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Instructions: Write a useful summary and use the document as evidence for the prompt. Then source the document using Occasion, Author, or Purpose for a Particular Audience.
PROMPT: Using the documents provided and your knowledge of world history, analyze the degree to which the Mongol Empire affected societies of Eurasia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
SOURCE: Ibn Battuta, A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling, 1350s. This is excerpt is from Ibn Battuta's account regarding his travels to Yuan China. When Ibn Battuta finally returned to Morocco in the early 1350s, he was commissioned by Abu Inan Faris, the sultan of Morocco, to produce an account of his travels.
The first city I came to in China was El Zaitun [Quanzhou]. ...It is a large city, and in it they make the best flowered and color silks...preferred to those made in other places. ... When the magistrate of the city heard of my arrival, he wrote immediately to the Khan, who is their Emperor, to acquaint him of my having come from India.
It was strange enough that, one day, when I was at a feast which they had made for me, in came one of the great Muslim Fakeers [teachers]. ... [the] Emperor [of India had sent him] to China. ... In China he was put in office among the Muslims…
When we approached this city we were met by its judge, the presbyters of Islamism, and the great merchants. The Muslims are exceedingly numerous here. This whole city is surrounded by a wall: each of the six cities is also surrounded by a wall. ... In the second division are Jews, Christians, and the Turks who worship the sun. ... I entered the fifth city...inhabited by the common Chinese people. ... The most wonderful things at they make, are dishes composed of reeds glued together, and painted over with colors...they have a cove...and their softness is such, that should they fall from a height they would not break.
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