A senior official of the International Chess Federation, known by its French acronym FIDE, once noted that perhaps the game of chess was devised by aliens. I laughed. How ridiculous! The moment passed.
However, as I widened my listening and reading skills, the thought that chess was alien oriented did not seem so far-fetched after all. Some people seriously believe aliens visited earth. Did they bring the game here?
The game of chess is old and its practice dates back perhaps to pre-historic times. The earliest origins of the game are uncertain. However, in ancient tombs pieces are found which archaeologists assure us constituted a form of chess. Originally, it was a game of war. Historians say ar-Razi the Persian defeated al-’Adli ar-Rúmí in AD 847, “in the shining presence of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil and his court”.
