It is related that al-Rashid used to say, “May Allah curse the one who urged me against the Barmakids! Since their fall I have tasted no pleasure, found no rest, nor seen any hope. By Allah, I would have surrendered half my life and half my dominion if only I had left them as they were.”

Ibn Khallikān reports that Jaʿfar once bought a slave-girl from a man for forty thousand dinars. She turned to her seller and said, “Remember the covenant that was between you and me; eat nothing of my price.” The man wept and said, “Bear witness that she is free and that I have married her.” Jaʿfar added, “Bear witness that the purchase price is also his.”

He once wrote to a provincial deputy: “To proceed: those who complain of you have multiplied, while those who praise you have dwindled. Either act with justice, or step down.”

Among the finest examples of his tact in dispelling al-Rashid’s anxieties is the following. A Jewish astrologer entered upon the Caliph and told him that he would die that very year. The portent weighed heavily on al-Rashid, and when Jaʿfar came in and asked the reason for his distress, the Caliph recounted the astrologer’s prediction. Jaʿfar summoned the Jew and asked, “How much of your own life remains?” The man mentioned a lengthy span. Jaʿfar said, “O Commander of the Faithful, have him killed so that you will know the falsity of what he foretold about his own life.” Al-Rashid ordered the Jew’s execution, and the worry that burdened him was lifted.

After the Barmakids were slain, al-Rashid put to death Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUthmān ibn Nahīk. Ibrāhīm had grieved deeply for them—especially for Jaʿfar—shedding abundant tears, and then moved from mourning to a resolve to avenge them. Whenever he drank at home he would say to his slave-girl, “Bring me my sword,” draw it, and declare, “By Allah, I shall kill his killer!” He repeated this so often that his son ʿUthmān feared the Caliph would discover it and destroy them all. Realizing his father would not desist, he went to al-Faḍl ibn al-Rabīʿ and informed him; al-Faḍl told the Caliph, who summoned Ibrāhīm, questioned him, and received the same admission.

Al-Rashid asked, “Who will testify with you against him?” ʿUthmān replied, “So-and-so, the servant.” The servant was brought and testified. The Caliph said, “It is not permissible to execute a great amir on the mere word of a youth and a eunuch; the two might have conspired.” He then had Ibrāhīm stay with him during a drinking session, and when they were alone he said, “Woe to you, Ibrāhīm! A secret has oppressed me night and day, and I wish to confide it to you.”

“What is it?” asked Ibrāhīm. The Caliph replied, “I regret killing the Barmakids. I would give up half my kingdom and half my life if only I had not done to them what I did, for after them I have found no pleasure and no repose.”

“May Allah have mercy on Abū al-Faḍl”—meaning Jaʿfar—replied Ibrāhīm, weeping. “By Allah, my lord, you erred in killing him.”

“Up with you—may Allah curse you!” the Caliph shouted. He had him imprisoned and three days later executed him, though his family and children were left unharmed.

That same year al-Rashid grew angry with ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ṣāliḥ when word reached him that the man aspired to the caliphate. His wrath toward him heightened his anger at the Barmakids already in prison. He incarcerated ʿAbd al-Malik, who remained there until al-Rashid’s death; then al-Amīn released him and appointed him governor of Syria.

In that year as well, tribal partisanship flared in Syria between the Muḍariyya and the Nizāriyya. Al-Rashid dispatched Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr ibn Ziyād, and he reconciled the two sides.