History entrance exam, 2017 E.C. (2025)

The split happened after the Prophet Muhammad died in 632, and the question was who should hold the office of Caliph and what that office meant. The Shi'a held that leadership belonged to the Prophet's family through Ali, his cousin and son in law; the Sunni accepted a Caliph chosen by the agreement of the community.

Option D fails because no group expected a new prophet. Muslims regard Muhammad as the last prophet, so the quarrel was about succession to leadership, not prophethood.

Textbook: History Grade 11, Unit 4 The Middle Ages and Early Modern World, section 4.3 The Middle Ages in Asia (page 87).

The Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries taught that people can improve their own lives by using reason, observation and science instead of accepting tradition or church authority without question.

Option C is the opposite of that idea. Enlightenment writers looked for happiness and progress in this world, which is why they pressed for reforms in law, government and education.

Textbook: History Grade 11, Unit 4 The Middle Ages and Early Modern World, section 4.8 The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment (page 113).

The Almoravids and the Almohads were Berber reform movements from the 11th and 12th centuries. Both taught that Islam in North Africa had drifted from its proper form, so they restored what they called pure belief and made daily community life follow Islamic law.

Option A is only part of the story. They did fight campaigns, but their lasting mark was religious reform inside Muslim society itself, not conversion of outsiders.

Textbook: History Grade 11, Unit 5 Peoples and States of Africa to 1500, section 5.3 Spread of Islam to North Africa (page 123).

Great Zimbabwe is remembered for its huge stone enclosures and walls, built by the Shona without mortar. The ruins still stand on the plateau between the Limpopo and the Zambezi and gave the modern country its name.

Option C is wrong on two counts. Ghana was a separate West African state, and Great Zimbabwe left buildings rather than written literature.

Textbook: History Grade 11, Unit 5 Peoples and States of Africa to 1500, section 5.6 Southern Africa (page 134).

Mansa Musa made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 with a huge caravan and gave away so much gold on the way, especially in Cairo, that the price of gold fell there. That single journey showed the Muslim world how rich Mali was.

Option D describes ordinary practice for any state on the trans Saharan routes. It was the pilgrimage and the gold gifts that made Mali famous.

Textbook: History Grade 11, Unit 5 Peoples and States of Africa to 1500, section 5.4 States in West Africa (page 125).

The syllabus is direct on this point: the most important reasons for abolition were economic. With the Industrial Revolution, plantation slavery and the slave trade stopped being profitable, and British interests moved to cheap labour, raw materials and new markets. Britain outlawed the trade for its citizens in 1807 and then patrolled the Atlantic to enforce it.

Option B is the tempting answer, but the textbook states that European governments ignored the pressure of the humanitarian abolitionists. Moral campaigns mattered, yet the change of policy followed the change in economic interest.

Textbook: History Grade 11, Unit 6 Africa and the Outside World 1500 to 1880s, section 6.3 Slavery and Slave Trade in Africa (page 160).