It was reported that word reached Hārūn al-Rashīd that this man was intent on seizing the caliphate. Alarmed, he had him imprisoned, but when his innocence later became evident, he showered him with favors (1).

He was eloquent and articulate, of noble character, imposing, courageous, and politically astute.

It is said that Yaḥyā al-Barmakī once told him, “I have heard that you are vindictive.” He replied, “If vindictiveness means keeping both good deeds and wrongs alive in one’s memory, then indeed they both remain in my heart.” Al-Rashīd remarked, “I have never seen anyone defend rancor more eloquently than this.”

Al-Ṣūlī said, “He was the most eloquent of people and their finest orator; in his time there was no one like him in eloquence, dignity, and gravitas, and he composed poetry.”

It was also said that ʿAbd al-Malik sought to assassinate the emperor of Byzantium by means of a ruse; he was counted among the master strategists of the Banū Hāshim.

Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār stated, “ʿAbd al-Malik was peerless in refinement and eloquence. He was repeatedly denounced, reports against him multiplied, and his enviers grew numerous, until al-Rashīd was told that he planned to rebel.”

Some say that the only reason al-Rashīd imprisoned him was that he saw in him a rival in nobility.

He died in al-Raqqa in 196 AH; part of his biography has already been mentioned under the entry on the Barmakids.

He was the brother of the prince Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Faḍl ibn Ṣāliḥ—governor of Damascus and later of Egypt under al-Mahdī—who built the doors of the Great Mosque of Damascus and the Treasury Dome within it; al-Faḍl was the elder of the two.

Al-Faḍl died in 172 AH at the age of fifty.