Abu Bakr bin Yahya al-Suli

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Suli was a courtier, poet, chronicler and shatranj player active in Baghdad under the Abbasid caliphate. He lived in the ninth and tenth centuries, wrote in Arabic, and is remembered today chiefly for one of the earliest treatises on chess strategy and for his chronicle of the caliphs al-Radi and al-Muttaqi, a firsthand account of the shift toward Buyid power.

He was probably born around 854, although the dates are not entirely firm, and some sources place his birth in the early 870s. He came from a family of Turkic origin and served as a nadim, a companion in conversation and at table to several caliphs. That closeness to court gave him access to libraries and political life, and he gathered material that later writers would draw on.

As a player he rose to fame between 902 and 908, when he defeated the reigning champion, al-Mawardi, before the caliph al-Muktafi. After al-Muktafi's death he kept the favour of his successors and also taught the game. His best-known pupil, al-Lajlaj, later excelled at the Buyid court in Shiraz.

When al-Radi died in 940, al-Suli fell out of favour with the new caliph because of his Shi'a sympathies, and he ended his days in Basra in poverty, dying in 946.

His legacy is twofold. As a chronicler he stood for centuries in the shadow of al-Mas'udi and Miskawayh, perhaps because he was seen as a courtier rather than a scholar; his direct view of events is now valued. As a chess writer, his book on strategy, openings and annotated games became a foundation for later European authors. He also left a famous problem, Al-Suli's Diamond, which took more than a thousand years to solve.