It is reported that his sister once said to him, “I have not seen you happy since you killed Jaʿfar; why did you kill him?” He answered, “Had I known that even my shirt would learn the reason, I would have torn it to shreds.” (1)

Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Hashimi, the preacher of Kufa, related: “I visited my mother on the Day of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha), and with her was an elderly woman dressed in threadbare clothes. My mother asked, ‘Do you know who this is?’ I replied, ‘No.’ She said, ‘This is the mother of Jaʿfar al-Barmaki.’ I greeted her, welcomed her, and said, ‘Tell us something of your story.’ She said, ‘A festival day like this once came upon me while four hundred slave-girls stood ready to serve me, and even then I complained that my son was undutiful to me. Now I have come to you satisfied with the skins of two sheep, one of which I use as my mattress.’ (2)

He added, “So I gave her five hundred dirhams, and she almost died of joy.”

Yaḥyā and the rest of his family remained in prison, but their circumstances were comfortable until al-Rashid became enraged with his cousin ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ṣāliḥ. He extended that anger to them, revived the accusations against them, and tightened their confinement. (3)

Jaʿfar’s corpse remained hanging for some time; his limbs were displayed in various places, and later they were burned.

It is also said that Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā was not imprisoned.

Ibn Khallikān records that al-Rashid summoned his servant Yāsir and said, “I have selected you for a task I would not entrust to al-Amīn or al-Maʾmūn; prove my judgment correct.” Yāsir replied, “Were you to order me to kill myself, I would do it.”

Al-Rashid said, “Bring me Jaʿfar’s head.” Yāsir stood speechless.

“Woe to you!” al-Rashid exclaimed. “What is the matter?”

Yāsir said, “The affair is immense; would that I had died before this.” He said: