in the chapter.
ANSWERCrafts mentioned in this passage: (i) making muskets, (ii) making fowling-pieces, (iii) goldsmithy / making gold ornaments, and (iv) painting. Bernier admires the artisans’ skill in imitating European articles and the beauty, softness and delicacy of their work, even though they often lacked proper tools and formal instruction.Comparison with the chapter’s descriptions of artisanal activity: elsewhere Bernier describes the imperial karkhanas or workshops, where in one hall embroiderers worked under a master, in others goldsmiths, painters, lacquer-varnishers, joiners, turners, tailors, shoe-makers, and manufacturers of silk, brocade and fine muslins. The chapter also notes the great demand for Indian textiles — cotton cloth, fine muslins, silks, brocade and satin — and the inflow of gold and silver in exchange for Indian manufactures.The contrast in attitude: in this excerpt Bernier praises the artisans’ talent, whereas in his karkhana description he insists that, although there was “a great deal of activity, there was little progress”, claiming artisans had no incentive to improve since profits were appropriated by the state. The passage therefore shows the tension and contradiction within Bernier’s own account — his admiration for Indian craftsmanship sits uneasily beside his theory that Mughal manufactures were everywhere in decline.
Map work
10. On an outline map of the world mark the countries visited by Ibn Battuta. What are the seas that he may have crossed?
ANSWERThis is a map-work question; on an outline map of the world, locate and label the following regions/countries Ibn Battuta visited (based on his itinerary in the chapter): Morocco (his birthplace, Tangier), Syria, Iraq, Persia (Iran), Yemen, Oman, the trading ports of the East African coast, the regions of Central Asia, India (the subcontinent — Sind, Multan, Delhi, the Malabar coast, Bengal, Assam), the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Sumatra (Indonesia) and China (as far as Beijing/Quanzhou); he had also made pilgrimage trips to Mecca (Arabia) and may even have visited Russia.Seas he may have crossed: the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea (and the Persian Gulf). Mark the routes connecting the coastal regions across these waters.
Projects (choose one)
11. Interview any one of your older relatives (mother/father/grandparents/uncles/aunts) who has travelled outside your town or village. Find out (a) where they went, (b) how they travelled, (c) how long did it take, (d) why did they travel (e) and did they face any difficulties. List as many similarities and differences that they may have noticed between their place of residence and the place they visited, focusing on language, clothes, food, customs, buildings, roads, the lives of men and women. Write a report on your findings.
ANSWER (guidance for a project)This is a project to be done on your own; here is a framework for your report. Choose one older relative and interview them, then organise your report under clear headings.(a) Where they went: note the place(s) visited (e.g. a relative who travelled from a village in Bihar to work in Delhi or Mumbai). (b) How they travelled: by bus, train, shared jeep or aeroplane. (c) How long it took: record the journey time and compare it with how long the same trip takes today. (d) Why they travelled: for work, education, a wedding, medical treatment or pilgrimage. (e) Difficulties faced: unfamiliar language, costly or crowded transport, finding food and lodging, homesickness.Similarities and differences they noticed: tabulate them under language (dialect, script), clothes, food (staple grains, spices), customs and festivals, buildings (houses, markets), roads and transport, and the lives of men and women (occupations, freedom of movement). End with a short reflection linking your relative’s experience to how the travellers in this chapter recorded what struck them as unusual in a new land.
12. For any one of the travellers mentioned in the chapter, find out more about his life and writings. Prepare a report on his travels, noting in particular how he described society, and comparing these descriptions with the excerpts included in the chapter.
ANSWER (guidance for a project)Choose one traveller and research his life and writings from reliable books or websites; a model outline using Ibn Battuta is given below (you may instead choose Al-Biruni or Bernier).Life: born in Tangier, Morocco, in 1304 into a family of legal scholars; left home in 1325 (aged twenty-two), made pilgrimage to Mecca, and travelled for about thirty years through North Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, the subcontinent and China before returning in 1354. He reached Sind in 1333, became qazi of Delhi under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, was later sent as envoy to China, and served as qazi in the Maldives. Writings: his Rihla, dictated to Ibn Juzayy.How he described society: note his fascination with the unfamiliar — the coconut and paan, crowded prosperous cities, busy bazaars, the efficient postal system, and the condition of slaves and women. Comparison with the excerpts: set your findings beside the chapter’s sources (his descriptions of the coconut, of Delhi, of Daulatabad’s Tarababad, and of the postal system) and comment on his strategy of comparing new things to things his readers already knew, in order to make distant worlds vivid.
Extra Practice Questions
Short Answer Type Questions
Q1. Why are the accounts of foreign travellers often more useful than those of indigenous writers?
ANSWERBecause they came from very different social and cultural environments, foreign travellers paid attention to everyday activities and practices that indigenous writers took for granted as routine and not worth recording. This difference in perspective makes their accounts of ordinary life unusually rich and interesting.
Q2. How did Al-Biruni come to India, and why did he develop an interest in it?
ANSWERAl-Biruni was taken from Khwarizm to Ghazni as a hostage after Sultan Mahmud invaded Khwarizm in 1017. In Ghazni he developed an interest in India; as the Punjab became part of the Ghaznavid empire, he learnt Sanskrit, studied religious and philosophical texts with Brahmana scholars, and probably travelled in the Punjab and northern India.
Q3. What were the three ‘barriers’ to understanding that Al-Biruni identified?
ANSWERThe first barrier was language — Sanskrit was so different from Arabic and Persian that ideas could not easily be translated. The second was the difference in religious beliefs and practices. The third was the self-absorption and insularity of the local population.
Q4. How does Ibn Battuta describe the coconut?
ANSWERIbn Battuta found the coconut tree among the most peculiar trees, looking exactly like a date-palm. He compared the nut to a man’s head — with what look like two eyes and a mouth, and the green inside resembling the brain, with an attached fibre like hair. People made cords from the fibre to sew ships and to make cables, instead of using iron nails.
Q5. Why did Bernier’s writings become so influential in Europe?
ANSWERUnlike Arabic and Persian accounts that circulated only as manuscripts, Bernier’s works were printed. Published in France in 1670–71 and quickly translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian, his account was reprinted many times. Through this wide circulation his ideas shaped Western theorists such as Montesquieu and, later, Karl Marx.
Long Answer Type Questions
Q1. How did the idea of ‘oriental despotism’ and the ‘Asiatic mode of production’ grow out of Bernier’s account?
ANSWERBernier insisted that in the Mughal Empire the emperor owned all the land and distributed it among his nobles, so there was no private property and no class of “improving” landlords. He painted the king as a ruler of “beggars and barbarians” presiding over ruined towns and barren fields. The French philosopher Montesquieu used this to develop the idea of oriental despotism — the view that Asian rulers held absolute authority over property-less subjects kept in poverty and subjugation. In the nineteenth century Karl Marx developed this further into the concept of the Asiatic mode of production, arguing that in pre-colonial India surplus was appropriated by the state, producing a stagnant society of numerous autonomous, internally egalitarian village communities presided over by an imperial court. Both ideas rested on Bernier’s flawed premise; as the chapter shows, Mughal documents do not support sole crown ownership of land, and rural society was in fact highly differentiated and far from stagnant.
Q2. Describe the system of communication and trade that Ibn Battuta observed in the subcontinent.
ANSWERIbn Battuta found the subcontinent well integrated into a global network stretching from China to North-West Africa and Europe. The state took special measures to encourage merchants: trade routes were well supplied with inns and guest houses. He was amazed by the postal system, of two kinds — the horse-post (uluq), with royal horses stationed every four miles, and the foot-post (dawa), with three stations per mile, where couriers ran shaking a bell-tipped rod and handed on the letter from stage to stage. This foot-post was so efficient that, while it took fifty days to reach Delhi from Sind, the news reports of spies reached the Sultan in just five days; it even carried the fruits of Khurasan, much desired in India. Trade was vigorous: Indian agriculture was productive (two crops a year), and Indian manufactures — especially cotton cloth, fine muslins, silk, brocade and satin — were in great demand in West Asia and Southeast Asia, fetching huge profits, with the finest muslins so costly that only the nobles and very rich could wear them.
Q3. “Travellers’ accounts must be read critically.” Discuss with reference to this chapter.
ANSWERTravellers’ accounts are valuable but must be read critically, because each observer’s observations were shaped by the context from which he came. Al-Biruni depended almost exclusively on Brahmanical Sanskrit texts, so his account of caste was more rigid than social reality, where oppressed groups like the antyaja were still part of economic networks. Ibn Battuta highlighted the unfamiliar and impressive to entertain his readers, was not concerned to explain why towns prospered, and noticed little of ordinary working women. Bernier wrote on a model of binary opposition to prove India inferior to Europe, exaggerating crown ownership of land and denying any “middle state”, though his own descriptions sometimes admit a more complex, prosperous reality. Moreover, almost all surviving accounts were written by men, so women’s travels and experiences are largely missing. Reading these texts critically — comparing them with one another and with Indian sources such as Abu’l Fazl’s records — lets historians use their rich detail while correcting their biases and silences.
MCQs & Assertion–Reason
1. Al-Biruni was born in 973 in Khwarizm, which lies in present-day:
(a) Morocco (b) Uzbekistan (c) Iran (d) Turkey
2. In which language did Al-Biruni write the Kitab-ul-Hind?
(a) Persian (b) Sanskrit (c) Arabic (d) Turkish
3. The Kitab-ul-Hind is divided into how many chapters?
For each Assertion–Reason question, choose: (A) Both true and the Reason correctly explains the Assertion; (B) Both true but the Reason is not the correct explanation; (C) Assertion true, Reason false; (D) Assertion false, Reason true.
A-R 1. Assertion: Al-Biruni disapproved of the notion of pollution intrinsic to the caste system.
Reason: He argued that everything which falls into impurity strives and succeeds in regaining its original purity, so permanent social pollution is contrary to the laws of nature.
A-R 2. Assertion: Ibn Battuta valued bookish knowledge more than experience gained through travel.
Reason: He loved travelling and went to far-off places exploring new worlds and peoples.
A-R 3. Assertion: Bernier described Mughal cities as “camp towns”.
Reason: He believed these towns owed their existence to, and depended for survival on, the imperial camp.
A-R 4. Assertion: Mughal official documents confirm that the state was the sole owner of all land.
Reason: Abu’l Fazl described land revenue as “remunerations of sovereignty” — a tax on the crop, not rent on royally owned land.
A-R 5. Assertion: We have practically no accounts of travel left by women of this period.
Reason: Women did not travel at all during the tenth to seventeenth centuries.
Answer key: 1-(A), 2-(D), 3-(A), 4-(D), 5-(C).
Exam Tips & Common Mistakes
How to score full marks in this chapter
Anchor every answer to the three travellers and their books — Al-Biruni (Kitab-ul-Hind, 11th c.), Ibn Battuta (Rihla, 14th c.) and Bernier (Travels in the Mughal Empire, 17th c.) — with their dates and home countries. For comparison questions use a clear two-sided structure. Always show the critical angle: Al-Biruni’s dependence on Brahmanical texts, Ibn Battuta’s focus on the unfamiliar, and Bernier’s binary ‘East vs West’ model and the way it fed ‘oriental despotism’ and the ‘Asiatic mode of production’. Quote crisp textbook keywords — qazi, uluq, dawa, karkhanas, mahajan, nagarsheth, antyaja, lokasangraha — and remember that almost all accounts were written by men.
Common mistakes to avoid
Mixing up the travellers — Al-Biruni (Uzbekistan), Ibn Battuta (Morocco) and Bernier (France) are from different centuries.
Saying the Kitab-ul-Hind was written in Persian — it was written in Arabic.
Accepting Bernier’s claim of crown ownership of land as fact — the chapter shows it was an oversimplification not supported by Mughal documents.
Confusing uluq (horse-post) with dawa (foot-post).
Treating Al-Biruni’s rigid description of caste as social reality — in practice the system was more flexible.
Leaving the map-work or project questions blank — attempt them with labelled regions or a structured report.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Class 12 History Chapter 5 about?
Chapter 5, Through the Eyes of Travellers, examines how the accounts of three foreign travellers — Al-Biruni (11th century, from Uzbekistan), Ibn Battuta (14th century, from Morocco) and François Bernier (17th century, from France) — help us reconstruct the social, economic and cultural life of the subcontinent between the tenth and seventeenth centuries, and why their accounts must be read critically.
Who were the three travellers studied in this chapter?
Al-Biruni, who wrote the Kitab-ul-Hind in Arabic; Ibn Battuta, the Moroccan globe-trotter who wrote the Rihla and served as qazi of Delhi; and François Bernier, the French doctor and philosopher who wrote Travels in the Mughal Empire.
How are the NCERT exercise questions of Chapter 5 organised?
The exercise has five “Answer in 100–150 words” questions (Q1–5), four “short essay (250–300 words)” questions (Q6–9), one map-work question (Q10) and two project questions (Q11–12) — all answered on this page.
