The first known game of Chess (Chaturanga and then Shatranj, the Arabic form of the word) was the kind of Chess played by the Arabian people in the middle ages. Instead of the Queen, they had the Fers who could only move a square diagonally a time. Instead of the Bishops, they had the Al-fils who move diagonally skipping a square. Pawns could only move a square a time and could only be promoted to a Fers. The King, Rooks and Knights moved as usual. Castling was unknown and you could win by checkmate and by stalemate. The following match was played between Abu-Bakr Muhammed Ben Yahya as-Suli and Abu’l- Faraj bin al-Muzaffar bin Sa’-id al-Lajlaj in the 10th century.

Fers (Queen), moves one square diagonally

Al-fil (Bishop), moves 2 squares diagonally

The following Chess game which was kindly provided to us by Dr. Rene Gralla, a lawyer and a free-lance journalist from Hamburg, Germany and also a writer for the German TV guide Hoerzu from 1991-2000, shows the second oldest great game of Shatranj that is known and that even ends with a checkmate in 35 moves! It was played between Abu-Bakr Muhammed Ben Yahya as-Suli (white) and the Caliph Abu 'l-Fadl Ja'far ibn Ahmad al-Mu'tadid (black). The latter is better known under his name Caliph al-Muqtadir bi-Allah around 920 A.D. at Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. The opening that as-Suli and his prominent opponent played is called “Sayyal”, in English: “Torrent”.

Fers (Queen), moves one square diagonally

Al-fil (Bishop), moves 2 squares diagonally

A basic problem that an aficionado of Shatranj would face in case that she/he wants to study the way to play Chess conforming to the rules of Shatranj, is the obvious lack of recorded games. There are only two historic encounters from the golden age of Shatranj shown above that can be replayed and studied, but that’s all. These are the bad news - but the good news are the Chess problems in Shatranj that are called “Mansubat”, the kind of substitutes for the final phases of real life-style games since they look more realistic and less artificial than the corresponding compositions in modern Chess. A very interesting Mansubat that features a desperate attack by the white army (as the result of the apparent simulation of a very special handicap game) has been reported by Dutch expert Hans Bodlaender.                                                                         - Dr. Rene Gralla

Fers (Queen), moves one square diagonally

Al-fil (Bishop), moves 2 squares diagonally