ʿĪsā ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abī Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr, the brother of Zubaydah, was deputy governor of Basra in the days of al-Rashid; he died during this same year.

[In this year there also died]

al-Faḍl ibn Yaḥyā (1) ibn Khālid ibn Barmak, brother of Jaʿfar and the rest of his siblings. He and al-Rashid were foster-brothers: al-Khayzurān nursed al-Faḍl, while Umm al-Faḍl—who was Zubaydah bint Munayn ibn Buwaih (2)—nursed Hārūn al-Rashid. This Zubaydah was counted among the locally born women of Medina (3). One of the poets (4) said about that:

It is honor enough for you, al-Faḍl, that the noblest free-woman
fed you at her breast, and the caliph at the other;
You have adorned Yaḥyā in every gathering
just as Yaḥyā once adorned Khālid in every gathering.

They used to say: al-Faḍl was more generous than his brother Jaʿfar, yet he was extremely proud and habitually scowling; Jaʿfar, by contrast, was more cheerful, more open-faced, and less lavish in his gifts, so people inclined toward him. Even so, the trait of generosity covers every blemish, hiding that fault which lay in al-Faḍl.

Al-Faḍl once bestowed one hundred thousand dirhams on his cook, and his father reproached him for it. He replied: “Father, this man kept me company in hardship and in ease, through rough living; he stood by me all that time and treated me well. A poet (5) has said:

When the magnanimous grow affluent, they remember
those who visited them in the days of hardship.”

On another occasion he gave a certain man of letters ten thousand dinars, whereupon the man wept. Al-Faḍl asked, “Why do you weep? Do you think it too little?” He answered, “No, by Allah; I weep that the earth should one day consume someone like you, or shroud someone like you.”

ʿAlī ibn al-Jahm related from his father: “One morning I awoke owning nothing, not even fodder for the mount. I made my way to al-Faḍl ibn Yaḥyā and found him returning from the caliphal palace in a great procession. When he saw me, he greeted me warmly and said:”