Ma´sūm’s thirst for conquest was not stayed by this splendid capture. He carried his raids far into Persia, laid Khorāsān waste, and swept off so many of its wretched inhabitants that the price of Persian slaves fell in the Bokhārā bazaar to a few pence.[477] His conduct towards other princes who had the misfortune to be his neighbours was equally devoid of mercy and good faith; and at his death, in 1799,[478] the people of Khiva, Kokand, and Balkh felt that Central Asia had been delivered from a scourge almost as terrible as that wielded by Chingiz Khān. Amongst his own subjects Ma´sūm left behind him a reputation of piety and virtue. “Under his reign,” writes `Abd ul-Kerīm,[479] “the prosperity of Bokhārā excited the envy of Paradise. Religion had then taken a new lease of life. The prince was occupied only in good works, in prayers and practising devotion. He had renounced the pleasures and pomps of this world; he touched neither gold nor silver, and he spent on his own needs only the proceeds of the capitation tax levied from Jews and infidels.” Historians who are not blinded by religious prejudice give us a very different estimate of his character and the influence of his reign.
Under this cruel and hypocritical bigot Bokhārā lost the last semblance of national spirit, and succumbed to a terrorism such as that which sapped the power of Spain. Ma´sūm it was who revived the office of Rā´is-i-Sharī`at, or religious censor, which had fallen into desuetude in the rest of Islām. These officials drove the people to prayer with whips, visited neglect of outward observances with severe floggings, and, on its repetition, with death. The use of wine and tobacco was forbidden under the like penalties, and thieves and prostitutes were delivered over without trial to the executioner. Spoliation and the levy of blackmail were carried by these pests to the height of a fine art, and the sanctity of the harem itself was not respected.[480] No system can be conceived which was better calculated to repress all independence of thought and action, and encourage the growth of hypocrisy and even darker vices.
Ma´sūm had designated his son Sayyid Haydar Tūra as his successor; but the new sovereign had to reckon with three paternal uncles, `Omar Bi, Fāzil Bi, and Mahmūd Bi, who raised the standard of revolt in the northern provinces. Amīr Haydar[481] marched against them at the head of an army so powerful as to render resistance impossible. The rebels threw themselves into strong places, but were driven from these retreats by concentrated artillery fire. Two of them, `Omar Bi and Fāzil Bi, were tracked to a village by the Amīr’s troops, were captured and put to death; while Mahmūd Bi, the third, sought safety in Kokand.[482] Amīr Haydar’s store of energy was apparently exhausted by this early test. He permitted Iltuzar Khān of Khiva to ravage the suburbs of his capital, and not until the cry of his suffering subjects could no longer be disregarded did he give orders for an expedition to avenge their woes. It consisted of 30,000 Uzbegs under the command of a general of distinction named Mahammad Niyāz Bi. The avenging host followed the course of the Amū Daryā until the confines of Khiva had been reached.[483] In the meantime, Iltuzar, overjoyed at the prospect of victory, crossed the Amū Daryā in the enemy’s rear and established himself in an entrenched camp with 4000 chosen men. The invaders were on the horns of a dilemma. To leave the river was to enter a waterless desert, wherein none would emerge alive; while retreat to Bokhārā was barred by the Khivans’ entrenchments. In desperation they attacked the foe with suddenness and vigour, driving them into the Amū Daryā and securing a decisive victory. Khiva lay open to their attack, but the pusillanimous Haydar was content to rest on his vicariously won laurels, and to pass the rest of his reign in the practice of a pharisaical piety and association with priests, who ruled the people in his name with a rod of iron. As is too frequently the fate of Oriental princes, he was unable to resist the enervating influence of the harem, and lost his power of initiative by wallowing in licensed debauchery.[484] He died in 1826, after an inglorious reign of twenty-seven years.
