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Table of Contents

Its Persian ancestry.—The date of introduction.—The legal status of chess.—Early Muhammadan chess-players.—The game during the Umayyad and ‘Abbāsid caliphates.—Aṣ-Ṣūlī.—Later references.—Aṣ-Ṣafadī.—Chess at the court of Tīmūr.—Chess in Damascus in the sixteenth century.

That Islam derived its knowledge of chess from Persia cannot be disputed for a moment. The Arabic historians who make any reference to the matter, however much they may differ as to the ultimate origin of the game, agree in stating categorically and as an undisputed fact, ‘We learnt chess from the Persians.’ Of greater weight is the philological evidence derived from the Arabic nomenclature of chess. The Persian consonant ch has never existed in Arabic, and had to be represented in Arabic by sh or ṣ. Examples of both will be found below, p. 217, n. 20. The Arabic letter j (= Hebrew gimel), which perhaps still retained the original sound of the ‘hard’ g under the early caliphate, was used to represent the ‘hard’ Persian g. The Arabic j is still pronounced as ‘hard’ g in Egypt; elsewhere it is pronounced as the English (or even French) j. Shaṭranj,¹ the Arabic name of chess, is accordingly the regular Arabicized form of the Persian chatrang. With one exception, the Persian names of the chess-pieces are retained in Arabic, and shāh, firzān, fīl, rukhkh, and baidaq or baidhaq (pron. baizaq) are the regular Arabicized forms of the Persian shāh, farzīn, pīl, rukh, and payādah. The ‘horse’ alone received a native name, t e Persian asp being translated by the Arabic faras.

Nor can there be much doubt that the introduction of chess was a result of the conquest of Persia which took place between the years A.D. 638 and 651, in the caliphate of ‘Omar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, the second of the four orthodox caliphs, and thus some years after the death of Muḥammad himself (A.D. 632). Most probably the prophet had never heard of the existence of chess, since the Muhammadan jurists have been unable to settle the question of the legality of chess-playing by any direct decision of Muḥammad as recorded in the Qar’ān, or in authentic tradition. Such at any rate was the opinion of the earlier lawyers.

This question of the legal position of chess-playing exercised the early Muslim lawyers not a little. The whole possibility of a Muslim chess depended upon the decision that was reached. Muslim law is far wider in scope than anything that the Western world has ever known. As D. B. Macdonald puts it in his Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence, and Constitutional Theory (London, 1903, p. 66), ‘Muslim law in the most absolute sense fits the old definition, and is the science of all things, human and divine. It tells us what we must render to Caesar and what to God, what to ourselves, and what to our fellows. The bounds of the Platonic definition of rendering to each man his due it utterly shatters. While Muslim theology defines everything that a man shall believe of things in heaven and in earth and beneath the earth—and this is no flat rhetoric—Muslim law prescribes everything that a man shall do to God, to his neighbour, and to himself. It takes all duty for its portion and defines all actions in terms of duty.’ Nor was this any empty claim. A Muslim’s citizenship depends upon his character, as judged by his conformity to the letter of the law, and it is only the evidence of a man of ‘blameless life’ that possesses any validity in a court of law. If the practice of chess was established to be illegal, no true Muslim could be a chess-player. It became, therefore, a matter of importance to ascertain the legal position of chess and chess-playing.

It was not, however, until the second century of Islam that any serious attempt was made to systematize and codify Muslim law. Prior to this lawyers had been mainly opportunists, though the seeds of the broad separation of Muhammadans into Sunnites—those who accepted the caliphate de facto—and Shi‘ites—those who upheld the right of the descendants of ‘Alī and his wife Fāṭima, the Prophet’s daughter, were already there. But in the second and third centuries Sunnite law was systematized by a number of schools or sects, of which four stand out above the others. These are the Ḥanīfite, the Mālikite, the Shāfi‘ite, and the Ḥanbalite schools, so called from their respective founders, Abū Ḥanīfa (D. 150/767), Malik b. Anas (D. 179/795), ash-Shāfi‘ī (D. 204/820), and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (D. 241/855). To one or other of these sects practically every Sunnite Muslim belongs to-day, and in broad outline Sin‘ite law is not very dissimilar.

Muslim law divides all actions into five classes—(1) necessary actions (farḍ, wājib), the omission of which is punished, and the performance of which is rewarded; (2) recommended actions (mandūb, mustaḥabb), the omission of which entails no penalty, but the performance of which is rewarded; (3) permitted actions (jā’lz, mubaḥ) which are indifferent legally; (4) disliked actions (makrūh) which are disapproved but not under penalty; and (5) forbidden actions (ḥarām), the performance of which is punished by law.² The criteria for the proper classification of actions have varied somewhat from time to time, and with different schools, but all agree that the final criterion is the Qur’ān, and that next in importance comes the evidence of a clear and authentic tradition of Muḥammad or of the earliest age.³

Chess is mentioned nowhere by name in the Qur’ān, but, adopting the principle of analogy (qiyās) by which the doubt could be resolved by a decision on some similar case, appeal was made to Sura V. 92, a chapter that belongs to the Medina or last period of Muḥammad’s life. In this verse we read—

O true believers, surely wine and lots (maisīr) and images (‘anṣāb) and divining-arrows (’azlām)⁴ are an abomination of the works of Satan, therefore avoid ye them that ye may prosper.

It is by extending the condemnation of lots—maisīr—and images ‘anṣāb—that the attempt has been made to condemn chess and chess-playing. There is fair agreement among the commentators that maisīr was intended to include every game which is subject to hazard or chance, or which is played for money or a stake. It is on this verse that the prohibition of nard (tables, backgammon),⁵ and the later-discovered games of cards is based. There is, however, a tradition which is preserved by al-Baihaqī (D. 458/1066) that the caliph ‘Alī once described chess as the Persian maisīr, though the genuineness of the tradition is disputed by other writers—b. Sukaikir, for instance. The noted Ḥanbalite b. Taimīya (D. 728/1328) makes the sensible distinction that in chess it is only the playing for money that is maisīr, and quotes the opinion of Mālik b. Anas that the stake made chess a far worse game than nard. The Sunnite Muslim sees a prohibition of carved chess-pieces which actually reproduce the King, Elephants, Horses, &c., in the prohibition of images.⁶ Persian commentators, however, have explained the term as referring to idols,⁷ and the Shi‘ite and Moghul chess-players have no objection to using real carved chessmen. The Sunnite player, on the contrary, will only use pieces of a conventional type in which it is impossible to see any resemblance, to any living creature.

In the second place, the lawyers turned to the traditions (ḥadih) of Muḥammad and his immediate companions, in order to deduce what their practice in the matter of games was. And here at the outset lay the difficulty of settling the genuineness or otherwise of the tradition. Islam was flooded with traditions by the end of the second century,⁸ and the vast majority of these were forgeries. Only the crudest tests could be applied in an age that had no appreciation of the science of historical criticism. But crude as the tests were, they disposed of ninety-nine per cent of the traditions.⁹ And in the winnowed material three traditions survived which dealt with Muḥammad’s attitude towards recreations. One of these emphasizes his hatred of games of chance, another shows his approval of martial exercises with lance or bow, and the third preserves a statement that a believer should restrict his amusements to his horse, his bow, and his wife or wives.

These traditions form the basis of the discussion as to the status of chess in the works of the founders of the four great schools. Abū Ḥanīfa reduces the question to a dilemma: either the game is played for a stake, or for amusement. In the first case it is forbidden by the Qur’ān, in the second it is not one of the three forms of recreation allowed by Muḥammad. Chess, nard, and fourteen¹⁰ are all clearly illegal. There is, however, a difference of degree. Chess is only disapproved (makrūh), not forbidden (ḥarām), as is nard. It is a sin that leads into error, and Abū Ḥanīfa did not himself refuse to greet a chess-player when at his game. The Ḥanīfite code was the official ‘Abbāsid canon, but later lawyers had to exercise considerable casuistry to reconcile their law with the wishes of the caliphs.¹¹

Mālik b. Anas and b. Ḥanbal took a more hostile view. In the K. al-muwaṭṭa, of Mālik’s Spanish pupil Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā (D. 234/848) there is added to the citation of the tradition in which Muḥammad interdicts games of chance the following reminiscence of his master’s hatred of chess:

I heard Mālik say that there was nothing good about chess. He pronounced it ḥarām. I heard him denounce chess-playing and other vanities as ḥarām, quoting Sura X. 33, ‘When the truth has been scorned, what is left except error.’

Indeed Mālik held that chess was far worse than nard, since the game exercised a far greater fascination over its players. The Ḥanbalite school were equally opposed to chess, but they took the more natural view that nard was still worse.

Ash-Shāfi‘ī enunciated a more liberal view. He found Abū Ḥanīfa’s dilemma defective, since he claimed that chess is an image of war, and it is possible to play chess not for a stake, not for pure recreation, but as a mental exercise for the solution of military tactics. When played for this last purpose, he denied that the player was doing anything illegal. According to al-Māwardī (D. 450/1058) he regarded chess as makrūh, not because it leads into error—that ash-Shāfi‘ī denied—but as a sin of recreation. And provided the player took care that his fondness for chess did not cause him to break any other rule of life, he saw no harm in playing. Ash-Shāfi‘ī, indeed, played chess himself, defending his practice by the example of many of the companions and tābi‘s. The chess-players naturally attached great importance to the example of these early players, to whom all the legal schools looked back with reverence, and all the MSS. contain in more or less detail the traditions that enshrine the record of this or that tābi‘s approval or practice of chess. The great master and historian aṣ-Ṣūlī gave these traditions in text (matn) and chain of authority (‘isnād), and the MSS. AH and C have preserved his work for us. I shall make use of his traditions in this chapter. They contain the germs of the conditions which ash-Shāfi‘ī finally laid down as defining the lawfulness of play. These were four in number, the game must not be played for a stake, and no money must be paid in connexion with the game, the game must in no way be allowed to interfere with the regular performance of prayer or other religious duty, the player must refrain from angry and improper language, and the game must not be played in the street or other public place. It is obvious that these conditions are not compelled by any inherent quality in chess, but are due to the weakness and depravity of human nature. This is b. Sukaikir’s contention, that there is nothing wrong in the game itself, but only in the circumstances of play. He claims, therefore, that common-sense ought to justify the game, while he reluctantly admits that the general consensus of legal opinion is hostile.¹²

If we omit a very doubtful tradition that ascribes the story given below in connexion with the caliph ‘Alī to the first caliph Abū-Bakr (D. 13/634), the first traditions that connect a caliph with the game relate to ‘Omar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, the father-in-law of Muḥammad (D. 23/643). A widely recorded tradition tells how he was once asked as to the legal status of chess. ‘What is chess?’ asked the caliph. He was told that there was once a queen whose son was slain in battle. His comrades hesitated to tell her the news, and when she asked how the battle had gone, they invented chess and showed it to her. By means of the explanation they conveyed the news of the prince’s death.¹³ ‘Omar listened to the tale, and then replied: ‘There is nothing wrong in it; it has to do with war.’ The fact that ‘Omar once greeted Hilāl b. Khasīb, a maula (dependent, client) of Sulaiman b. Yasbār (D. 107/725), the great tābi‘of Medina,¹⁴ while he was engaged in chess is handed down in a tradition with particularly good’isnad.¹⁵

The caliph ‘Alī b. Abū Tālib (D. 40/660), the son-in-law of Muḥammad, is connected with the following story, the genuine nature of which was allowed by the traditionists:

‘Alī once chanced to pass by some people who were playing at chess, and asked them, ‘What images are these upon which you are gazing so intently?’, for they were quite new to him, having only lately been introduced from Persia, and the Pawns were soldiers, and the Elephants and Horses were so depicted according to the custom of the Persians.

It is inferred from this that ‘Alī only objected to the carved chessmen and not to the game itself, and it is in deference to this that the Sunnite Muslims use men of a conventional pattern.

Al-Māwardī (D. 450/1058) quotes traditions that connect several of the ‘Companions’ (aṣḥāb) with chess. Abū Huraira (D. 57/676–7),¹⁶ ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Abbās, and ‘Abdallāh b. Zubair are stated to have been seen to play chess, while al-Ḥusain (sl. 68/610), the ill-fated son of the caliph ‘Alī, is recorded to have played with his children, and also to have watched a game and to have prompted the players.

The traditions regarding the tābi‘s are equally trivial in detail, and their main interest consists in the evidence they afford for the practice of chess in the first centuries of Islam. Since some of these early players are said to have played the game blindfold, it is reasonable to conclude that the standard of play must have been fairly high. The cosmopolitan nature of Islam is well illustrated by the nationalities of these chess-players.

The list includes the names of Sa‘īd b. al-Musayyib¹⁷ (D. 91/709–10), of Medina, an Arab, who played in public and declared the game permissible provided there was no stake; ‘Alī b. al-Ḥusain Zain al-‘ābidīn (D. 94/712–3), one of the Imams of the Shi‘ites, whose father was, as already mentioned, a chess-player, and whose mother according to legend was Shahr-bānū, the daughter of Yazdigird III, the last of the Sāsānian kings of Persia; Sa‘īd b. Jubair (ex. 95/714), a negro, who excelled in blindfold play; Ibrāhīm b. Ṭalha b. ‘Obaidallāh (D. 98/717), the son of one of Muḥammad’s earliest converts, who had been seen to play chess in public in Medina; al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad¹⁸ (D. 101/719–20), by his father a grandson of the caliph Abū-Bakr, and by his mother of Yazdigird, who once rebuked some chessplayers for using figures (sūrun) for pieces (dawābb); ash-Sha‘bī (D. 108/722–3), of Persian descent, who played chess and nard for a stake and forgot the hour of prayer, and played in the street, covering his head so that he should not be known; ‘Ikrima (D. 107/725–6), a Berber; Muḥammad b. Sīrīn (D. 110/728–29), a Persian, who was famous for his interpretation of dreams, and could also play chess blindfold; al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (B. 110/728), who saw no harm in chess provided there was no stake and no neglect of the times of prayer; ‘Aṭā‘a (D. 115/733–4), a deformed mulatto; az-Zuhrī (D. 124/742), the great lawyer of the Umayyad period; Muḥammad al-Munkadir (D. 131/748–9); Rabī‘a ar-Rai (D. 136/753–4), of Persian descent; Hishām b. ‘Urwa (D. 146/763–4), another blindfold player, whose three granddaughters Safī‘a, A‘īsha, and ‘Ubaida also all appear as chess-players; al-A‘amash (D. 148/765), a Persian; and Abū ‘Aun (D. 151/768), another Persian. Although Mālik b. Anas was so opposed to chess, he numbered among his friends a chess-player, al-Mughīra b. ‘Abdarraḥmān, and his own son Yaḥyā b. Mālik b. Anas, who was a lawyer in Medina, played chess in his home. Finally, the great lawyer, ash-Shāfi‘ī, is credited with skill in blindfold play.

Probably the most interesting in these names is that of Sa‘īd b. Jubair. According to b. Taimīya (Man., f. 10 b), he gave the following curious reason for his playing chess. He had reason to believe that al-Ḥajjāj desired to appoint him qāḍī, and, fearing that the patronage of this noted man would be detrimental to his piety, he took up chess in order to disqualify himself for the post. Chess-playing he regarded as the less of the two evils, and since acts are to be judged by the intention, even a more heinous sin would have been permissible in his necessity. He was only forty-nine when the same al-Ḥajjāj put him to death for taking part in a revolt against ‘Abdalmalik b. Marwān. His murderer is said to have dreamt that God would kill him once for every man he had killed in his ruthless career, but seventy times for the death of Sa‘īd b. Jubair. Other traditions in AH tell us that Sa‘īd had played chess all his life, that he played with equal ease whether he saw the board or not, and that his method of playing blindfold was to turn his back on the board; then he would ask the slave who attended him what his opponent had moved, next he bade the slave ‘move such and such a man’. His name is the earliest one that is associated with play without the use of a material board, but he may have had many followers among the Muslim players. Other references to players who could play blindfold are given later in this chapter, and a Muslim whose name is given as Buzecca or Borzaga is mentioned as the first exponent of the art of blindfold play in Europe. This player visited Florence in 1265.¹⁹

The earliest of the Umayyad caliphs who is associated with chess is ‘Abdalmalik b. Marwān (D. 86/705). An earlier caliph, Yazīd I b. Mu‘āwiya (D. 64/683), the hated murderer of the Imām Ḥusain b. ‘Alī, is stated by b. Khallikān to have been a nard-player, and accordingly a man whom it was legally permissible to curse. There are three stories of ‘Abdalmalik in H (ff. 8 a, 11 a, and 14 b). They merely exhibit the caliph as a chess-player, but one brings in the noted poet al-Akhṭal (D. 92/710), and another tells how ash-Sha‘bī, whom we have already heard of as an inveterate chess-player, once asked the caliph if he was not ashamed of playing. The caliph answered by some questions. Was the game ḥarām? or maisīr or ’ansāb? Since ash-Sha‘bī could only answer all these in the negative, the caliph continued to play. AH, f. 12 b, has a curious story, which the later K. al-‘uyūn, a generally trustworthy history of the 5th or 6th c. of Islam (say A.D. 1150–1250, ed. de Goeje in Fragmenta Hist. Arab., Lugd. Bat., 1871, p. 102), repeats in connexion with ‘Abdalmalik’s younger son, the caliph Hishām (D. 125/742), while MS. Brit. Mus. Add. 7320, f. 42 b, which has been identified by H. F. Amedroz as the work of b. al-Jauzī (‘An unidentified MS. by ibn al-Jauzī’, JRAS., Jan. 1907, see p. 865), attributes it to the elder son, the caliph Walīd I b. ‘Abdalmalik (D. 96/714). The caliph was once engaged in playing chess when a visitor,²⁰ a Syrian, was announced. The caliph ordered a slave to cover over the chessboard, and the visitor was allowed to enter. The caliph then proceeded to examine his guest in order to find out how far he was instructed in the Muslim religion, and, discovering that he was quite unlearned, he bade the slave uncover the board, and resumed his game, for ‘there is nothing forbidden to the uneducated’. This story is gravely told by aṣ-Ṣūlī as evidence for the legality of chess-playing. Its unsatisfactory nature and the fact that it is cited and not suppressed in the chess MSS. is in favour of its genuineness.

The chess MS. Y and some later (for the more part Indian) chess works give a story of ‘Abdalmalik’s son and successor Walīd I (D. 96/714). He was once playing chess with a courtier who purposely played negligently to avoid beating the caliph. On discovering this the latter took umbrage, and broke his flatterer’s head with a blow with his firzān, saying, ‘Woe be to you! are you playing chess, and in your senses?’ The silence of earlier works tells against this story.

A thoroughly satisfactory reference of about this time is to be found in a passage in one of the poems of the noted poet al-Farazdaq (D. c. 110/728). This is the more important since there is an allusion to a technicality of chess which would not have been appropriate unless the game were fairly generally known. It must take time for a peculiarity of a game to become sufficiently known to take its place in literary idiom. The couplet in question runs:

And, as for us, if Tamīn reckons his ancestors in the rank of the forelocks of the noblest victors of the race-course, I keep you from your inheritance and from the royal crown so that, hindered by my arm, you remain a Pawn (baidaq) among the Pawns (bayādiq).

—an allusion to the promotion of the Pawn when it reaches the end of the board.²¹ So it is interpreted by al-Jawālīqī (D. 539/1145) in K. al-mu‘arrab, a work on Arabic loan-words which has been edited by Sachau, Leipzig, 1867, where the verse is quoted. Al-Jawālīqī states, rather loosely, that the Pawn which advances to the limit of the board ‘obtains the weapons of the King’.

Another contemporary poet, al-Aḥwaṣ (D. 110/728), is connected with chess in a passage in the K. al-aghānī of Abū‘l-Faraj (compiled A.D. 918–67) (ed. Bulaq, 1285, iv. 51). A certain ‘Abdalḥakam b. ‘Amr b. ‘Abdallāh b. Ṣafwān al-Hujamī possessed a house in Mecca where he kept sets of chess, nard, and merels,²² and books on all the sciences. The walls were provided with pegs, so that every one who entered could hang up his cloak. He was then expected to take a book, or to choose a game and to play with some other guest. Once ‘Abdalḥakam came across a stranger in the Ka‘ba to whom he took a fancy. He brought him home with him, and after hanging up their cloaks he took down the chess and challenged him to a game. Just then the singer al-Abjar entered, and greeted the unknown with, ‘Hullo, heretic!’ and to ‘Abdalḥakam’s astonishment presented him as the Medinese poet al-Aḥwaṣ. This incident must have taken place after al-Aḥwaṣ’s return from banishment in 101/719.

Ar-Rāghib (D. 502/1108) in his K. muḥāḍarāt al-udabā’²³ relates that the Persian Abu Muslim (D. 137/754–5) once quoted a verse of one of the older poets in a new sense when he was checkmated in a game of chess.

We may safely assert that chess had already become a popular game throughout Islam, from Spain to the banks of the Indus, before the commencement of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate.

The only chess story that brings in the name of the second caliph of the new dynasty, al-Manṣūr (D. 158/775), that I have come across, occurs in the chess MS. H (f. 10 b). The vizier of this caliph, Abū Ayyūb al-Muriyānī (D. 154/771), had a friend who was a skilled chess-player. The MS. quotes a witty couplet which the latter wrote to the vizier, inviting him to a game of chess.

Al-Mahdī (D. 169/785), the third of the ‘Abbāsid caliphs, the son of al-Manṣūr and father of Hārūn ar-Rashīd, looked—at least officially—with disfavour upon chess. A letter of his, written in 169/780 to the people of Mecca, is given in Arabic text in Wüstenfeld’s Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka (Leipzig, 1861 ff., iv. 168). In this the following passage occurs:

Facts about you have been reported to the Commander of the Faithful which he has heard with regret and which he condemns and abominates. He desires you to abandon these things, and directs you to do away with them, and to cleanse the Sanctuary of God from them. To these things belong …. the assembly of fools for nard, dicing, archery, chess, and all vanities that lead astray and from the remembrance of God, which interfere with the fulfilment of your duty to Him, and the performance of prayers in His mosques.

Notwithstanding this, chess must have been played at al-Mahdī’s court, for we know from the K. al-aghānī (ed. cit., xix. 69) that the poet Abū Ḥafṣ ‘Omar b. ‘Abdal‘azīz, of Persian ancestry, was educated there, and that he obtained his surname of ash-Shaṭraujī, the chess-player, from his fondness for and skill in chess. After al-Mahdī’s death he, remained in the service of the caliph’s daughter ‘Ulayya, who is remembered for her love of music. Abū Ḥafṣ also played chess blindfold.²⁴

Although the MS. V (f. 24 a) attributes a problem (No. 181 below) to al-Mahdī, with the unusual information that the position was not derived from an actual game, it does not follow that the ascription has any historical weight. The MSS. show an ever-growing tendency to assign the authorship of approved problems to noted characters, and their statements need to be treated with much caution.²⁵ In the present instance the ascription is in conflict with the evidence of the historian Muḥammad b. ‘Alī al-Miṣrī, as recorded in al-Maṣ’ūdī’s Murūj adh-dhahab (ed. cit., viii. 295):

Ar-Rashīd was the first caliph to establish the game of assauljān (a Per. ball-game like polo) in the field, the use of the bow, and practice with the lance, with the ball, and rackets; he recompensed those who distinguished themselves in the different exercises, and people followed his example. He was also the first of the ‘Abbāsid caliphs to play chess and nard. He favoured good players and granted them pensions.

I have already quoted the letters that passed between Hārūn ar-Rashīd (170/786–193/809) and Nicephorus in 802. This is the only allusion to chess in Arabic historical works in which Hārūn is concerned. The occasional chess passages in that well-known compilation from early and late sources, the Alf laila walaila, ‘the Thousand and one Nights,’²⁶ are naturally of an unhistorical character, and can only be accepted for the Mamlūk period during which the collection of tales took its present shape in Egypt. The chess MS. H is the only one of those that I have used which contains much to connect Hārūn with chess, and none of its seven stories²⁷ has any real importance, apart from the impromptu verses to which they gave occasion. Four stories show the caliph in an inquiring mood. He asked his physician, b. Māsawaihi (D. 243/857), whether chess could be played during illness, and received the answer that it was generally suitable, but that at certain times—all detailed—it was inadvisable to play. Another time, on a wet day, he asked Yaḥyā b. Aktham the qāḍī (D. 242/847) what could be done on such a day, and received an enigmatical reply, which was interpreted as meaning to drink wine and play chess. On a third occasion he asked b. Māsawaihi what he thought of chess, and was told it was legally permissible; and on a fourth he started a controversy between the great Ḥanīfite, Abū Yūsuf the qāḍī (D. 182/795), and a Mālikite, Yaḥyā b. Bakair, on the same point. At first Abū Yūsuf defended the legality of chess, but when Yaḥyā declared that he had heard Mālik b. Anas forbid chess and reject the evidence of chessplayers, he gave up his contention, and agreed that Mālik’s opinion settled the matter. Another story tells the history of a slave girl who was famed for her skill at chess. Hārūn bought her for 10,000 dinars and proceeded to try conclusions with her at chess. He lost three games in succession, and when the slave was asked to choose her reward, she begged forgiveness for a certain Aḥmad b. al-Amīn. In these stories the noted poet Abū Nuwās appears as an intimate friend of the caliph. Another of Hārūn’s friends bore the name of Muḥammad al-Baid’aq, where the surname is derived from the name of the chess-pawn, and was given because the man was little of stature.²⁸

Hārūn’s eldest son and successor, al-Amīn (D. 198/813),²⁹ was also a chessplayer. Ar-Rāghib tells an amusing story of this caliph and the musician Isḥāq al-Mauṣilī (D. 235/849–50)³⁰ in the K. muḥāḍarāt al-udabā’, a work of which I have already made use. Al-Amîn and Isḥāq were once playing chess, and the latter had wagered his cloak on the game. The caliph won, but hesitated to take his opponent’s cloak, until the happy idea occurred to him to give up his own cloak as a gift. Al-Amīn’s fondness for chess led him to indulge in the game at unseasonable times. At the critical point of the siege of Baghdād, when the city was on the verge of capture, the messenger who was sent to the caliph to advise him of his peril found him deep in chess with his favourite Kauthar. ‘O Commander of the Faithful,’ he exclaimed, ‘this is not the time to play, pray arise and attend to matters of more serious moment.’ ‘Patience, my friend,’ coolly replied the caliph, ‘I see that in a few moves I shall give Kauthar checkmate.”³¹

Al-Ma’mūn (D. 218/833), who succeeded his brother al-Amīn in the caliphate, was equally addicted to chess, though apparently with less success. ‘Strange that I who rule the world from the Indus in the East to Andalūs in the West cannot manage 32 chessmen in a space of two cubits by two,’ is the remark that aṣ-Ṣafadī records of this caliph. Al-Yazīdī (D. 310/922) is quoted by b. Badrūn and as-Ṣuyūṭī as giving Ma’mūn’s opinion that chess was more than a game, and that to play it was an excellent training for the mind. The caliph tried to improve the game by introducing some novelties, which never took root. He also insisted on his opponent playing his best. Thus in the MS. Y we read—

Al-Ma’mūn was one day playing with a courtier who appeared to be moving negligently in order to allow the caliph to win the game. Al-Ma’mūn perceived it, and in great wrath upset the board, exclaiming, ‘You want to treat me as a child, and to practice on my understanding.’ He then addressed the onlookers: ‘Bear witness to the vow which I now make that I will never play chess with this person again.’

But if al-Ma’mūn himself was only a weak player, he yet liked to have strong players about him. On his expedition from Khurāsān to Baghdād in 204/819 he watched Rabrab,³² Jābīr al-Kūfī, and ‘Abdalghaffār al-Anṣārī play. The presence of the caliph manifestly embarrassed the players. ‘Chess and reverence,’ observed al-Ma’mūn, ‘don’t seem to agree. They ought to talk together just as they would do if they were by themselves.’ This incident is most interesting, for Jābīr and Rabrab are named in the chess MSS. as belonging to the highest class of players, that of the ‘aliyāt or grandees. These MSS. give some End-game positions that are drawn from actual games between Rabrab and Abū’n-Na‘ām, whose name follows that of Rabrab in the list of ‘alīyāt. The names are plainly in chronological order, and this age of al-Ma’mūn must have been a notable one in the history of Muslim chess, since it saw three grandees of chess living at one time.

The next caliph—still another son of Hārūn—al-Mu‘taṣim (D. 227/842), possesses a chess reputation that appears to have no real basis.³³ The only certain chess fact of al-Mu‘taṣim’s caliphate is the appreciation of the function of the fīl in chess which I quote in Ch. XIII, which was pronounced by his famous vizier Muḥammad b. az-Zayyāt (ex. 233/847).

During the rule of al-Wāthiq (D. 227/842) and al-Mutawakkil (D. 232/847)³⁴ the great master al-‘Adlī ranked alone in the highest class of players. It was only towards the end of his life that a rival appeared to dispute his position in the person of ar-Rāzī. The match took place in the presence of al-Mutawakkil, and, by defeating his older opponent, ar-Rāzī was successful in establishing his claim to be ranked among the ‘alīyāt. Both players were chess authors, but while we possess large portions of al-‘Adlī’s work in the various MSS., all that has survived of ar-Rāzī’s work is a few opinions on the End-game, a few aphorisms, and a couple of problems. Notwithstanding this neglect, aṣ-Ṣūlī considered that ar-Rāzī was the greatest of his predecessors. Of al-‘Adlī he had a poorer opinion, and much of his own chess work took the form of a criticism of al-‘Adlī’s book.

Aṭ-Ṭabarī (D. 310/923) in his K. akhbār ar-rusul wal-mulūk (ed. Goege, 1881, iii. 1671)³⁵ describes how the caliph al-Mu‘tazz (D. 255/869) received the news of his predecessor and rival al-Musta‘īn’s defeat and death in 252/866. The caliph was seated at chess when a messenger arrived bringing the head of al-Musta‘īn. Al-Mu‘tazz paid no attention to the news until he had finished his game.³⁶

An incident that al-Maṣ‘ūdī (op. cit., viii. 13) tells of Aḥmad b. Mudabbir, collector of taxes in Palestine under al-Muhtadī (255–6/869–70) shows that wealthy people kept good chess-players in their households. A certain b. Darraj intruded into b. Mudabbir’s house on one occasion and was discovered among the company. His host addressed him thus—

A parasite may be pardoned his intrusion upon other people’s society whereby he disturbs the charm of their intimacy and discovers their secrets, but only on the condition that he is endowed with certain talents, as a knowledge of chess or nard, or the ability to play the lute or guitar (tonbūr).

The stranger replied that he excelled in all these accomplishments, so b. Mudabbir ordered one of his pages to play the intruder at chess. The latter asked what reward he would get if he proved successful. He was promised 1,000 dirhems if he proved himself superior to all the company in his accomplishments. The money was brought and placed on the table, since the parasite said its presence would stimulate him to his best efforts. He won the game of chess and was about to take the money, when the doorkeeper, who saw a danger of punishment for his carelessness in allowing the stranger to enter, intervened, and said that he was sure another of the pages could beat the stranger at chess. This page was summoned and the stranger was beaten. He claimed a game at nard, first winning and then being beaten by a better player, and so the contest went on, the porter endeavouring to escape the consequences of his carelessness and the stranger to escape the thrashing he deserved for his impertinence.

Al-Mu‘taḍid, caliph 279/892–289/902, was also a chess-player. Al-Muṣ‘ūdī mentions (op. cit., viii. 271) that his vizier Qāsim b. ‘Obaidallāh once heard him quote a verse from b. Bassām during a game.

It was under the following caliph, al-Muktafī (289/902–295/908), that the historian Abū-Bakr Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā aṣ-Ṣūlī³⁷ first came into note as a chess-player of consummate skill. Ar-Rāzī was already dead, and no one had taken his place, when a certain al-Māwardī made his appearance at court and announced that his skill exceeded all that ar-Rāzī had ever possessed (H, f. 13 a). The caliph took al-Māwardī into favour, and when aṣ-Ṣūlī’s extraordinary talent at chess was reported to the caliph, he was not disposed to believe it. A match was arranged between the two players and took place in the caliph’s presence. Al-Muktafī was so led away by his partiality for his favourite that he openly encouraged him during the game. At first this embarrassed and confused aṣ-Ṣūlī, but he soon recovered his nerve, and finally defeated his adversary so completely that no one could doubt but that aṣ-Ṣūlī was by far the better player. When the caliph was thus convinced, he lost all his partiality for al-Māwardī, and said to him, ‘Your rose-water (māward) has turned to urine!’

The new grandee of chess was descended from Ṣul-takīn, a Turkish prince of Jurjān, whose ancestral home was situated at the south-east corner of the Caspian Sea, on the banks of the River Atrek. Yazīd b. Al-Muhallab converted the warrior during the conquest of Khurāsān. His grandson married a sister of the poet al-Ahnaf, and a son of this marriage, Ibrāhīm b. al-‘Abbās aṣ-Ṣūlī (D. 243/857), was known as a poet of some ability. Ibrāhīm’s nephew was the chess-player, who also proved himself a ready versifier and was moreover a convivial and entertaining companion. It was to the latter qualities that he owed his position at court under al-Muktafī and his successors, al-Muqtadir³⁸ (D. 320/932) and ar-Rāḍī (D. 329/940). To this last caliph we owe a happy reference to aṣ-Ṣūlī’s play. In his youth the chess-player had acted as his tutor, and a warm friendship seems to have arisen as a result. Al-Maṣ‘ūdī, who himself was intimate with aṣ-Ṣūlī and owed to him much of his information about the later caliphs, says (ed. cit., viii. 311: also h. Khallikān; and H, f. 13 b, where it is attributed in error to al-Muktafī):

It is related that ar-Rāḍī-billāh was once walking in his country seat at Thurayya, and called attention to a lovely garden, replete with lawns and flowers. He asked his courtiers if they had ever seen anything more beautiful. The courtiers immediately began to dilate on the wonders of the garden, to extol its beauty, and to place it above all the wonders of the world. ‘Stop,’ cried the caliph, ‘Aṣ-Ṣūlī’s skill at chess charms me more than these flowers, and more than all that you have mentioned.’

After ar-Rādī’s death, aṣ-Ṣūlī found himself out of favour, and an incautious statement that revealed his leanings towards the party of the ‘Alids (later the Shi‘ites) was so resented that he had to flee from Baghdād and go into hiding at Baṣra. Here he died in very reduced circumstances in 335/946.³⁹

Aṣ-Ṣūlī’s reputation in chess remained unchallenged in Arabic circles for more than 600 years. To his successors he represented all that was possible in chess, much as Philidor stood for the unattainable ideal to the early nineteenth century. His biographer, b. Khallikān says:

He stood alone in chess in his own time, for there was no one in that age who was his equal in skill. His play has passed into a proverb, and when men speak of any one who is remarkable for the excellence of his play, they say, ‘He plays chess like aṣ-Ṣūlī.’

Many Muslim players supposed from this proverb that aṣ-Ṣūlī was the actual discoverer or inventor of chess, and aṣ-Ṣafadī, b. Khallikān, and b. Sukaikir all point out the erroneousness of this belief.

We possess in the MSS. which have come down to us sufficient of aṣ-Ṣūlī’s work to form an opinion of the chess-activity of this master. We see him criticizing his predecessors not unkindly but with the touch of superior knowledge. We have his favourite openings, founded no longer on mere caprice but on definite principles. We have End-games which happened to him in play over the board and in blindfold play, with an occasional anecdote that shows how much the master’s play excelled that of his opponent. We see him as the first player to try to discover the science of the game or to enunciate the underlying principles of play. We may even possess some snatches of actual games in the analysis in the chess treatise contained in MSS. L and AE, the work of his grateful and able pupil al-Lajlāj.

This player, whose name is given by an-Nadīm in the Fihrist as Abū’l-Faraj Muḥammad b. ‘Obaidallāh, and in the MSS. as Abū’1-Faraj al-Muẓaffar b. Sa‘īd, probably owed his surname of al-Lajlāj (the stammerer) to a physical defect. The only fact that we know of his life is that recorded by an-Nadīm, who had seen him in Baghdād. In 360/970 he settled in Shīrāz at the court of the Būyid ‘Aḍudaddaula, where he died not long after. Both master and pupil are commemorated in a punning line in an elaborate essay in praise and dispraise of chess by Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Qīrwānī, which is quoted by Hyde (ii. 57) from aṣ-Ṣafadī’s Sharḥ Lāmīyat al-‘Ajam.

Like aṣ-Ṣūlī, al-Lajlāj has been remembered as a great chess master, but while aṣ-Ṣūlī’s reputation has been in the main preserved in Syria and Egypt, al-Lajlāj’s memory has only survived among the Persians, the Turks, and the Moghul Hindus. To these peoples he has become the great historic figure in chess, and all the myths of the game have been attached to his name. As Lajāj, or more commonly Līlāj, he is the inventor of chess: he appears in the story of the Indian embassy to Nūshīrwān as the Indian ambassador; the fabulous Ṣaṣṣa b. Dāhir is represented as his father; and the Persian and Turk have forgotten aṣ-Ṣūlī entirely.⁴⁰

After the time of these great players there is a gap in the succession of references to chess at the court of Baghdād.⁴¹ The light of the Eastern caliphate was flickering out, and the centre of Muslim life was moving elsewhere. A few references may be quoted from other parts of Islam that show the wide spread of chess.

‘Omāra b. ‘Alī Najmaddīn al-Yamanī (D. 589/1175) in his Ta’rīkh al-Yaman (Yamau … by Najm ad-din ‘Omarah a1 Hakami, ed. H. C. Kay, London, 1892. pp. 88–92) gives a long account⁴² of the events leading up to Jayyash’s successful revolt at Zabīd in Southern Arabia in 482/1089. Jayyash had returned to Zabīd from India, and was living there in the disguise of an Indian faqir. He made use of his skill at chess to ingratiate himself with the vizier ‘Alī b. al-Kumm. To do this he took up his position each day at the bench at the outer gate of the vizier’s house.

Husayn, son of ‘Aly the Kummite, the poet, came forth on a certain day. He was at that time the most skilful chess-player of all the inhabitants of Zabīd. ‘Indian,’ he asked me, ‘art thou a good chess-player?’ I answered that I was. We played, and I beat him at the game, whereupon he barely restrained himself from violence against me. He went to his father and told him that he had been beaten at chess. His father replied that there had never been a person at Zabīd who could overcome him, excepting only Jayyash, the son of Najah, and he, he continued, has died in India. ‘Aly, the father of Husayn, then came forth to me. He was an exceedingly skilful player and we played together. I was unwilling to defeat him, and the match ended in a drawn game.

From this time Jayyash played frequently with the vizier, until he incautiously betrayed his identity by an involuntary exclamation after a game in which he had allowed Ḥusain to beat him for reasons of policy.

In Egypt the mad Fāṭimid ruler al-Ḥākim biamrillāh prohibited chess in the year 1005, and ordered all the sets of chess to be burnt. The order did not extend to the magnificent sets of chess in the palace treasury, for in a description of the treasures of a later ruler, al-Mustanṣir billāh (1036–94), al-Maqrīzī (D. 1441) mentions ‘chess and draught (read nard) boards of silk, embroidered in gold, with pawns (read men) of gold, silver, ivory, and ebony’. Much of this treasure had belonged to the ‘Abbāsid caliphs before the Fāṭimids acquired it.⁴³

I have already quoted from the Persian writer al-Bērūnī. His patron, the Ziyārid Qābūs b. Washmgīr (976–1012) of Tabaristān,⁴⁴ refers to chess in a poem in which he recounts his favourite occupations:

The things of this world from end to end are the goal of desire and greed,

And I set before this heart of mine the things which I most do need,

But a score of things I have chosen out of the world’s unnumbered throng,

That in quest of these I my soul may please and speed my life along.

Verse and song, and minstrelsy, and wine full flavoured, and sweet,

Backgammon, and chess, and the hunting-ground, and the falcon and cheetah fleet;

Field, and ball, and audience-hall, and battle, and banquet rare,

Horse, and arms, and a generous hand, and praise of my lord and prayer.

B. al-Athīr (Cairo ed., ix. 128) tells a story of the famous Maḥmūd of Ghaznī, which shows him as a chess-player.⁴⁵ In the spring of 420/1029 he seized Rai and dethroned Majdaddaula. He summoned the latter before him, and the following colloquy took place:

‘Hast thou not read the Shāhnāma and aṭ-Ṭbarī’s history (i.e. Persian and Arabic history)?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your conduct is not as of one who has read them. Do you play chess?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you ever see a Shāh approach a Shāh?’

‘No.’

‘Then what induced you to surrender yourself to one who is stronger than yourself?’

Thereupon Maḥmūd exiled him to Khurāsān.⁴⁶

References to chess in Muhammadan Spain have, perhaps, a greater interest for us. I have already mentioned a chess poem by the Spanish poet ar-Ramādī as being quoted in the MS. H. There are one or two references belonging to the eleventh century. B. Hayyān (D. 469/1075), one of the best historians of Spain, records that the vizier Abū Ja‘far Aḥmad b. al-‘Abbās of Almeria, (D. 1038) was a keen chess-player. B. Ammār is said by al-Marrākoshī (writing 621/1224) to have played chess with the Christian King Alfonso VI of Castile, c. 1078. The poet b. al-Labbān ad-Dānī (c. 485/1092) wrote:

In the hand of fate we resemble the chess, and the shāh is often defeated by the baidaq.

There is a reference to chess in al-Maqqarī’s (D. 1041/1632) Nafḥ aṭ-ṭīb (ed. Dozy, &c., Leyden, 1855–61, i. 480) in connexion with the biography of the qāḍī Abū-Bakr b. al-‘Arabī (D. 543/1148); and b. Abī Uṣaibi‘a (D. 668/1270) in his K. ‘uyūn a1 anbā’, in his biography of b. Zuhr al-Ḥafīd of Seville (D. 596/1200), of Jewish descent, describes him as a good chess-player, who used to spend many an hour at chess with a friend of the tribe of al-Yanaqī.⁴⁷

Towards the end of MS. H (f. 51 a) we have a note from Abū’l-‘Abbās b. Juraij (B. 533/1139, D. 630/1232) that gives some information as to the chief players of his day in Spain. It will be seen that the blindfold game had many exponents.

Abū’l-‘Abbās b. Juraij said: I was contemporary with aṣ-Ṣaqālī (the Sicilian), al-Yahūdī (the Jew), and b. an-Nu‘mān, all of whom played blindfold: he goes on to say that Abū-Bakr b. Zuhair was equal to b. an-Nu‘mān. He says that Abū-Bakr b. Zuhair told him as follows: ‘There were assembled at one time in my house in Seville the following experts, aṣ-Ṣaqālī, his father, as-Sijilmāsī, aṭ-Ṭarābulusī, b. an-Nu‘mān, and az-Za‘farān.’ Abū’l-‘Abbās said: now in our time Muḥammad al-Ghamārī (?), Abū’l-Ḥusain b. ash-Shāṭibī, b. ‘Ulāhim al-Mukānisī, and Abū Muḥammad ‘Ahdalkarīm, an eminent man of Fez, formed one class, and b. Abī Ja‘far al-Mursī (the Murcian), b. al-Qaiṭūn, and b. Ayyūb and b. Abī’ẓ-Ẓafar b. Mardanīsh (?) formed another.

We have an interesting collection of players here from Sicily, Fez, Sijilmāsa, Tripoli, Murcia, and Seville. It evidences the spread of the game of chess in Muhammadan lands.

Both Fouché of Chartres⁴⁸ and William of Malmesbury,⁴⁹ in their accounts of the siege of Antioch (1097–8) during the First Crusade, tell how Peter the Hermit found the Turkish general Karbuga at chess when he was sent to treat with him at a critical point of the siege.

Aṣ-Ṣafadī (D. 764/1363), in his Sharḥ Lāmīyat al-‘Ajam, to which I have already referred, gives some interesting particulars as to chess in his day.

I once saw a soldier named ‘Alā’addīn in Egypt who was blind, and yet he used to play chess with the nobles and to beat them utterly. I say moreover that nothing pleased me more than the way in which he sat with us and talked and recited poetry, and narrated strange histories, showing that he was taking part in what we were doing. He would withdraw, and when he returned he had forgotten nothing that he had been doing. This is certainly surprising. The man was very famous in Cairo, and there were very few chess-players who did not know him.

At another time, in 731/1331, I saw in Damascus a man named an-Niẓām al-‘Ajamī, who played chess blindfold before Shamsaddīn. The first time that I saw him playing chess, he was playing with the shaikh Amīnaddīn Sulaimān, chief of the physicians, and he defeated him blindfold. We indeed knew nothing until he gave him checkmate with a Fīl, and we did not see that it was mate until he turned to us and said, ‘It is checkmate.’ I have also been told that he sometimes played two games at once blindfold. The sahib al-Maula Badraddīn Ḥasan b. ‘Alī al-Ghazzī told me that he had seen him play two games blindfold and one over the board at the same time, winning all three. He also vouches for this: Shamsaddīn once called to him in the middle of a game, ‘Enumerate your pieces (qiṭ‘a), and your opponent’s,’ and he rehearsed them in order at once, just as if he saw them before him.⁵⁰

Chess again appears under royal patronage at the court of the great Moghul emperor Tīmūr (B. 1336, D. 1405). His historian b. ‘Arabskāh (D. 854/1450) makes several references to chess in his ‘Ajā’ih al-maqdūr fī nawā’ib Tīmūr.⁵¹

Tīmūr ordered a city to be built on the farther bank of the Jaxartes, with a bridge of boats across the river, and he called it Shāhrukhīya.⁵² It was built in a spacious position. The reason why he gave this name of Shāh Rukh⁵³ to his son, and also to this city was as follows. He had already given orders for the building of this city on the river’s bank, and he was engaged in playing chess with one of his courtiers as was his wont: one of his concubines was also with child. He had just given shāh-rukh (check-rook) by which his adversary was crippled and weakened, and while his adversary was in this helpless position, two messengers arrived. One announced the birth of a son, and the other the completion of the city, and therefore he called both by this name⁵⁴ (i. 218).

Tīmūr was devoted to the game of chess because he whetted his intellect by it, but his mind was too exalted to play at the small chess (ash-shaṭranj aṣ-ṣayhīr), and therefore he only played at the great chess (ash-shaṭranj, al-kabīr), of which the board is 10 squares by 11, and there are 2 jamals, 2 zurafas, 2 ṭali‘as, 2 dabbābas, a wazīr, &c. A diagram of it is attached. The small chess is a mere nothing in comparison with the great chess ⁵⁵ (ii. 798).

Among chess-players (in Tīmūr’s reign) were Muḥammad b. ‘Aqīl al-Khaimī and Zain al-Yazdī, &c., but the most skilled at that game was ‘Alā’addīn at-Tabrīzī, the lawyer and traditionist, who used to give Zain al-Yazdī the odds of a Baidaq and beat him, and b. ‘Aqīl the odds of a Faras and beat him. Tīmūr himself, who subdued all the regions of the East and the West and had given mate to every sultan and king, both on the battle-field and in the game, used to say to him, ‘You have no rival in the kingdom of chess, just as I have none in government; there is no one to be found who can perform such wonders as I and you, my lord ‘Alī, each in his own sphere.’ He has composed a treatise on the game of chess and its situations. There was no one who could divine his intention in the game before he moved. He was a Shāfi‘ite…. He told me that he had once seen in a dream ‘Alī, the Commander of the Faithful, and had received from him a set of chess in a bag, and no mortal had beaten him since then.⁵⁶ It was noteworthy about his play that he never spent time in thought but the instant his opponent made his move after long and tedious thought, ‘Alī played without delay or reflection. He often played blindfold against two opponents, and showed by his play what his strength would have been over the board. With the Amir (Tīmūr) he used to play at the great chess. I have seen at his house the round chess (shaṭranj muddawara) and the oblong chess (shaṭranj ṭawīla). The great chess has in it the additional pieces that I have already mentioned. Its rules are best learnt by practice; a description would not have much value (ii. 872).

Wo have sundry references to this great master under the name of Khwāja ‘Alī Shaṭranjī in Persian literature,⁵⁷ while the MS. RAS gives no less than 21 positions from his games. When this circumstance is considered in connexion with the preface to this work, it certainly lends colour to the view that the MS. is the work which b. ‘Arabshāh tells us ‘Alī himself wrote. The passage runs—

I have passed my life since the age of 15 years among all the masters of chess living in my time; and since that period till now, when I have arrived at middle age, I have travelled through ‘Irāq-‘Arabī, and ‘Irāq-‘ajamī, and Khurāsān, and the regions of Māwarā’n-nahr (Transoxiana), and I have there met with many a master in this art, and I have played with all of them, and through the favour of him who is Adorable and Most High I have come off victorious.

Likewise, in playing blindfold, I have overcome most opponents, nor had they the power to cope with me. I have frequently played with one opponent over the board, and at the same time 1 have carried on four different games with as many adversaries without seeing the board, whilst I conversed freely with my friends all along, and through the Divine favour I conquered them all. Also in the great chess I have invented sundry positions, as well as several openings, which no one else ever imagined or contrived.

There are a great number of ingenious positions that have occurred to me in the course of my experience, in the common game, as practised at the present day; and many positions given as won by the older masters I have either proved to be drawn, or I have corrected them so that they now stand for what they were intended to be. I have also improved and rendered more complete all the rare and cunning stratagems hitherto recorded or invented by the first masters of chess. In short, I have here laid before the reader all that I have myself discovered from experience as well as whatever I found to be rare and excellent in the labours of my predecessors.

Chess remained one of the favourite recreations at the courts of Tīmūr’s descendants, and the Baber Autobiography (tr. Leyden and Erskine, London and Edinburgh, 1826, pp. 187–195), names several courtiers at the court of Ḥusain Mirza, King of Khurāsān (D. 1506), as inveterate chess-players. Among these were Zūlnūn Arghūn, Ḥassan ‘Alī Jelāir, Mīr Murtāz, and the poet Bināi of Heri.

My last authority for the unreformed Muhammadan chess is b. Sukaikir, the author of one of the MSS. which I have described in Chapter X. By birth a Damascene, he travelled through Syria, and visited Constantinople before filling the post of Preacher of the Mosque al-‘Ādilīya at Ḥalab (Aleppo), where he died 987/1579. In his chess work he mentions some experiences of his own. In 964 or 5/c. 1557 he saw a blind player at Damascus, who had played in the presence of the Sultan Sulaimān in Stambul. During the game the Sultan removed one of his men. The blind man quickly detected the fact, remarking that if the Sultan had done it there was nothing to be done but to play his best, but if any one else had done it he would appeal to the Sultan. In 967–8/1559 one of the best players in Damascus was a certain az-Zain al-Mathaka‘a. Once when he was on the point of mating an Egyptian, to whom he had given the odds of the firzān, a ragged Persian who was watching the game interposed and showed the Egyptian the move to thwart the attack. Az-Zain was naturally angry, and his anger was not appeased by the Persian telling him not to lose his temper because he did not know how to play. However, he agreed to play the beggar, who began by deliberately sacrificing faras, fīl, and three baidaqs without any equivalent. Then he asked az-Zain to name the piece with which he would choose to be mated. Az-Zain chose a baidaq, and the Persian gave him mate with a baidaq. Az-Zain, recognizing the Persian’s skill, took him into his service. The Persian would never play except at the odds of the ‘marked piece’. In 970/1562 he saw a Greek, Yūsuf Chelebī, at Trablis (Tripoli in Syria). This man used men of a larger pattern, and played blindfolded by touch. Finally he saw a blindfold player in Constantinople in 975/1567, who played often in his presence with uniform success. Like an-Niẓām al-‘Ajamī, he could at any time describe the position of every man on the board. The MS. Y narrates that there have been players who could play four or five games simultaneously blindfold, and goes on to say:

I have seen it written in a book, that a certain person played in this manner at ten boards at once, and gained all the games, and even corrected his adversaries when a mistake was made (Bland, 24).