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

      The great increase in the powers of the Bishop and Queen in modern chess has naturally resulted in a relative diminution in the value of the other pieces.

      The method of play in the older Muslim game was identical with that followed in the modern European game. The players played alternately, each making a single move (dast, pl. dusūt; ḍarb) in his turn of play.¹⁰

      The aim of play was twofold, either to give checkmate to the opponent’s King, or to annihilate his army. To this latter form of victory I have given the Middle-English name of Bare King, which answers closely to the terms Shāh munfarid, isolated King, and mufrad, pl. mufridāt, isolations, of the Arabic MSS. It was obtained whenever a player captured the whole of his opponent’s army, the King excepted, and still retained some of his own men upon the board, or at least one man out of reach of the opponent’s King. If the solitary King could take his opponent’s last remaining man in his move following that in which he was bared, the game was considered drawn. We have already seen (p. 57) that in Ḥijāz there was a local variation in the rule regarding Bare King. There a solitary King was defeated the instant that he was bared, whether he could bare his opponent the following move or not. This win was called the Medinese victory.¹¹

      It occasionally happened in the course of the game that a player, whose turn it was to play, found himself unable to move any of his pieces in a legal manner, and yet at the instant his King was not in check. This Ending, to which we give the name of stalemate (Ar. zā’īd, rarely mazīd, from the verb zāda, imp. yazīdu; or zā’īda to stale, deprive of the power of moving, very rarely used of any other piece than the Shāh), was decisive in Muslim chess. The player who found himself in this predicament was held to have lost the game.¹²

      A game to which for any reason a decisive result could not be obtained was said to come to a stand (Ar. qā’īm, ’iqāma, qayām; pl. qawā’īm, qā’īma, ’iqā-māt—all derived from qāma, to stand; cf. mod. qūwima, to be drawn), or to be inaccessible (mana‘a: a later term, not used in AH, frequent in H), i.e. to be drawn. This might happen from equality of force (e.g. R v. R); insufficiency of force (e.g. R v. Kt); inability to force exchanges (e.g. Qs and Bs moving on squares which on a chequered board would all be of one colour v. Qs and Bs moving on squares of the other colour); perpetual check; or repetition of move. The problems will contain examples of all these forms of drawn game.¹³

      The chess MSS. employ two different methods of describing the squares of the board, which we may conveniently distinguish as the descriptive and the literal, or as it is often called, the algebraic notations. The former is by far the commoner, and is indeed employed in all the MSS. except Oxf. in the problem solutions.

      In the descriptive notation the board is regarded as belonging half to one player and half to the other, and the two halves are called Red’s and Black’s accordingly. In each of these halves the squares are defined in terms (1) of the side, e.g. left-hand or right-hand, less frequently King’s and Firzān’s; (2) of the master-piece of the file; (3) of its distance from the edge where the player sits. Thus, assuming that Red sits at the foot, Black at the upper edge of the diagram, g4 is Red’s right-hand Faras’ fourth square, and g5 is Black’s left-hand Faras’ fourth square. Very occasionally the notation was extended right across the board, and we have g7 termed Red’s right-hand Faras’ seventh square. A little ambiguity is introduced as a result of the want of fixity in the initial positions of King and Firzān. In the analysis in L, where the original position of the Kings is known absolutely, the notation is consistent throughout, but in the problem solutions where it is impossible to say for certain where the King stood originally, now the e-file and now the d-file is called the King’s. In many problem positions, the Firzān’s file can be determined on the assumption that the Firzāns in the diagram are the original Firzāns of the game, and in these cases the solutions almost invariably name the central files accordingly. The important fact is that the notation in the vast majority of the solutions assumes the normal arrangement of the opposing Kings. In a few solutions (not more than five in all) the notation is confused, and squares on both central files are described as on the King’s file. I have only found one solution in which the notation is consistent with a crosswise arrangement of the Kings.

      This notation does not possess the merit of brevity, but its clearness has given it a long and fruitful life, and with but slight modification it is still the most popular notation in Europe outside of Germany and Switzerland, and in America at the present time. Al-‘Adlī strongly advised players to commit it to memory, and it forms the foundation upon which Y built its hints upon playing chess blindfold.

      In the algebraic notation each square is denoted by two letters, the first of which is common to all squares of the same file, the second to all squares of the same row. It is very similar to the notation which I employ in this book. Thus the successive files which I call a, b, &c. are termed in AH, where this notation is employed in connexion with the Knight’s Tours, t, sh, r, f, m, l, k, y, with the numerical meanings of 400, 300, 200, 100, 40, 30, 20, 10. In Oxf., where this notation is used in all the problem solutions, the letters f (80), ‘(70), s (60), n (50) are substituted for the older letters of the files a—d. Both MSS. use for the rows 1, 2, to 8, the letters a, b, j, d, h, w, z, h, with the numerical meanings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Thus c5 is r h in AH or s h in Oxf., e3 is m j, f6 is l w, &c. This notation was also introduced into Europe—first at an early date, and again, in an improved form, by Philip Stamma of Aleppo in 1737. With small alterations it has become the normal notation of German chess-players.

      F (Q) and R alone, of all the MSS. which I have consulted, make no use of a regular notation, but describe the moves by reference to other pieces on the board, e.g. ‘moves next to the Firz,’ or by such adverbs as ‘up’, ‘down ‘aslant’, ‘straight’.

      The unchequered state of the Muslim board made it a matter of some difficulty to see whether two Firzāns on the same side could defend, or whether two Firzāns of different sides could attack one another. This was a matter of very considerable importance in the Ending, and might mean all the difference between a won and a drawn