“Yes.’

Al-Rashīd said, ‘May Allah avenge you against the one who wronged you.’

From that moment people began to speak about the Barmakids, and the rumors concerning them spread far and wide.⦗1⦘

Another report says that when Yaḥyā later entered the caliph’s presence, al-Rashīd told the pages, ‘Do not rise for him,’ whereupon Yaḥyā’s face turned ashen.⦗2⦘

A different account traces Jaʿfar’s death to the following: al-Rashīd had handed over to him Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Ḥasan al-ʿAlawī. Jaʿfar felt pity for him and released him in secret. Someone then informed al-Rashīd, claiming to have seen Yaḥyā in Hulwān, and the caliph rewarded the informer with money.⦗3⦘

Others say that Jaʿfar built a mansion on which he spent twenty million dirhams, an act of reckless extravagance.

It is also related that Yaḥyā ibn Khālid performed ʿumrah, clung to the curtains of the Kaʿbah and prayed: ‘Lord, my sins are great. If You intend to punish me, then let the punishment come in this world—even if it touches my hearing, my sight, my wealth, and my children—until I attain Your good pleasure.’

Afterward the commander Ibn Māhān maligned Mūsā ibn Yaḥyā ibn Khālid before al-Rashīd, telling him that the people of Khurāsān obeyed Mūsā and that he was corresponding with them. Al-Rashīd grew suspicious. Burdened by debt, Mūsā went into hiding from his creditors, and the caliph imagined he had fled to Khurāsān. When Mūsā later reappeared, al-Rashīd had him imprisoned. This was the first blow that befell the family. Mūsā’s mother tried to soften the caliph, but he said, ‘His father must stand surety for him,’ and so his father did.⦗4⦘

Al-Rashīd also became angry with al-Faḍl ibn Yaḥyā for refusing to drink with him. Al-Faḍl used to say, ‘Had I known that drinking even water would diminish my honor, I would have given it up,’ and he—