Episode 53: Downfall of the Baramika

Royal advisors, court attendants, and other officials began to hold some real political power in the Abbasid caliphate, a development which progressed with every caliph who came after the micromanaging al Mansur. The Baramika during al Rashid’s reign represented the pinnacle of this sort of bureaucratic authority and they established a level of political control that at times seemed to be almost complete. Their fall from grace was so shocking and sudden that it stands out as an oft recounted episode of Arab history, with several amusing explorations of what may have precipitated it.

Glossary

• Yahya al Barmaki: the patriarch of the Baramika had been close friends with al Mahdi, who trusted him to tutor his young son Haroon al Rashid. Yahya was about 40 when he became the future caliph’s mentor, and exactly 50 when he became his wazir after al Rashid came to power. Yahya relied upon those he trusted the most, his children, to assist him with carrying out his considerable responsibilities, making them all powerful figures in the state, and close companions of the caliph’s. He was almost 70 when he died in al Rashid’s dungeons.
• Fadl al Barmaki: Yahya’s eldest child was the closest in age to the caliph, and the most like his father in terms of temperament and reliability. At different times he was put in charge of Armenia, Tabaristan, Rayy, and Khurasan, and he rarely ever disappointed in carrying out his duties. He died in al Rashid’s dungeons in 809 at the age of 44, just a few months before the caliph himself.
• Ja’far al Barmaki: three years Fadl’s junior, Ja’far was the closest of the family to Haroon al Rashid, a relationship in which he was immortalized in the Thousand and One Nights. His friendship with the caliph kept him at court, but he was also responsible for parts of Iraq, Syria, and Egypt at different times. He was in his mid 30’s when he was beheaded, quartered, then displayed on various bridges in the capital.
• Yahya ibn Abdallah: the Hashemite at the center of the most credible set of narrations about the annihilation of the Baramika. He was a half-brother of Mohammad the pure soul, and a survivor of the battle at wadi Fakh at which many of his clan were annihilated. His return to Medina from Daylam without having been killed by the caliph seems to have given his profile a huge boost, ironically making him far more threatening to al Rashid than he had ever been before. I equivocated in the episode, but the caliph persecuted the Hashemites to no end, and was especially vigilant about the threat they posed to his legitimacy. Yahya was poisoned in al Rashid’s dungeons in the early 800’s. 
• Fadl ibn Rabi’: the chief agitator against the Baramika, Fadl ibn Rabi’ regained the role of Hajib in 795, one he held during al Hadi’s short reign. His father was Rabi’ ibn Younis, the hajib of al Mansur and al Mahdi, and Fadl had been raised to do his job well. He kept the caliph happy and controlled access to him in a meaningful way. He has some notoriety as a schemer in our sources, and some narrations say that was something else he inherited from his father, whom some blame for the demise of a couple of Al Mahdi’s wazirs.