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Abu-Bakr Muhammad ben Yahya as-Suli

 

 
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Abu-Bakr Muhammad ben Yahya as-Suli
 
 
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Abu-Bakr Muhammad ben Yahya as-Suli (c. 880 – 946) was an Arab
Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
 shatranj
Shatranj

Shatranj ????????? is an old form of chess, which came from India to Persia and has been popular in Persia and the Middle East for almost 1000 years....
 (an ancestor of chess
Chess

Chess is a recreational and competitive game played between two Player . Sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish it from History of chess and other chess variants, the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older...
) player who came to prominence sometime in between 902 and 908 when he beat al-Mawardi, the court shatranj champion of al-Muktafi
Al-Muktafi

Al-Muktafi was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 902 to 908. He was the son of the previous Caliph, al-Mu'tadid, by a Turkey slavery. In command of ar Raqqah at the time of his father's death, he at once returned to the Capital, where he became a favorite of the people for his generosity, and for abolishing his father's secret prisons, the...
, the Caliph of Baghdad. Al-Mawardi was so thoroughly beaten he fell from favour, and was replaced by as-Suli. After al-Mukafti's death, as-Suli remained in the favour of the succeeding ruler, al-Muqtadir
Al-Muqtadir

Al-Muqtadir was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 908 to 932.After the previous Caliph, al-Muktafi, was confined for several months to his sick-bed, intrigue was made for some time as to his successor....
 and in turn ar-Radi
Ar-Radi

Ar-Radi was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 934 to his death at the age of thirty-three in 940.The seven years' reign of ar-Radi, son of al-Muqtadir, was but a succession of misfortune....
.

As-Suli's shatranj-playing ability became legendary and he is still considered one of the best Arab players of all time.






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Abu-Bakr Muhammad ben Yahya as-Suli (c. 880 – 946) was an Arab
Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
 shatranj
Shatranj

Shatranj ????????? is an old form of chess, which came from India to Persia and has been popular in Persia and the Middle East for almost 1000 years....
 (an ancestor of chess
Chess

Chess is a recreational and competitive game played between two Player . Sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish it from History of chess and other chess variants, the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older...
) player who came to prominence sometime in between 902 and 908 when he beat al-Mawardi, the court shatranj champion of al-Muktafi
Al-Muktafi

Al-Muktafi was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 902 to 908. He was the son of the previous Caliph, al-Mu'tadid, by a Turkey slavery. In command of ar Raqqah at the time of his father's death, he at once returned to the Capital, where he became a favorite of the people for his generosity, and for abolishing his father's secret prisons, the...
, the Caliph of Baghdad. Al-Mawardi was so thoroughly beaten he fell from favour, and was replaced by as-Suli. After al-Mukafti's death, as-Suli remained in the favour of the succeeding ruler, al-Muqtadir
Al-Muqtadir

Al-Muqtadir was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 908 to 932.After the previous Caliph, al-Muktafi, was confined for several months to his sick-bed, intrigue was made for some time as to his successor....
 and in turn ar-Radi
Ar-Radi

Ar-Radi was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 934 to his death at the age of thirty-three in 940.The seven years' reign of ar-Radi, son of al-Muqtadir, was but a succession of misfortune....
.

As-Suli's shatranj-playing ability became legendary and he is still considered one of the best Arab players of all time. His biographer ben Khalliken, who died in 1282, said that even in his lifetime great shatranj players were said to play like as-Suli. Documentary evidence from his lifetime is limited, but the endgames of some of the matches he played are still in existence. His skill in blindfold chess
Blindfold chess

Blindfold chess is a way to play chess, whereby play is conducted without the players having sight of the positions of the pieces, or any physical contact with them....
 was also mentioned by contemporaries. As-Suli also taught shatranj. His most well known pupil is al-Lajlaj ("the stammerer").

One of his most prominent achievements is his book, Kitab Ash-Shatranj (Book of Chess), which was the first scientific book ever written on chess strategy. It contained information on common chess opening
Chess opening

In chess the word "opening" has two common meanings, both of which are discussed in this article. Chessplayers are so familiar with these two meanings that many books and articles never state the distinction and may switch without notice from one meaning to the other....
s, standard problems in middle game, and annotated end games. It also contains the first known description of the knight's tour
Knight's tour

The Knight's Tour is a mathematical problem involving a Knight on a chessboard. The knight is placed on the empty board and, moving according to the rules of chess, must visit each square exactly once....
  problem. Many later European writers based their work on modern chess on as-Suli's work. Apart from his chess book he also wrote several historical books.

Upon the death of ar-Radi in 940, as-Suli fell into disfavour with the new ruler due to his sympathies towards Shi'a Islam
Shi'a Islam

Shia Islam , is the second largest denomination of Islam, after Sunni Islam.Similiar to other branches of Islam, Shi'a Islam is based on the teachings of Islamic holy book, the Qur'an and message of the final prophet of Islam, Muhammad....
 and as a result had to go into exile at Basra
Basra

Al-Ba?rah is the capital of Basra Province, and had an estimated population of 1,052,200 as of 2003. Basra is also Iraq's main port. The city is the historic location of Sumer, the home of Sinbad the Sailor, and a proposed location of the Garden of Eden....
 where he spent the rest of his life in poverty. As-Suli's great-grandfather was the Turkish
Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
 prince Sul-takin, and his uncle the poet Ibrahim (ibn al-'Abbas as-Suli).

as-Suli's Diamond



as-Suli created a shatranj
Shatranj

Shatranj ????????? is an old form of chess, which came from India to Persia and has been popular in Persia and the Middle East for almost 1000 years....
 problem called "as-Suli's Diamond" that went unsolved for over a thousand years. David Hooper
David Vincent Hooper

David Vincent Hooper , born in Reigate, was a United Kingdom chess player and writer. As an amateur, he tied for fifth place in the 1949 British Chess Championship at Felixstowe....
 and Ken Whyld
Ken Whyld

Kenneth Whyld was a United Kingdom chess author and researcher, best known as the co-author ]] of The Oxford Companion to Chess, the standard single-volume chess reference work in English....
 studied this problem in the mid-1980s but were unable to crack it. It was finally solved by Russian Grandmaster Yuri Averbakh
Yuri Averbakh

Yuri Lvovich Averbakh is a Russian chess player and author. His father was Germany Jewish, and his ancestors came from Germany and were named Auerbach, meaning "meadow brook." His mother was Russian....
.

As this is a shatranj, the "queen" (counsellor) is a very weak piece, able to move only a single square diagonally.

The solution given is 1. Kb4 in Hans Ree's "The Human Comedy of Chess".