The downfall of Ja'far and the Barmakids

هلاك جعفر والبرامكة

187 AH

In the year 187 al-Tabari reports that the reason for the downfall of Ja'far and the Barmakids was that al-Rashid could not endure being apart from Ja'far or from his sister Abbasa, daughter of al-Mahdi ¹. According to al-Mas'udi, he sent his servant Yasir, who took Ja'far's head on Saturday night and then killed him himself, since he could not bear to look at Ja'far's killer. The span of their rule, from Harun's accession to the killing of Ja'far, was seventeen years, seven months and fifteen days. On the morning after that night, a writing was found at the gate of the palace of Ali ibn Isa ibn Mahan in Khurasan: 'The poor Barmakids, on whom the vicissitudes of time have poured; for us there is a lesson in their affair, so let the resident of this palace take heed.' Ashja' al-Sulami, Salm al-Khasir, Salih al-A'rabi, Abu Hazra, Mansur al-Nimri and Di'bil al-Khuza'i composed elegies for them. After their disgrace, al-Rashid used to recite: 'Its humiliation when it falls is as great as the height of rank it reached, and when wings show on the ant until it flies, its ruin is near' ².