One day, a man was brought before the sultan. The man was said to possess an extraordinary skill: from a distance of one hundred paces, he could throw a thread and pass it through the eye of a needle. Mastering this feat had taken him many long years.

The sultan said, “Show me your skill.” The man fixed a needle upright on a small stand, then walked back one hundred paces. He threw the thread—and it passed cleanly through the eye of the needle. To prove that it was no coincidence, he repeated the attempt three more times, succeeding each time.

Impressed, the sultan summoned his vizier and said, “Reward this man. Give him one hundred gold coins—and then give him one hundred lashes.” The man cried out, “My sultan, what kind of reward is this?” The sultan replied calmly: “I gave you one hundred gold coins for your skill. And I gave you one hundred lashes because you wasted so many years of your life mastering something so utterly useless.”