The Immortal Game Read Online Free PDF

expectations, was that the real triumph would occur down the street, away from all the lights and the gawkers.

“A CQUIRE KNOWLEDGE,” the Prophet Muhammad commanded his followers. “…It guideth us to happiness; it sustaineth us in misery; it is an ornament amongst friends, and an armour against enemies.”
    Understanding is the essential weapon. Victory is obtained by the intellect…
    Chess and Islam were born about the same time—chess out of a regional need to understand complex new ideas, and Islam out of the Arabs’ desperate need for discipline, intelligence, and meaningful community. In the year 612, Muhammad ibn Abdullah, a prosperous merchant from Mecca deeply troubled by the splintered, selfish nature of Arab society, emerged as the Prophet Muhammad with divine instructions on how to unite and transform his people. He called his new belief system
Islam
, meaning “peace through surrender to God.” In its essence, Islam was a strict code of ethics requiring subservience to the community and compassion toward the poor. It quickly helped Arab tribes end their constant blood feuds and create an all-powerful super-tribe based not on family connection but on shared ideology and security. Islam made Arabia an instant superpower. Within two decades of Muhammad’s death in 632, the new Muslim Empire controlled Persia, Syria, Egypt, and pieces of North Africa.
    In Persia the Muslims encountered
chatrang
, the bloodless new war game which relied solely on players’ intellect. Chess and Islam complemented each other well: a new game of war, wits, and self-control serving a spirited new religious and social movement organized around the same values. “The [board] is placed between two friends of known friendship,” wrote ninth-century poet Ali ibn al-Jahm. “They recall the memories of war in an image of war, but without bloodshed. This attacks, that defends, and the struggle between them never languishes.”
    Lacking the
ch
and the
ng
sounds in their speech, Arab Muslims changed
chatrang
into
shatranj
, and quickly made the game their own. As if invented by Muhammad himself, the game seemed to speak directly to the new Muslim ideals—and found its way into the progressive rhetoric of the day. “The skilled player places his pieces in such a way as to discover consequences that the ignorant man never sees,” wrote the poet al-Katib. “…Thus he serves the Sultan’s interests, by showing how to foresee disaster.”
    Records show that
shatranj
quickly became woven into the fabric of the new Muslim culture. A list of prominent players of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries includes caliphs, lawyers, immigrants, intellectuals, and even young girls. It’s also clear that the game soon transcended mere play for its Islamic adopters. “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 (
bayadiq
),” wrote the poet al-Farazdaq in the late seventh century. The caste implications of chess quickly captured the popular imagination, with the array of pieces seen as a microcosm not just of a fighting army but also more generally of human society, with its all-important monarch, its privileged nobility, and its expendable peasants. A chess set was not, in and of itself, social commentary, but with its crystal clear labeling of society’s constituent parts, it did strongly
invite
social commentary. Already the game was an indelible part of the Islamic landscape.
    Even with its broad resonance, though, chess was not immune to controversy. From the very first exposure to the game, there had been a serious and recurring question as to whether chess was allowable under Islamic law. The Koran—the sacred text of revelations received by Muhammad—did not mention chess by name, but did explicitly outlaw the use of both “images” and “lots.” The prohibition of
images
was aimed at eliminating any sort of idol worship, and was