60 – ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; he said: Muḥammad ibn Rajāʾ, the client of the Banū Hāshim, told me that one of the caliphs once asked the courtiers around him, “Who is the stranger?” They offered many suggestions. He replied, “The stranger is the ignorant person. Have you not heard the poet’s words:

He of sound reason is reckoned a man of high esteem,
though no noble lineage be evident in his deeds;
Should he take up residence in any land, he prospers by his mind,
and a man of intellect is never a stranger in any place.”