The History of Chess. H. J. R. Murray
‘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