Turkish Chess

chess re-enters Islam

After their invention in the West, the rules of modern chess slowly entered Islam, where theold game was still played.

In Turkey, a few chess versions were played that mark the transition from the old game to the new game in Islam. 

One Turkish version used the moves of the modern bishop for the fil and an enhanced fers. 
 
The Turks took the powerful queen of modern chess and made it more powerful.

The Turkish fers moved as the modern queen and the knight or faras.

This combined piece was one of the most destructive chess pieces ever invented.  

Placed in the center of an empty board, it could attack thirty-five squares.

The increased mobility of the piece made the Turkish game less fun.

Play was difficult because a planned attack was nearly impossible when your opponent could retaliate with a fers.

Luckily, this piece had no real future and was used only briefly in Turkey and a few other countries.

H.J.R. Murray wrote that these moves existed "in countries in which the European rules were ousting original native method of play.

Russian chess went through this phase, and the Queen in Georgian chess still possessed this extended move in 1874."  

The regular European moves later became standard throughout the world.

While the moves of the pieces became the same in Islam as they were in Europe, not all of the new rules were adopted.  

Modern Islamic forms of chess such as Rumi or Parsi chess were slight variations on the European game.  

Generally, these forms of chess allowed the king a privileged knight move if he was not in check and had not yet moved, castling was not allowed, and the pawns could never move a double step.


One of the great players of the twentieth century, Mir Sultan Khan, played one of these varieties in his home land, the Punjab, before switching to the international game in 1921.  

The variety he played until he was 13 years old had no initial double step for the pawn.


Without the double step, it was difficult for him to initiate an attack when playing this game.


As a result, he developed into a positional player.