Actual title: “’Avoid them, so that you may
prosper’: Conflicting Representations of Chess in Islam”
The role of
chess in early Islam was one that was contradictory and full of
inconsistencies. Arguably, its role in other cultures was one that could be more
easily transcribed, such as the 1274 ban on chess in an English monastery. By
contrast, chess was so common in different aspects of Muslim culture that the
significance of the game was contingent on its various interpretations. In
particular, the implications of chess playing on religious and gendered
conventions are tumultuous, they offer powerful insights into the ‘constructedness’
of Islamic traditions, as well as the differing social contexts in which these
traditions took place.
Marilyn Yalom’s
research in Birth of the Chess Queen
suggests that chess was already established in Muslim culture as early as the 7th
century and was arguably popularized by Caliph Harun al-Rashid in the late 8th
to early 9th century. In this account of the game’s history, the caliph
used the game as a means through which citizens could rise through the
established social structure. Whereas chess was limited to nobility or the
upper classes of other cultures, the story of al-Rashid suggests that chess was
a game played by people from various positions within the social order as people
from the lower classes were given the opportunity to move beyond their
circumstances by the virtue of their chess skills. Another particular story, as
accounted in The Arabian Nights,
tells of a slave girl whose mastery of the game helped her escape a sentence
that had been imposed on her (Yalom 9). While Yalom concedes that the
historical accuracy of this story is debatable at best, the very fact that the
literature of the time features a slave woman playing chess is in and of itself
a commentary on the lack of social restrictions in relation to chess.
Though this interpretation
of the history of chess seems to suggest a prevalence of the game, its role in
Muslim culture was not so readily accepted. There were three main objections,
all of which criticize the game based on its alleged transgression of religious
values. Insofar as chess was a game, this alone was grounds for disapproval by
Muslim clerics; any action that was not directly religious was seen to distract
Muslims from performing otherwise pious activities. Time that was spent learning
the game and its various strategies was time taken away from prayer and
religious devotion (Yalom 104). Not only was chess a game, but it was a game
that—in some contexts—involved the use of dice. Though chess was typically
played without dice in Islamic cultures, the introduction of chance was enough
for religious leaders to decry the game as a form of gambling, which is
expressly forbidden in any form according to Muslim beliefs. In this way, chess
posed a dual threat as a game. More significantly, however, chess was seen as haraam (taboo) because of the iconographic
representation of the pieces. Though this is a point that is contested between
different groups within Islam, the established interpretation was that the
chess pieces could be construed as “idols,” which were “abominations devised by
Satan,” and thus a threat to the Islamic faith (Yalom 7). While chess and its
game conventions are highly controversial, it remained (paradoxically) highly
popular by a large portion of the population.
There is yet
another disconnect between chess and Islamic conventions with respect to its
relationship to women. While Yalom’s book focuses primarily on the queen piece,
she mentions on several occasions that Muslim manifestations of the game still
used the vizier piece. This could easily be construed as an example of misogyny
as the introduction of a strong female piece is rejected in order to maintain
an all-male presence on the chessboard. This interpretation is not without its
problems, however. One thing to consider is the vizier itself: the piece can
only move one space at a time, only diagonally, easily making it one of the
weakest pieces on the board. This somewhat complicates the gendered commentary on
Islamic chess rules if the prevailing icon of phallic strength is effectively
devoid of any strength.
In addition to a
lack of a female presence on the board, there is another question of gendered
interpretations with respect to the players beyond the board. Though the
argument for misogyny is easier to make with the vizier piece, Yalom presents
evidence that women were prominent players to the same degree as men were. In
1283, Spanish king Alfonso’s Book of Chess
depicts Moorish women surrounding a chessboard (Yalom 63). Women may not have
been present on the board, but—like the slave girl in Caliph al-Rashid’s court—they
were significant enough to partake in an activity that required great strategic
thinking and insight. Despite this, however, it is also worth noting that the
caliph was in the habit of awarding the victors of his chess games—often with
other slave girls as prizes. It is the paradoxical nature of al-Rashid’s story
that best serves as a metaphor for the varying—and often antagonistic—representations
of chess in early Islamic culture.
Works Cited:
Yalom, Marilyn. Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2005.