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.
------
IRELAND
The word, chess, whatever it may have signified, was
common in Ireland long before it is ever found in English
annals. The quotation from the Saxon Chronicle, of the Earl of
Devonshire and his daughter playing chess together, refers to
the reign of Edgar, about half a century before Canute played
chess; but in Ireland the numerous references and legacies of
chess-boards are of eight hundred years' earlier date.
Several scholars in Ireland have discussed the question of
probable early knowledge of chess there.
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