Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-31907131-20170209042613/@comment-25841881-20170210233351

Actually, we do know he isn't, or wasn't. Gandalf himself said that Saruman is the mightiest of his order. He has said that there are things more powerful than him in Middle-Earth, and it is probable that Sauron was one of them. This was at the time when Sauron did not have his Ring, but it existed, and so his strength was neither amplified nor diminished.