Ibn Ezra, with what may be the oldest extant chess rules, describes the Arab or old European form of chess, played until the sixteenth century. Haruzim has been translated into German by Steinschneider and into English by Nina (Davis) Salaman in Songs of Exile by Hebrew Poets (Philadelphia, 1901, pp. 129-131) and by Victor A. Keats, who also translated the other two works in Chess in Jewish History and Hebrew Literature. In Melizat ha-Sehok chess ibn Yehia describes chess as a battle using numerous biblical verses and allusions. Ma’adaneh Melekh has a lengthy preamble in which the anonymous author, whom Steinschneider identifies as Leone Medina, justifies the work, which he wrote for his sons to induce them to cease playing cards and as a beneficial recreation. The text includes not only descriptions of the modern game but also relevant Indian and Persian stories.

Original and pioneer multi-part and multi-language work on games, primarily chess, by Thomas Hyde (1636-1702). Shahiludium itself was published as part of an even larger work, De Ludis Orientalibus, comprised of Mandragorias, Seu Historia Shahiludii and Historia Nerdiludii, the latter illustrated and addressing the history of several games as well as chess with occasional Hebrew. Mandragorias is a Latin work on chess with Arabic, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian, and includes as part two the Shahiludium, with the full title Shahiludium Traditum in Tribus Scriptis Hebraicis. Shahiludium consists of three texts, Haruzim al -Sehok Shah-mat (verses on the game of chess, pp. 2-9), attributed to R. Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1164); Melizat ha-Sehok ha-Ishkaki (description of chess in elegant rhythmic prose, pp. 10-17) by Bonsenior ibn Yehia; and Ma’adaneh Melekh (the delight of kings, pp. 18-71), an anonymous prose work. The text has facing Hebrew and Latin pages, the two first Hebrew works with an author name header, the last with a title header. The Latin text has the header Historia Shahiludii.

Hyde, recognized as a master of interpreter of oriental languages, held, at various times, the positions of librarian-in-chief of the Bodleian Library; Laudian professorship of Arabic; Regius chair of Hebrew; and, under Charles II, James II, and William III, court interpreter of oriental languages. Hyde was the author of Historia religionus veterum Persarum (Oxford, 1700), his most important work, and he translated R. Abraham Farissol’s Iggeret Orhot Olam. Despite the fact that he was the first to do detailed research on early chess history in the east, Hyde writes that “I am not an outstanding player, nor do I get much pleasure from this kind of practice; but the enjoyment which others derive from playing games I get from writing their history. . . .” Hyde was described as a ‘corpulent man’, often rapt in thought and disregarding all around him, ‘wonderfull slow of speech, and his delivery so very low that 'twas impossible to hear what he said’. On one occasion he preached inaudibly for an hour-and-a-half until he had emptied the cathedral and the vice-chancellor ‘sent to him to come down’. Yet ‘he would be merry and facetious in discourse’. His first wife, Anne, whom he married about 1670, was the widow of John Hill, cook at Queen's. She was maliciously called ‘an old whore … who hath domineered over the old fool so imperiously’ and was said once, on suspicion that he had been ‘too familiar with her mayd’, to have beaten him so severely that he was confined to his rooms for two months. She died in 1687, deemed ‘a mad woman.’ The following year he married Elizabeth, née Oram, who was evidently a talented singer; Hyde later thought it inappropriate for her, as a ‘Divine's wife’, to take part in a competition ‘in a Play-House.