The History of Chess. H. J. R. Murray
himself held a position at the court of al-Mu‘taḍid, but fell into disfavour by revealing a secret which this caliph had entrusted to him, and was thrown into prison and executed, 286/899. An-Nadīm, however, makes no mention of a chess work in his list of as-Sarakhsī’s writings,2 nor does al-Qiftī (568/1172 – 646/1248); a later biographer of as-Sarakhsī, b. Abī Uṣaibi‘a (B. 600/1203, D. 668/1270), on the other hand, who wrote on the lives of the Arabic physicians, mentions it under the title K. fī’sh-shaṭranj al-‘ālīya (Book of the higher chess) in his K. ‘uyūn al-anbā’ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā’.
An-Nadīm left a blank in the place of al-‘Adlī’s personal name, thereby implying that he was unable to discover it. In some modern works, e.g. in the catalogue of the Library of the Sultan ‘Abd-al-Ḥamīd Khān, however, his name is given as Abū’l-‘Abbās Aḥmad al-‘Adlī, thus making his personal name identical with that of as-Sarakhsī. I have been unable to discover the authority for the modern statement, and am inclined to think that it has arisen from the assumption that al-‘Adlī and as-Sarakhsī were one and the same person. This assumption would certainly account for the omission of al-‘Adlī’s work in Hājjī Khalīfa’s bibliography, but it introduces chronological difficulties. We know from aṣ-Ṣūlī that al-‘Adlī had stood alone in the first class of chess-players for some considerable time when he was defeated by ar-Rāzī in a match which we know from an-Nadīm was played in the presence of the caliph Mutawakkil (A.D. 847–862). After his death ar-Rāzī in his turn stood alone in the first class for some time, and was dead before aṣ-Ṣūlī came to the front under al-Muktafī (A.D. 902–8). It seems reasonable to infer that al-‘Adlī was past his prime at the time of his defeat, and that he probably did not survive it many years. As-Sarakhsī, on the other hand, must have been still a young man in Mutawakkil’s time, since his master al-Kindī flourished A.D. 813–842, and he himself only met with his death so late as A.D. 899. Moreover, the MS. RAS gives al-‘Adlī the local epithet of ar-Rūmī, which implies that he was a native of some town in the lands of the old Byzantine Empire. Had he come from Sarakhs, al-Khurāsānī would have been the more appropriate designation. On the other hand, if, as seems most likely, the two men were really distinct, the silence of all the Muslim chess writers concerning as-Sarakhsī is somewhat remarkable.
Of the other authors named above, ar-Rāzī3 has been identified with the celebrated physician Muḥammad b. Zakarīyā ar-Rāzī, the ‘Rhasis’ of mediaeval science, who died 311/923 or 318/932. This identification is palpably false. The chess-player belonged to an earlier generation and was dead before A.D. 900. Of aṣ-Ṣūlī and al-Lajlāj I shall have more to say in the following chapters; b. Aliqlīdisī is not otherwise known, but Hājjī Khalīfa’s anonymous and bombastic Persian MS. appears to be the one I refer to below as RAS.
B. ‘Arabshāh, the biographer of the great Tīmūr, in his digression upon the chess-players of the Court incidentally refers to another work by a contemporary of Tīmūr (D. 1405).
‘Alā’addīn Tabrīzī, commonly called ‘Alī ash-Shaṭranjī, has composed a treatise on the game of chess and its situations.
Finally Ahlwardt, in his Catalogue of the Arabic MSS. of the Royal Library at Berlin, gives without stating the source of his information the following list of chess works at the conclusion of his description of the chess treatises in the library.
Kitāb shaṭranj by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad as-Sarakhsī (D. 287/899). ’Istaw‘a’n-nahj fī taḥrīm al-la‘b bī’sh-shaṭranj, by Muḥammad b.‘Ali b. Muḥammad al-Hadhāmī b. an-Najār (D. 723/1323). Īqāẓ an-nāṣib fīma fī’sh-shaṭranj min al-manāṣib, by ‘Alī b. Muḥammad al-Mauṣilī b. ad-Duraihim (D. 762/1361).
I now come to the Arabic and Persian works of which I have been able to make use for this book.
There is much similarity about the MSS. which deal with the practical game, and it will be more convenient to summarize their contents in a table and so to avoid considerable repetition. There is usually an introductory section dealing with the legendary accounts of the invention of chess, and the evidence for the lawfulness of chess-playing for Muslims. Chapters dealing with the classification of players, with the relative value of the pieces, with the symbolism of the game, with the decisions as to the result in the simpler Endings of the game, with notation, and the derived chess-games generally follow. There are also chapters dealing with the normal positions for Opening play (the ta‘bīyāt), and the body of the work is devoted to a collection of manṣūbāt or problems. Less frequently we find an anthology of chess poems as a crown to the book. These MSS., it will be obvious, deal with nearly every aspect of chess.
1. AH = MS. ‘Abd-al-Ḥamīd I, Constantinople, no. 560.
2. C = MS. Khedivial Lib., Cairo, Muṣṭafa Pasha, no. 8201.
These are two MSS. of the same Arabic work, the Kitāb ash-shaṭranj mimma’l-lafahu’l-‘Adlī waṣ-Ṣulī wa ghair-huma, ‘Book of the chess; extracts from the works of al-‘Adlī, aṣ-Ṣulī and others.’
AH is one of the Arabic MSS. the knowledge of whose existence we owe to Dr. Paul Schroeder. It is no. xviii of v. d. Linde’s list (Qst., 331 seq.). It is a beautifully executed paper MS. of 142 leaves, 27.8 cm. by 21.2, written in a careful nashkī hand by Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. al-Mubārak b. ‘Alī al-Mudbahhab a1 Baghdādī, 535/1140, as we learn from a note on f. 54 b. Both the main title-page and the subsidiary one on f. 55 a are richly coloured, the titles being in the kufic character upon a blue ground.
C is no. viii of v. d. Linde’s list (Qst., 21). It consists of 157 leaves, 26 cm. by 18. From the richly illuminated title-page, now unfortunately much faded, it is evident that this MS. formerly belonged to a Sultan of Egypt, whom a former librarian, Dr. W. Spitta, identified from considerations of handwriting and ornamentation with Qāitbāi (A.D. 1468–96). He dated the MS. itself c. 770/1370.
Neither MS. gives any information as to the name of the writer who put together this compilation. A later note on a blank page at the commencement of AH attributes the work to al-Lajlāj, but the fact that this MS. includes a short treatise on chess principles, naming al-Lajlāj as its author, makes it very improbable that this player was the author of the whole work. In the official catalogue of MSS. in Constantinople libraries it is described as ‘560. Risāla fi’sh-shaṭranj, one volume in Arabic, by Abū’ l-‘Abbās Aḥmad al-‘Adlī’—an entry due to the occurrence of al-‘Adlī’s name in the title of the MS.
Neither MS. is complete. There are gaps in AH between ff. 75 and 76 (the latter leaf beginning in the middle of a problem solution), and 139 and 140 (the poem on the former leaf is incomplete). Ff. 121–123 should be placed between ff. 129 and 130, and f. 21 between ff. 22 and 23. The disarrangement of the entries on ff. 25–29 goes back to a MS. lying behind AH.4 C is a copy of AH, or of a MS. derived from AH.5 It is not so extensive, the text on ff. 133 b–142 b of AH being missing. There are also gaps between ff. 5 and 6, 17 and 18, and 23 and 24. The leaves from f. 34 onwards are now in great confusion; none, however, is missing, and they can be arranged in their original order with the help of AH.
The introduction to AH and C shows that aṣ-Ṣūlī’s book was largely a critique on al-‘Adlī’s. It runs as follows:
In the name of God, the compassionate and merciful! There is no prosperity except through God! Al-‘Adlī gives several accounts of the invention of chess, which Abū-Bakr aṣ-Ṣūlī criticizes. We narrate some of what al-‘Adlī relates, with aṣ-Ṣūlī’s criticisms thereon, and also the problems which al-‘Adlī placed in his book, with aṣ-Sūlī’s criticisms and appreciations. We have also added some problems from aṣ-Ṣūlī’s book, and some from other authors, together with the traditions which aṣ-Ṣūlī collected on the lawfulness of chess-playing.
The compiler accordingly claims to treat his authorities with some discrimination, and generally makes it clear from whom he is quoting. Extracts from previous writers are commenced by the words qāla’l-‘Adlī or’Ṣ-ṣūlī, as the case may be, and are generally in the first person.