The Rise and Fall of the Barmakids: Stories from a Forgotten Persian Manuscript

by Edinburgh University Press

Overview

This volume offers the first annotated English translation of Ḍiyāʾal-Dīn Baranī’s The Accounts of the Barmakids, based on a little-known manuscript housed in the Bodleian Library, MS Ouseley 217. The Barmakids, originally from the Balkh region in modern-day Afghanistan, were a prominent family of converts to Islam who rose to great power in the 8th century, under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates. Their influence reached its height under the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, who eventually brought about their downfall. The Barmakids have intrigued both medieval and modern scholars, with their legacy preserved in regional lore and Western popular culture, the latter particularly through the One Thousand and One Nights. While early Arabic sources provide factual accounts of the family, Baranī's Persian story cycle, written in the 14th-century, paints a more vivid picture. Contained within this work are 70 tales, including stories of generosity, wise leadership, romance and skulduggery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399559317
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2026
Series:	The Islamicate East: New Approaches to Texts and History
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Pejman Firoozbakhsh is a Research Associate at the University of Hamburg and a former member of the Invisible East programme at the University of Oxford. He is a linguist interested in the formation and development of early New Persian, West Iranian dialects, Persian codicology and textual criticism. Pejman Firoozbakhsh’s recent publications include “Manuscript of a Persian Qaṣīda from about the Year 400/1007”, in Bi yād-i Īraj Afshār, edited by Jawād Basharī (vol. 2. Tehran: Duktur Maḥmūd Afshār, 1402/2024, 661–72) (In Persian) and ‘The Story of Rustam and Suhrāb,’ by Abu al-Qāsim Firdawsī, edited by Jalal Khaleqi Motlaq (Tehran: Sokhan 2014; rev. 2020). He has also contributed to a book by Arezou Azad The Warehouse of Bamiyan: Economic Life in Medieval Afghanistan (Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2025).

Arezou Azad is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Invisible East programme at the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. She is also Professor and Chair of the Arts and Heritage of Afghanistan at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) in Paris. She has authored three other peer-reviewed books: The Warehouse of Bamiyan: Economic Life in Medieval Afghanistan (Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2025), Faḍāʾil-i Balkh or “The Merits of Balkh”, an annotated translation of a 13th-century history of Balkh (Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2021) and Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan (Oxford UniversityPress, 2013).

Table of Contents

Note on the Invisible East collection
Abbreviations
Editor’s and translator’s introduction
Notes on the translation and annotations
Translated text of Akhbār-i Barmakiyān (The Accounts of the Barmakids)

Introduction
Story 1: Barmak’s meeting with ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān; his son Khālid and the construction of a new palace in Baghdad
Story 2: Khālid’s mentorship of al-Mahdī and the battle with the Daylamites
Story 3: Yaḥyā’s illness and the Christian doctor from Fars
Story 4: Yaḥyā and the petitioners
Story 5: Faḍl’s generous acts towards Ṣāliḥ al-Anṣārī
Story 6: The love affair of Jaʿfar and ʿAbbāsa
Story 7: Faḍl b. Yaḥyā and the Sindī visitor
Story 8: Faḍl’s squabble with his secretary, and his father’s reaction
Story 9: The faultless house of Faḍl
Story 10: Yaḥyā and Faḍl in prison without firewood
Story 11: Hārūn’s dilemma: to destroy the Barmakids or not
Story 12: Hārūn’s remorse and al-Faḍl b. al-Rabīʿ’s poor advice
Story 13: Jaʿfar, the poet Ṣarīʿ al-Ghawānī and the courtesan Rayḥāna
Story 14: Yaḥyā saves Manṣūr b. Ziyād’s life
Story 15: Jaʿfar’s vitiligo and Yaḥyā’s confirmation of his filial piety
Story 16: Jaʿfar’s party and ʿAbd al-Malik al-Hāshimī’s requests
Story 17: Yaḥyā and the petitioner Aḥmad b. Abī Khālid al-Aḥwal
Story 18: Faḍl saves the secretary Musayyib b. Qāsim’s life
Story 19: Muʿādh b. Ḥarb’s forgery brings friendship to Yaḥyā and his rival
Story 20: Yaḥyā saves Aḥmad from his beautiful but conniving wife
Story 21: Faḍl interrupts his drinking and saves the noble man Khalīl al-Kindī
Story 22: Jaʿfar convinces the caliph to restore Saʿīd b. Salām
Story 23: Yaḥyā builds a grand house for Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī
Story 24: Jaʿfar’s skill at judging people’s petitions on behalf of the caliph
Story 25: Jaʿfar resolves an intractable legal case from Basra
Story 26: ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān’s ruinous rule and Hārūn’s remorse
Story 27: Faḍl restores Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh’s wealth and prestige
Story 28: Faḍl fears the fires of hell while taking a hot bath
Story 29: Faḍl changes the life of a youth on his wedding day
Story 30: al-Jāḥiẓ’s endorsement of Jaʿfar’s erudition
Story 31: Hārūn’s acrimony and his obstinate suppression of the Barmakids’ legacy
Story 32: ʿAlī b. Hishām’s stinginess towards his teacher Isḥāq al-Mawṣilī
Story 33: An Abbasid family member asks Faḍl for a loan
Story 34: A youth doubts the truth of the accounts about the Barmakids’ generosity
Story 35: Faḍl corrects his error by reinstating the commander of Khurasan
Story 36: The loyalty of Jaʿfar’s Byzantine slave in defiance of Hārūn’s ban
Story 37: The astrologers’ prediction of Yaḥyā’s disgrace
Story 38: Yaḥyā and the blind fortune teller Abū Yaʿqūb
Story 39: The impertinent poet who became Faḍl’s most trusted companion
Story 40: Hārūn breaks his oath to protect Jaʿfar
Story 41: Yaḥyā’s plea for advice on how to save his family
Story 42: The Barmakids’ kindness to others while mourning their own demise
Story 43: Yaḥyā’s last-ditch attempt to save the Barmakids
Story 44: Hārūn’s greed and desire for the Barmakids’ estate
Story 45: Jaʿfar explains his expenditures on charity and beauty
Story 46: Jaʿfar’s astrological predictions of his misfortune
Story 47: Jaʿfar and the eloquent beggar
Story 48: Yaḥyā counsels Jaʿfar on respecting one’s neighbours
Story 49: Faḍl’s helps the poor doctor who treated him in prison
Story 50: Abū al-Ḥasan recites accounts about the Barmakids to Faḍl in prison
Story 51: The man who called the Barmakids heretics and whom Faḍl forgave
Story 52: The Barmakid generosity extends to their knowledge and wisdom
Story 53: Hārūn releases Yaḥyā and his family on the way to al-Raqqa
Story 54: An Arab commander mourns Jaʿfar’s death and Hārūn writes to the Barmakid women
Story 55: Jaʿfar’s brothers mourn his death, Hārūn asks the guards to be good to the Barmakids and an uncle disregards their plight
Story 56: Hārūn aids some members of the Barmakid family and punishes others
Story 57: Hārūn’s suspicions and the integrity of Yaḥyā and Faḍl in prison
Story 58: A few short anecdotes about Yaḥyā’s generosity
Story 59: Yaḥyā and the ascetic, and his abandonment of astrology
Story 60: Yaḥyā vows to abondon his faith in omens
Story 61: Yaḥyā’s rancid sweets and the petitioners who had to wait
Story 62: The superiority of Jaʿfar in debating al-Faḍl b. al-Rabīʿ
Story 63: Jaʿfar judges petitioners’ requests at the request of the caliph
Story 64: The caliph and Jaʿfar trade places to teach Ḥārith a lesson
Story 65: Jaʿfar hears a song about death when his executioner arrives
Story 66: Hārūn’s and Faḍl’s identical horoscopes, Hārūn’s wish to reinstate Faḍl as vizier and Hārūn’s death
Story 67: The loyalty of Jaʿfar towards Hārūn and of ʿĪsā b. Shāh Fīrūz towards Jaʿfar
Story 68: The restoration of the Barmakids by the caliphs Amīn and al-Maʾmūn
Story 69: Yaḥyā helps Faḍl donate money to all the poor people of Baghdad
Story 70: Al-Maʾmūn revives the Barmakids’ glory in a new generation

Appendices
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo credits
Index