4. The first map was made by an Arab cartographer, Al-Idrisi
in 1154CE. the second map was made by French cartographer
in 1720s. The difference in these map shows the development
of Cartography over years. When historians study history,
they should be careful because the word which we use today,
may have different meaning in the past.
5. A simple term like “foreigner” is used today to mean
someone who is not an Indian. In the medieval period, a
“foreigner” was any stranger who appeared in a given
village, someone who was not a part of that society or
culture. (In Hindi the term pardesi might be used to
describe such a person and in Persian, ajnabi.)
CHANGES IN TERMINOLOGY
6. Historians and their Sources
The use of paper in Medieval era increased when compared to
ancient history. Now, the historians need to study both the
archaeological sources and various written sources. studying
written sources is not a easy task. Written records may be
inaccurate and sometimes contain errors. these errors may
happen when manuscripts/chronicles were revised or while
coping the manuscripts. so historians need to refer many
sources to study the medieval history.
7. Historians and their Sources
EXAMPLE
14th-century chronicler Ziyauddin Barani wrote his
chronicle first in 1356 and another version two years later
which differ from each other. But historians did not know
about the existence of the first version until the 1960s as
it remained lost in large library collections.
8. Migrating people from all over the world
settled in the Indian subcontinent
because of the rich resources and
minerals available here. These people
interacted with each other, which led to
advancement in technology.
9. Agriculure developed and people cut down forest to make way
farm lands. Many forest-dwellers migrated and those who
remained started to till their lands and became peasants. With
the change in society, people grouped into jatis or sub-castes
and were ranked on the basis of their backgrounds and their
occupations. Rules and Regulations to manage the conduct of
members were framed by Jatis and enforced by an assembly of
elders, which also came to be known as jati panchayat. However,
jatis also had to follow the rules of the villages. Several villages
were governed by a chieftain.
10. Islam came to the subcontinent from the Northwest in the
seventh century. Quran is the holy book of Muslims. Islam
was interpreted in a variety of ways by its followers. There
were the Shia Muslims who believed that the Prophet
Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali, was the legitimate leader of
the Muslim community, and the Sunni Muslims who accepted
the authority of the early leaders (Khalifas) of the
community, and the succeeding Khalifas.
ISLAM
11. Brahmanas earned respect in the society for their knowledge
of Sanskrit texts and their dominant position was consolidated
by the support of their patrons– new rulers searching for
prestige. Another major development of this period was the
emergence of the idea of bhakti
12. The British historians divided the Indian history on the basis
of the religion of the rulers.
BRITISH AGE
HINDU AGE MUSLIM AGE
13. But later historians thought that division only on the
basis of religion is not enough. so they divided the
Indian history as
• Ancient
• Medieval
• Modern
