4. The Spread of Debate and Discussion

Like stated in the previous point Ma’mun would invite and welcome debates from everyone. Thus you had Me’mun open up a debating court, in which he himself would participate. They even had a story of Abu Ja’far al-Mansoor offering poetry competition that said winner would get gold that weighed as much as the material the poem was written on, if they composed a poem the khalifa and his servant did not know. It took a long time as he had an excellent memory. The winning poem exists till today and has one beautiful beginning line. The rest is difficult to read and thus difficult to memorize.      **        **