Shatranj

Where it came from

Well documented

Chaturanga reached Persia by the 7th century and became shatranj. After the Arab conquest of Persia it spread across the Islamic world and into Europe through Spain and Italy.

Shatranj had real masters. Players such as al-Adli and as-Suli in 9th- and 10th-century Baghdad wrote books of openings and composed problems, called mansubat, centuries before European chess literature.

Modern chess is itself a variant of shatranj. Around 1475–1500 players in Spain and Italy gave the queen and bishop their long-range moves, and the faster game, sometimes called “mad queen chess”, swept Europe.

Why it was made: It was simply chess for eight centuries; its slowness is what the European reform set out to fix.

How it differs from chess

• The ferzIn the queen’s place stood the ferz, or vizier, which moved one square diagonally.
• The alfilThe bishop’s ancestor leapt exactly two squares diagonally, jumping over anything in between. It could reach only eight squares on the whole board.
• Slow pawnsPawns moved one square at a time, even from their starting squares, and promoted only to a ferz. There was no castling.
• More ways to winBesides checkmate, you could win by capturing every enemy piece except the king (“baring the king”). Many sources also count stalemate as a win for the side that delivers it.

Notable moments

1. c. 900–950as-Suli, the leading player in Baghdad, writes on shatranj strategy and composes problems still studied today.
2. c. 1475–1500The new queen and bishop appear in Spain and Italy, turning shatranj into modern chess.

Questions

Why was the queen so weak in early chess?

In shatranj the piece was the king’s counsellor, not a queen, and it moved only one square diagonally. Europe renamed it and, around 1475, made it the strongest piece on the board.

Can you play shatranj today?

Yes. Variant servers and engines such as Fairy-Stockfish support it, though the rules must be reconstructed and versions differ in details such as stalemate.