Latest / Tamerlane: The Conqueror Who Tried to Rebuild the Mongol Legacy — Fexingo History / Tamerlane's Captive Chess Masters: The Samarkand Shatranj Tournament
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about how Tamerlane brought craftsmen and scholars to Samarkand, but there's one group of captives we haven't touched on yet: chess masters. Luna: Chess masters? He rounded up chess players? Lucas: Exactly. Not just any players — the finest shatranj players from across the Islamic world. Shatranj is the Persian name for chess, which itself came from the Indian chaturanga. And Timur, who saw himself as a strategist above all, wanted the best minds in the game at his court. Luna: So it was like a forced relocation of grandmasters. Lucas: Pretty much. The Zafarnama and Ibn Arabshah both mention that after his campaigns in Persia and Iraq, Timur would bring back not just silks and gold, but also the leading shatranj players. He set up a kind of permanent tournament in Samarkand, where these masters would compete, and he'd watch and learn. Lucas: But it wasn't just entertainment. Timur used chess as a way to study strategy — he'd say that a commander who couldn't see ten moves ahead was no better than a pawn. And he even invented his own variant, called 'Timur's chess' or 'great chess', played on an 11-by-10 board with new pieces like camels and giraffes. Luna: Wait, a larger board with more pieces? That sounds like a whole new game. Lucas: It was. The rules are described in a manuscript from the period, the 'Kanz al-Mulah' — 'Treasure of the Amusements'. It had pieces like the 'dabbaba', which moved like a modern rook but with a hop, and the 'zarafa', which moved like a knight but with a longer leap. Timur wanted a game that mirrored the complexity of his battlefield tactics. Luna: Did any of these captive masters write about it? Lucas: Yes, that's the fascinating part. One of the most famous was a man named al-Suli — actually, there were several al-Sulis, but the one Timur prized was descended from the 10th-century grandmaster Abu Bakr al-Suli, whose book on chess was still studied in Timur's time. The captive al-Suli composed problems and recorded games, some of which survive. Lucas: There's also a story, probably apocryphal, that Timur once played against Ibn Arabshah himself — the same historian who later wrote a hostile biography of Timur. In the story, Ibn Arabshah checkmated Timur in twelve moves, and Timur, furious, had him thrown into a dungeon. But that may just be to show how sharp Ibn Arabshah was. Luna: That's a great story, even if it's not true. So chess was part of his image as a Sahib-i Qiran — a lord of the auspicious conjunction. Lucas: Exactly. The Timurid court cultivated this idea that Timur was not just a conqueror but an intellectual, a patron of all arts and sciences. Chess fit perfectly into that. And it also served a practical purpose: it kept his captives occupied and loyal, or at least compliant, because they were given status and a purpose. Lucas: If today's episode gave you a new way to think about how empires use games — well, that's the kind of thing that keeps this show ad-free, thanks to listeners like you. If you want to help keep it that way, you can always buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small gesture, but it really makes a difference. Luna: Yeah, and it keeps us from having to interrupt the flow with advertisements. Lucas: So back to the board: the variant Timur championed didn't outlast him, but the regular shatranj thrived in Central Asia for centuries. And the competitive environment he created in Samarkand actually accelerated the study of chess theory. Luna: How so? Was there like a ranking system? Lucas: Not exactly, but the masters would compete in tournaments with prizes — gold, robes of honour, positions in the bureaucracy. The winner might become a close advisor. That incentivised them to analyse openings and endgames more systematically. Some of the earliest known chess problems from the Islamic world come from this period, preserved in manuscripts from Samarkand. Lucas: And there's a specific manuscript, the 'Mansubat al-Shatranj', or 'Chess Problems', that contains dozens of puzzles composed by Timur's captive masters. Many of them are 'diagram' problems, where you have to find the winning sequence — a bit like modern chess puzzles. Luna: So it's not just a historical curiosity — it's a real part of chess history. Lucas: Absolutely. And it shows how Timur's forced relocation of talent had unintended positive effects. He wanted to demonstrate his power by gathering the world's best players, but in doing so, he created a vibrant intellectual scene that advanced the game itself. Lucas: Of course, not all the captives were willing participants. Ibn Arabshah writes that some of the masters tried to play badly to avoid drawing Timur's attention, because if you won too often, you might be seen as a threat. But if you lost too often, you were worthless and could be executed. So there was a real art to managing your performance. Luna: That's a terrifying game theory problem in itself. Lucas: Exactly. And it speaks to the environment of fear and favour that Timur cultivated. But for the best players, it was a chance to live comfortably, to study the game, and to have their work preserved. Lucas: We also have records from Spanish envoy Ruy González de Clavijo, who visited Samarkand in 1404. He describes seeing Timur play chess in his garden pavilion, surrounded by masters. He says Timur would play for hours, often late into the night, and that the games were taken very seriously. Luna: Did Clavijo play him? Lucas: Not that he records. But he does note that Timur was a strong player, though not the best. He preferred the 'great chess' variant, probably because it allowed for more creativity and mirrored his unorthodox military tactics. Lucas: So what we have is a picture of a ruler who used every tool at his disposal — including a board game — to project power, to learn, and to control. And in the process, he left a mark on the history of chess that's still visible today. Luna: I'm going to look up those chess problems now. Lucas: Do it. And if you find a solution, let me know — I've been stuck on one for weeks.