Al Hakem Biamri Llah, or Abu Ali Mansur, sixth Khalif of
the dynasty of the Fatimites or Obeydites of Egypt, 996-1021,
according to some authorities interdicted chess. Mr. Harkness
in Notes to Living Chess implies that he had some put to death
for playing it. Sprenger, Gayangoz, and Forbes do not mention
or confirm this, besides, though this Khalif did not much regard
the Koran, kept dancing-women and singers, indulged in all sorts
of frivolous pastimes, and was very much addicted to drinking,
as well as cruelty and tyranny, he was not a bigot. The more
famous Al Mansur (962-1002), the celebrated General and Minister
of Hisham II, tenth Sultan of Cordova, of the dynasty of Ummeyah,
was more likely to have issued such a mandate, for we read "in
order to gain popularity with the ignorant multitude, and to court
the favour of the ulemas of Cordova, and other strict men, who
were averse to the cultivation of philosophical sciences, Al
Mansur commanded a search to be made in Al Hakem's library, when
all works treating on ethics, dialectics, metaphysics, and
astronomy, were either burnt in the squares of the city, or
thrown into the wells and cisterns of the palace. The only books
suffered to remain in the splendid library, founded by Al Hakem,
II (fourth of Cordova, 822-852, the enlightened humane and just
Rahman, II) were those on rhetoric, grammar, history, medicine,
arithmetic, and other sciences, considered lawful."
Any scholar found indulging in any of the prescribed studies,
was immediately arraigned before a Court composed of kadhis
and ulemas, and, if convicted, his books were burnt, and himself
sent to prison.
I can find no other notice of a ruler or Khalif likely to have
forbidden chess, but in 1254 Lewis, IX, in France, is recorded to
have interdicted the game.
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