Al-Maamun has been the most accomplished, knowledgeable Caliph in the house of Abbas. One day while presiding over the conference of the lawyers and the theologians, he noticed a stranger wearing ragged white clothes and sitting behind the law doctors.
During the debate, the stranger made a goodlier response than the rest, and the Caliph appreciably asked him to sit onto a high stead. Shahrazad continued: While the stranger continued responding brilliantly to all questions, the Caliph honoured him more and offered for a special wine session with himself, after the rest had departed the assembly. However, when the wine was presented to the stranger, he requested the Caliph to let him say a few words. The stranger then recalled the preference and extra honour that Al-Maamun offered him over others in the August assembly, for his intellect. Therefore, if he accepted this small portion of wine, the Caliph should depart from him and that the stranger would leave a false impression of himself.
Hearing this, the Caliph ordered him rich apparel, 100,000 silver pieces and a horse and offered him to be present in all the assemblies along with the Caliph, until the former achieved the highest rank of all.
