whereupon al-Rashid drew a sword from beneath his bedding and ordered that Anas’s neck be struck with it. As he did so he kept reciting the couplet that had once been uttered on the killing of another Anas:
“The sword licked its lips, longing for Anas—
The blade is watching while destiny waits.”
Anas was beheaded; the sword reached him even before the blood could flow. Al-Rashid then said, “May Allah have mercy on ʿAbd Allah ibn Muṣʿab.” The people remarked, “The sword had belonged to al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām.”

The prisons were packed with Barmakids; all their wealth was plundered and every trace of favor was stripped away. On the very day Jaʿfar was slain, the morning had found him and al-Rashid riding out on a hunt. The caliph had dismissed even the heirs apparent so as to be alone with him, and with his own hand had anointed him with ghalīyah perfume. At sunset the caliph took leave of him, embraced him, and said, “Were it not that tonight is my night of privacy with the women, I would never part from you. Go home; drink, sing, and enjoy yourself until you are in a state like mine, so that we may share the same delight.”

Jaʿfar replied, “By Allah, Commander of the Faithful, I desire none of that except in your company.” The caliph said, “No—return to your house.” Jaʿfar departed, and no more than a portion of the night had passed before the punishments already described were visited upon him. That occurred on the night of Saturday, the last night of Muḥarram; others say it was the first night of Ṣafar of that same year. Jaʿfar was then thirty-seven years old.

When the news of his death reached his father, Yaḥyā ibn Khālid, he said, “May Allah kill his son.” When he was told, “Your house has been laid waste,” he answered, “May Allah lay waste his houses.” It is also related that when Yaḥyā looked upon his mansions—curtains torn, palaces violated, possessions plundered—he said, “So shall the Hour be established.”

One of his friends wrote to console him, and he replied:
“I am content with Allah’s decree and mindful of His choice. Allah holds His servants accountable only for their sins, and Allah is never unjust to His servants. His forgiveness is greater, and to Allah belongs all praise.”

Many poets composed elegies for the Barmakids. Among them is a poem attributed to al-Raqāshī, though some ascribe it to Abū Nuwās:
Now we and our mounts have found repose;
Silent is the giver and the one who used to beg.
Tell the camels they are safe from night-long travel
And from crossing wastes—plain after plain.
Say to the dooms of death: you captured Jaʿfar,
And never again will you seize one so ennobled.
Say to generosity: with al-Faḍl gone, be idle;
Say to calamity: renew yourself each day.
Behold—a keen Barmakid blade
Felled by a keen Hāshimite sword. (1)

Al-Raqāshī also said, when he saw Jaʿfar hanging upon his gibbet:
By God, were it not for a tale-bearer’s fear
And the caliph’s ever-wakeful eye,
We would circle your gibbet and touch it
As pilgrims touch the sacred Stone.
Never before you, O son of Yaḥyā, have I seen
A sharp blade blunted by a sharper sword.