Yahyā ibn Khālid died in the prison of al-Raqqah in the year 190 AH, at the age of seventy; his father had been counted among the notable dignitaries already mentioned.

29 – al-Faḍl ibn Yaḥyā al-Barmakī*

His son al-Faḍl was a man of consummate qualities. He governed Khurāsān, then assumed the vizierate, and in that post was—so it is said—more generous than Jaʿfar, though his arrogance and haughtiness became proverbial. On one occasion he granted 60,000 dinars to ʿAmr al-Tamīmī, and he was a milk-brother of al-Rashīd.

He died, still in his prime, in prison in the year 192 AH. Earlier he had demolished the Fire-Temple in Balkh, over which their grandfather Barmak had once been the mobedhān (1).

For a time he served as Hārūn’s vizier; then the caliph transferred the office to Jaʿfar, appointing this al-Faḍl over the entire East and Jaʿfar over the whole of the West.

Al-Faḍl plunged into ruinous pleasures until affairs ground to a halt. His ill-starred father wrote to him, advising discretion and that he restrict his revelry to the night; al-Faḍl took the counsel to heart. For all his faults he was brave, commanding, and often campaigned. He used to say, “I learned generosity and swagger from ʿUmāra ibn Ḥamza (2).”

I approached him when my father was struck by disaster and pressed for funds. I spoke to him, but he greeted me with no warmth. I asked him to lend us three thousand thousand dirhams (three million), and he replied, “We shall see.” So I departed