Shatranj is an old form of
chessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
, which came from
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
to Persia and has been popular in Persia and the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
for almost 1000 years. Modern
chessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
has gradually developed from this game.
Etymology and origins
The word
shatranj is derived from the
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
chaturangaChaturanga is an ancient Indian game which is presumed to be the common ancestor of the games of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi....
(
catuḥ="four",
anga="arm"). In
Middle PersianMiddle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as Western Iranian language...
the word appears as
chatrang, with the 'u' lost due to syncope (e.g. in the title of the text
Mâdayân î chatrang, Book of Chess, 7th c.). In Persian folk etymology, the word is sometimes
re-bracketedRebracketing is a common process in historical linguistics where a word originally derived from one source is broken down or bracketed into a different set of factors...
as
sad (100) +
ranj (worries), i.e. a hundred worries, which may appear quite meaningful to players and their friends. The word was adapted into Arabic as
shatranj, and then into the
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
ajedrez and Greek ζατρίκιον; but English
chess and
check come via French
échecs (Old French
eschecs) from Arabic شَاه
shāh (of Persian origin) = "king".
The game came to Persia from
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
in the early centuries of the Christian Era. The earliest Persian reference to chess is found in the
Middle PersianMiddle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as Western Iranian language...
book
Karnamak-i Artaxshir-i PapakanThe Kārnāmag-ī Ardaxšīr-ī Pābagān or Book of the Deeds of Ardashir, Son of Papag, is a mythological Middle Persian tale written sometime during the Sassanid period ....
, which was written between the 3rd to 7th century. This ancient Persian text refers to Shah
Ardashir IArdashir I, founder of the Sassanid dynasty, was ruler of Istakhr , subsequently Persia , and finally "King of Kings of Iran"...
, who ruled from 224–241, as a master of the game:
However,
Karnamak contains many fables and legends, and this only establishes the popularity of chatrang at the time of its composition.
During the reign of the later Sassanid king
Khosrau IKhosrau I , also known as Anushiravan the Just Khosrau I (also called Khosnow I, Chusro I, Khusro I, Husraw I or Khosrow I, Chosroes I in classical sources, most commonly known in Persian as Anushirvan, Persian: انوشيروان meaning the immortal soul), also known as Anushiravan the Just (انوشیروان...
(531–579), a gift from an Indian king (possibly a Maukhari Dynasty king of
KannaujKannauj , also spelt Kanauj, is a city and a municipal board or Nagar Palika Parishad in Kannauj district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city's name is traditionally derived from the term Kanyakubja . Kannauj is an ancient city, in earlier times the capital of a great Hindu kingdom...
) included a chess game with sixteen pieces of
emeraldEmeralds are a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5 - 8 on the 10 point Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Most emeralds are highly included, so their toughness is classified as generally poor...
and sixteen of
rubyA ruby is a pink to blood-red gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum . The red color is caused mainly by the presence of the element chromium. Its name comes from ruber, Latin for red. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapphires...
(green vs. red). The game came with a challenge which was successfully resolved by Khosrau's courtiers. This incident, originally referred to in
the
Mâdayân î chatrang (c. 620 AD), is also mentioned in Firdausi's Shahnama (c. 1010 AD).
The rules of Chaturanga seen in India today have enormous variation, but all involve four branches (
angas) of the army: the horse, the elephant (bishop), the chariot (rook) and the foot-soldier (pawn), played on a 8x8 board. Shatranj adapted much of the same rules as Chaturanga, and also the basic 16 piece structure. In some later variants the darker squares were engraved. The game spread Westwards after the
Islamic conquest of PersiaThe Muslim conquest of Persia led to the end of the Sassanid Empire in 644, of the Sassanid dynasty in 651 and the eventual extirpation of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. The Sassanid Empire was first invaded by Muslims in present day Iraq in 633 under general Khalid ibn Walid, which resulted...
and achieved great popularity and a considerable body of literature on game tactics and strategy was produced from the 8th c. onwards.
With the spread of Islam, chess diffused into the
MaghrebThe Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the...
and then to
AndalusianThe adjective Andalusian can refer to:*Andalusia, a region in Spain*Al-Andalus, a historical state on the Iberian Peninsula*Andalusian people, an ethnic group or nation in Spain centered in the Andalusia region...
Spain. During the
Islamic conquest of IndiaDuring the late Middle Ages, several Islamic empires were established in South Asia.-Delhi Sultanate:During the last quarter of the twelfth century, Muhammad of Ghor invaded the Indo-Gangetic plain, conquering in succession Ghazni, Multan, Sindh, Lahore, and Delhi. Qutb-ud-din Aybak, one of his...
(c.12th c.), some forms came back to India as well, as evidenced in the N. Indian term
māt (mate, derivaative from
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
māt) or the
BengaliBengali or Bangla is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages....
borey (pawn, presumed der.
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
baidaq). Over the following centuries, chess became popular in Europe eventually giving rise to modern chess.
Rules
| Shatranj pieces |
  |
Shah (KingIn chess, the King is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that he would not be able to avoid capture . If a player's king is threatened with capture, he is said to be in check, and the player must move so as to remove the threat of capture...
) |
  |
Vazīr (Counsellor) |
  |
Rukh (Chariot or RookA rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. In the past the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes , and non-players still often call it a "castle". Using the rook in a specialized double-movement with the king is still refered to as castling...
) |
  |
"Pīl" in Persian and "al-Fīl" in Arabic (Elephant) |
  |
Asb (Horse in Persian) or KnightThe knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head, leading some to refer to it informally as a "horse"....
|
  |
Sarbaz (piyadeh) (PawnThe pawn is the most numerous and the weakest piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the second rank from the view of the player...
) |
The initial setup in shatranj was essentially the same as in modern chess. However the position of the white shah (king), on the right or left side was not fixed. Either the arrangement as in modern chess or as shown on the diagram above were possible. In either case, however, the white and black shāh would be on the same file (but not always in modern India). The game was played with these pieces:
- Shāh (king) moves like the king in chess
In chess, the King is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that he would not be able to avoid capture . If a player's king is threatened with capture, he is said to be in check, and the player must move so as to remove the threat of capture...
.
- Fers (counsellor
A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council. Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman...
; also spelled ferz; Arabic firz, from Persian فرزين farzīn ; also called Wazīr) moves exactly one square diagonally, which makes it a rather weak piece. It was renamed "queenThe queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of their first rank next to their king. The white queen starts on a white square, and the black queen on a black square, thus the mnemonic "queen gets her color" or "queen on...
" in Europe. Even today, the word for the queen piece is ферзь (ferz) in Russian, vezér in Hungarian and "vazīr" in Persian. It has analogues to the guards in xiangqiXiangqi is a two-player Chinese board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, shogi and janggi. The present-day form of Xiangqi originated in China and is therefore commonly called Chinese chess in English. The first character 象 Xiàng here has the meaning "image" or...
and Gold Generals in shogi, in English, also known as Japanese chess, is a two-player board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, Chinese Xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of chess variants native to Japan...
.
- Rukh (chariot
The chariot is the earliest and simplest type of carriage, used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Chariots were built in Mesopotamia by the Mesopotamians as early as 3000 BC and in China during the 2nd millennium BC. The original chariot was a fast, light, open,...
; from Persian رخ rokh) moves like the rookA rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. In the past the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes , and non-players still often call it a "castle". Using the rook in a specialized double-movement with the king is still refered to as castling...
in chess.
- Pīl, Alfil, Aufin, and similar (elephant; from Persian پيل pīl; al- is the Arabic
Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
for "the") moves exactly two squares diagonally, jumping over the square between. Each Pīl could reach only one-eighth of the squares on the board, and because their circuits were disjoint, they could never capture one another. This piece might have had a different move sometimes in chaturangaChaturanga is an ancient Indian game which is presumed to be the common ancestor of the games of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi....
, where the piece is also called "elephant". The Pīl was replaced by the bishopA bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
in modern chess. Even today, the word for the bishop piece is alfil in Spanish, alfiere in Italian and "fīl" in Persian. The elephant piece survives in xiangqiXiangqi is a two-player Chinese board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, shogi and janggi. The present-day form of Xiangqi originated in China and is therefore commonly called Chinese chess in English. The first character 象 Xiàng here has the meaning "image" or...
with only the limitation that the elephant in xiangqi does not jump and is restricted to the owner's half of the board. In janggiJanggi is the Korean name for a strategic board game widespread in Korea. It was derived from Chinese Xiangqi. The game looks very similar to Chinese Xiangqi, such as starting position of pieces, and the 9 x 10 point board, without the Chinese river in the middle. In addition, Janggi also has some...
, its movement was changed to become a slightly further-reaching version of the horse.
- Faras (horse, from Arabic; Persian اسپ asp) moves like the knight
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head, leading some to refer to it informally as a "horse"....
in chess.
- Baidaq (from Arabic بيدق from Persian پياده piyāda, foot-soldier, by adapting the Persian word as Arabic bayādiq, which was treated as a broken plural
In linguistics, broken plurals are a grammatical phenomenon typical in many Semitic languages of the Middle East and East Africa in which a singular noun is "broken" to form a plural by having its root consonants embedded in a different "frame", rather than by merely adding a prefix or suffix to...
from which was extracted an apparent singular baidaq) moves and captures like the pawnsThe pawn is the most numerous and the weakest piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the second rank from the view of the player...
in chess, but not moving two squares on the first move. When they reach the eighth rank, baidaqs are promoted, but only to fers.
Pieces are shown on the diagrams and recorded in the notation using the equivalent modern symbols, as in the table above. In modern descriptions of shatranj, the names king, rook, knight and pawn are commonly used for shah, rukh, faras, and baidaq.
There were also other differences compared to modern chess:
CastlingCastling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess that involves more than one piece of the same player. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then moving the rook onto the...
was not allowed (it was invented much later).
StalematingStalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves. A stalemate ends the game in a draw. Stalemate is covered in the rules of chess....
the opposing king resulted in a win for the player delivering stalemate. Capturing all one's opponent's pieces apart from the king (
baring the king) was a win, unless your opponent could capture your last piece on his or her next move, then in most parts of the Islamic world it was a draw, but in
MedinaMedina is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province...
it was a win.
Early Arabic shatranj literature
During the
Golden AgeThe Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 9th to 13th centuries for 400 years C.E., but has been extended to the 15th century by recent scholarship...
of
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
, many works on shatranj were written, recording for the first time the analysis of
opening gamesIn chess the word "opening" has two common meanings: a stage of a game and a sequence of moves; both of which are discussed in this article. Chess players are so familiar with these two meanings that many books and articles never state the distinction and may switch without notice from one meaning...
,
chess problemA chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that white is to move first, and checkmate black in two...
s, the
knight's tourThe 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...
, and many more subjects common in modern chess books. Many of these manuscripts are missing, but their content is known due to compilation work done by the later authors.
The earliest listing of works on chess is in the
Fihrist, a general
bibliographyBibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...
produced in 377 AH (988
CECommon Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used world-wide for numbering the year part of the date...
) by
Ibn al-NadimAbu'l-Faraj Muhammad bin Is'hāq al-Nadim , whose father was known as al-Warrāq was of unknown origin although some sources refer to him as Persian Shi'ite Muslim scholar and bibliographer. Some scholars regard him as a Persian but this is not certain. He is famous as the author of the Kitāb...
. It includes an entire section on the topic of chess, listing:
- Al-Adli's Kitab ash-shatranj ('Book of chess')
- Ar-Razi's Latif fi'sh-shatranj ('Elegance in chess')
- As-Suli's Kitab ash-shatranj (two volumes)
- Al-Lajlaj's Kitab mansubat ash-shatranj ('Book of chess-positions or problems')
- B. Aliqlidisi's Kitab majmu'fi mansubat ash-shatranj ('Collection of chess problems')
There is a passage referring to chess in a work said to be by Hasan, a philosopher from
BasraAl-Baṣrah is the capital of Basra Province, and had an estimated population of 3,800,200 as of 2009. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it is incapable of deep water access, which is handled at the the port of Umm Qasr...
who died in 728 CE. However the attribution of authorship is dubious.
Player classification
Al-Adli as well as as-Suli introduced classifications of players by their playing strength. Both of them specify 5 classes of players:
- Aliyat (or aliya), grandees
- Mutaqaribat, proximes - players who could win 2-4 games out of 10 in the match against grandee. They received odds of a pawn from grandee (better players g-, a- or h-pawn, weaker ones d- or e-pawn).
- Third class - players who received odds of a fers from grandee.
- Fourth class - received odds of a knight.
- Fifth class - received odds of a rook.
To determine his or her class, a player would play a series of match with a player of a known class without odds. If he wins 7 or more games out of 10, he belongs to a higher class.
Famous players
During the reign of the
ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
caliphThe Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transliterated version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
s, shatranj players of highest class were called
aliyat or grandees. There were only a very few players in this category. The most well known of them were:
- Jabir al-Kufi, Rabrab and Abun-Naam were three aliyat players during the rule of caliph al-Ma'mun
Abū Jaʿfar Abdullāh al-Māʾmūn ibn Harūn was an Abbasid caliph who reigned from 813 until his death in 833...
.
- Al-Adli was the strongest player during the rule of caliph al-Wathiq
Al-Wathiq ibn Mutasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned from 842 until 847 AD ....
. At this time he was the only player in aliyat category.
- Ar-Razi in 847 won a match against an already old al-Adli in the presence of caliph al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil ˤAlā Allāh Jaˤfar ibn al-Muˤtasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861...
and so become a player of aliyat category.
- As-Suli
Abu Bakr Muhammad bin Yahya al-Suli was a nadim of successive Abbasid caliphs. He was noted for his poetry and scholarship and wrote a chronicle called Akhbar al-Radi wa'l-Muttaqi, detailing the reigns of the caliphs al-Radi and al-Muttaqi...
was the strongest player during the reign of caliph al-MuktafiAl-Muktafi was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 902 to 908. He was the son of the previous Caliph, al-Mu'tadid, by a Turkish slave-girl. 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,...
. Al-Razi was already dead and there were no players of comparable strength before as-Suli appeared on the scene. In the presence of al-Muktafi he easily won a match against a certain al-Mawardi and thus proved that he was the best player of that time. As-Suli considered Rabrab and ar-Razi as the greatest of his predecessors.
- Al-Lajlaj was a pupil of as-Suli and also a great shatranj master of his time.
Openings
Openings in shatranj were usually called
tabbiyyaتَبِّيّة (pl. tabbiyyaat),تَبِيّات which can be translated as
battle array. Due to slow piece development in shatranj, the exact sequence of moves was relatively unimportant. Instead players aimed to reach a specific position, tabiya, mostly ignoring the play of their opponent.
The works of al-Adli and as-Suli contain collections of tabiyat. Tabiyat were usually given as position on a half-board with some comments about them. The concrete sequence of moves to reach them was not specified. In his book Al-Lajlaj analyzed some tabiya in detail. He started his analysis from some given opening, for example "Double Mujannah" or "Mujannah - Mashaikhi", and then continued up to move 40., giving numerous variations.
Piece values
Both al-Adli and as-Suli provided estimation of piece values in their books on shatranj. They used a monetary system to specify piece values. For example, as-Suli gives piece values in
dirhemDirham or dirhem is a unit of currency in several Arab nations, and formerly the related unit of mass in the Ottoman Empire and Persian states...
, the currency in use in his time:
| Piece |
Value |
| Rook |
1 dirhem |
| Knight |
2/3 dirhem |
| Fers |
1/3 - 3/8 dirhem |
| Alfil |
1/4 dirhem |
| Central pawn (d-, or e-pawn) |
1/4 dirhem |
| Knight's or Alfil's pawn (b-, c-, f-, or g-pawn) |
1/6 - 1/5 dirhem |
| Rook's pawn (a- or h-pawn) |
1/8 dirhem |
As-Suli also believed that the b-pawn was better than the f-pawn and King's side Alfil (on the c-file) was better than Queen's side one (on the f-file). Furthemore, an Alfil on the c-file was better than the d-pawn and the Alfil on the f-file was better than an e-pawn.
Mansubat
Arabic chess masters composed many
shatranj problemsA chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that white is to move first, and checkmate black in two...
. Such shatranj problems were called
mansūba (pl.
mansūbāt). This word can be translated from Arabic as
arrangement,
position or
situation. Mansubat were typically composed in such a way that a win could be achieved as a sequence of checks. One's own king was usually threatened by immediate checkmate.
One of the most famous Mansuba is the
Dilaram Problem shown at the right. Black threatens immediate checkmate by 1...Ra2 or Ra8.
However, white can win with a two-rook sacrifice:
- 1. Rh8+ Kxh8; 2. Bf5+ Kg8; 3. Rh8+ Kxh8; 4. g7+ Kg8; 5. Nh6#. or
- 1. Rh8+ Kxh8; 2. Bf5+ Rh2; 3. Rxh2+ Kg8; 4. Rh8+ Kxh8; 5. g7+ Kg8; 6. Nh6#.
Note that the Alfil (bishop) moves two squares diagonally, jumping over intermediate pieces; this allows it to jump over the white knight to deliver the
discovered checkIn chess, a discovered attack is an attack revealed when one piece moves out of the way of another. Discovered attacks can be extremely powerful, as the piece moved can make a threat independently of the piece it reveals. Like many chess tactics, they succeed because the opponent is unable to meet...
with 2.Bf5+. It was said that a nobleman
wageredGambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods. Typically, the outcome of the wager is evident within a short period....
(playing white) his wife Dilārām on a chess game, and this position arose, and she appealed "Sacrifice your two Rooks, and not me."
External links