 A story featured in "One Thousand and One Nights" involves Tawaddud, “a slave girl who was said to have been bought at great cost by Harun al-Rashid because she had passed her examinations by the most eminent scholars in astronomy, medicine, law, philosophy, music, history, Arabic grammar, literature, theology and chess”.It was rarer for free women to achieve prominence in Abbasid society, though some notable women did exist.Among the most prominent female figures was a scholar named Shuhda, who was known as “the Pride of Women” during the twelfth century in Baghdad.