Talk:Early Arabic chess literature

message: Shouldn't we merge this article into shatranj, as a subsection in History section? All "Early Arabic chess literature" were about shatranj. Andreas Kaufmann 21:32, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge suggestion 

message: The link for ar-Razi points to the famous physician. According to Murray, the physician could not have been the chess player and author. The chess player was dead before 900 AD. They were two different persons.
I think it's worth a correction.
: Thanks, I corrected this. What do you think about the comment above that these books didn't exist at all? Andreas Kaufmann 18:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is unbelievable that Murray thought off himself all this stuff on shatranj in his book. However the point was that Fihsrist, the book by Ibn al-Nadim doesn't contain any references to chess/shatranj books. In very beginning of Chapter X, Murray writes: "...In b. Ishaq an-Nadim's great bibliographic work, the K. al-fihrist, compiled 377/988, we find a section devoted to the authors of books on chess." Further the text fragment from Fihrist is following, which list the shatranj books. Murray really doesn't provide page number or whatever location information where in Fihrist this fragment can be found. Sloan claims that there is no such fragment in Fihrist at all. This statement is verifyable: there are translations of Fihrist into English, see e.g. , one just needs to find text fragment given by Murray and provide the page number. Andreas Kaufmann 06:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ar-Razi 

message: I've been working for years in Chess history too. What I read here is surprising. Actually a lot of modern day scholars are citing Murray, saying the opposite is not true. See for instance Antonio Panaino "La novella degli scacchi e della tavola reale". Of course all the mentioned manuscripts exist and of course Firdawsi told the story of Chess-Nard at Khusraw's court in the Shahnâma. Modern scholars, for instance those writting in Board Games Studies, do accept those facts without any trouble.
It is not true to say that Murray cited those Arab and Persian manuscripts "without exact quotes". On the contrary, he gave his study with a lot of details, in a very erudite style. Of course he made an English translation and didn't give the original Arab or Persian text as he did elsewhere for European languages. But remember that he wrote in 1913, the world was very "eurocentric" then. Also, complaining about a missing page number in 12th or 15th muslim manuscript is a pathetic request, has it any sense? 
Murray's huge book was very rare few years ago but it has been re-edited now and interested readers can make their opinion by theirselves. I think that no one which has ever opened this book can believe that the author was inventing or cheating. This book represents the full achievement of one life, as an author of books on game history myself, I feel very respectful, I would never been able to do such a work. This is also why this book is still unsurpassed today.
However, maybe Chess did not originate in India, maybe yes, maybe no, the question remains open. But I wonder, why such a hate against someone who is dead from long time and who let such a huge cultural heritage? 
I'd be glad to read Sloan's Origin of Chess. All what I got is 2 or 3-pages article on Internet, this is not a book. Where is this book available? (Cazaux 21:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this book exist ?