During his travels, Evliya Celebi noticed how popular chess was in the Kurdish areas. Premodern writings frequently mention the connection between chess and Kurdish regions and people. The origins of the link go back beyond the 17th century.
Evliya Celebi (17th-century):
Some of the congregants, when they are finished with their lessons and recitations, play chess in one corner of the mosque. Chess is permitted according to the Shafii legal school, and also sharpens the mind, so they indulge in it, and when they are finished with that they return to their studies. It once happened that some Kurds were playing chess in a mosque and, being an irritable race, said kishu mishu, attacked one another with daggers, and were killed. Then chess was forbidden in the mosques. But now again some do play it.
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