DON'T BET THE WIFE!  THE DILARAM SOLUTION
by Jan Newton

I couldn't resist putting in the photo of the dancing girls. 
They look like they're having such fun!

There are several different versions of the famous "Dilaram Problem" on the Internet. Fascinated by the differences in the accounts and by the romantic legend itself, Goddesschess sent its crack team of researchers on the hunt to root out the truth...

For information, we consulted Hooper and Whyld's The Oxford Companion to Chess(1) and Murray's A History of Chess(2).

The Dilaram Solution involves an end-game and, in the words of Murray at 266 "[T]he end-game is certainly the principal feature in all the early literature of chess, both in Muslim lands and in Europe. ... These end-game positions are called in Arabic 'mansuba,' pl. 'mansubat' or 'manasib,' this word being the passive participle of the verb 'nasaba,' 'to erect,' 'set up,' 'appoint,' or 'arrange,' and meaning accordingly 'that which has been erected, set up, or arranged,' an 'arrangement,' 'position,' or 'situation' - in modern chess language, a 'problem.'"

Oxford Companion states at 109:

"Dilaram's mate, Firdewsi at-Tahihal (b. 1453), a Turkish poet who took 40-50 years to write the world's longest poem (allegedly 890,000 verses containing all contemporary knowledge of history, philosophy, medicine, geometry, etc.), completed a chess book in 1503 and decided to use in a story a famous 10th-century problem attributed to as-SULI.  As it happens he copied the position incorrectly, adding an irrelevant black FERS on c3 and, more disastrously, moving the white knight to g5 and the rook on h4 to h5.  A prince had wagered and lost his fortune to another prince during an intense chess session and in desperation offered as stake his favourite wife, Dilaram (meaning heart's ease).  When he seemed lost she called out 'O Shah, sacrifice both rooks and save Dilaram; advance your fil and pawn and checkmate with your horse.'"

The piece shown as a bishop is a FIL (A). 

1. Rh8+ Kxh8 
2. Af5+ Kg8 
3. Rh8+ Kxh8 
4. g7+ Kg8 
5. Nh6 mate.

"The story has been told, sung, and embellished down the centuries.  The problem, too, has had enduring popularity; more than 200 settings of it are known.  A position using modern chessmen was given in a Persian manuscript dated 1796-8.  This is a version of it:"

Mate in 5. 

1. Rh8+ 
2. Ng4+ 
3. Rh8+ 
4. g7+ 
5. Nh6".

Murray mentions Dilaram several times.  On page 280, in a discussion of mansubat contained in various manuscripts and references:  "I have made my third group of five works of the 15th-17th centuries, RAS (in a 15th c. MS.), F (written 1501), R (written c. 1575), S (written 1571), and Y (in a MS. of 1612).  It is in these MSS. that we meet with the first signs of the fanciful ascriptions and problem-legends, of which the Dilaram story (see the solution to No. 83, below) is the best-known example."(3)

Here is No. 83 from Murray, and his commentary (pages 286, 311-12):  

"1. Rh8+; 
2. Bf5+d, Rh2; 
3. RxR+; 
4. Rh8+; 
5. Pg7+; 
6. Kth6 m. 
From as-Suli, H. 

 The problem appears without any story in AH, C, H, AE and Man.(1)  In S it is called mansuba al-jariya (the maiden's problem). In F it is called the problem of Dilaram chengi, and the following story is told, as from al-Lajlaj*. (*No importance can be attached to this use of al-Lajlaj's name, for he plays an entirely mythical part in this work).  Dilaram was the favourite wife of a certain nobleman, who had given her this name because his heart knew no peace without her, the name Dilaram meaning 'heart's ease.' Once he was playing chess with a very strong player, and finally staked Dilaram on the game. The game went badly for him, and he found himself in such a position that his opponent appeared to have a certain mate on the next move. At this moment Dilaram cried out in distress 'Sacrifice your two Rooks, and not me.'  Her lover saw the line of play that she meant, and won the game.  With ever-increasing embellishment this story is given in all the later MSS., and reaches its most ornate form in Durgaprasada's Urdu work. Here the hero of the game is the Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan, and his four wives all advise him, but Dilaram alone sees how to save the game.  This problem was one of the most popular of all the Muslim problems.  It occurs in Ber. in its old-chess form, among problems with the modern moves**.

(**A modernized version is Oxf. 152, mansuba Dilaram.  Red, Kb8, Qh1, Rg8, Kte8, Pd6, e5, f4, g5; Bl., Kf1, Ra1 and a4, Ktb4, Ba2 and g1, Pb6, c6, d5, e4, f3, g4.  Black mates in V with Kt.  1. Ra8+; 2. Bc1 (or it may be Bc4, the print is unclear in the book)+; 3. Ra8+; 4. Pb7+; 5. Kta6 m.)  In Europe it was the origin of nearly 200 wager-positions in the Middle Ages."

And they lived happily ever-after...  Well, er, who knows?  If I had been in Dilaram's shoes, I won't tell you what I would have done to the hapless husband.  If so-and-so loved Dilaram, his "heart's ease," so very much, why did he wager her in a chess game (particularly when he had lost everything else to this same player - obviously an early Arabian version of the Mighty Kasparov)?  What does this say about the intelligence - and integrity - of the guy?  If tales like this were circulating around the chess-playing world, no wonder some of the leaders of the day (secular and religious) wanted the game banned!  Dilaram would have been better served breaking the chessboard over her lord and master's head.  Of course, if the game was being played on an embroidered cloth board (often used at the time), it wouldn't have hurt.  Too bad.  It sounds to me like Mr. Dilaram needed some sense knocked into him. 

An interesting part of this story is Dilaram's active kibitzing.  Today, at least in "western" chess, calling out moves to a player would be an obvious cheat.  The question is - was this merely a literary device of the story teller to add drama and give the reader a hint in the right direction toward solving the mansuba - or was it customary at the time for kibitzers to audibly suggest moves to the players?  

Do you think I can find anything on this subject, either on the internet or in my library?  Of course not!  I must be looking in all the wrong places (nothing new there), because I have not found a thing about "audience participation" in chess games in the old days, or even in the new days.  I've tried various internet searches and checked the indexes of the books in my library, but - nada.  I did, though, find a few extremely interesting accounts involving the wagering a wife in games chance.

Here's an account from Murray at 373-374:  

Here are two accounts from The Tlingit Indians(4) at 422:

And, if this is a true story rather than a modern urban-legend, good for the wife:

(1)  David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (Second Edition), Oxford University Press, Oxford, NY, 1992, ISBN 0-19-866164-9.

(2)  H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess, (Reprint of the classic Oxford Edition), Benjamin Press, Northampton, Massachusetts, ISBN 0-936317-01-9.

(3)  The abbreviations AH, C, H, AE, and Man, as well as S and F, refer to various articles, books and manuscripts to which Murray cites.  However, I was unable to locate an index or appendix containing an alphabetical listing of his references and their abbreviations, so I cannot tell you to what sources Murray is citing when he uses these letter-abbreviations.