.p02 1 025 042

.p06 0 268 042

.p06 0 025 152

.p02 1 268 152

.c


.fg

Turkish Chess



.h28

chess re-enters Islam

.n




.c

After their invention in the
West, the rules of modern chess
slowly entered Islam, where the
old 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.

.gu198 128 01 007

.n




.c

The Turkish fers moved
as the modern queen and the

.c
   
knight or;

.si
 
faras.;

.si
  
This combined

.c

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.

.n



.c

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.

.gu200 128 02 007

.n



.c

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.

.n



.c

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.

.gu230 148 03 007

.n



.fg

.c

notes

.gr049

.ft

.c


 

1 Murray, ;

.su

History of Chess;

.su

, pp. 354-
355.

 

2 ;

.su

Ibid.;

.su

, p. 355.

 

3 Hooper & Whyld, ;

.su

Oxford Companion

.su
   
;

.su

to Chess;

.su

, p. 336.