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 Game of Knowledge |
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This board game originated in India some time before the 18th century. There were many versions, each based on different belief systems.
This Muslim version is known as the Game of Knowledge. It teaches the player about Islam.
The player of this game embarks on a journey during which he will learn that the upward path of the spiritual seeker is a gradual one.
The game starts at the left of the bottom row on the square inscribed Adam, and continues across each successive row to the top row
inscribed with the names of the archangels. Each square is filled with an inscription describing one of a hundred different states of
man. Click here to view a translated version of this game board.
More advanced spiritual states and heavenly realms are encountered as the player proceeds from the lower to the higher squares. Rapid
promotion or demotion may be experienced on the way, depending on whether the die lands on a square at the base of a ladder or the head
of a snake. The goal is to reach the top central square - Heaven.
This game was adopted by the late 19th century British who found that it reinforced their largely Protestant tradition of edifying
morality games based on "Virtue Rewarded" and "Vice Punished." They named it Snakes and Ladders, and the inscriptions included
the virtues of penitence, kindness and pity and the vices dishonesty, cruelty and slander. By the early 1900s the inscriptions had
disappeared and the playing area became a simple numbered track.
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