The father of the great Jaafar was Yahya the Barmekide, the friend and vizier of Harun Ar-Raschid. From this family Ibn Khallikan claimed descent. Yahya was "highly distinguished for wisdom, nobleness of mind, and elegance of language." One of his sayings was this: "Three things indicate the degree of intelligence possessed by him who does them: the bestowing of gifts, the drawing up of letters, and the acting as ambassador."
Another: "Spend when Fortune turns toward you, for her bounty cannot then be exhausted; spend when she turns away, for she will not remain with you."
He said also, very comfortingly: "The sincere intention of doing a good action and a legitimate excuse for not doing it are equivalent to its accomplishment."
He died in 805, after long imprisonment by the illustrious khalif whose pleasure it had been to address him always as "My father."
Such was Jaafar's parent. One of the greatest men in the whole work is Jaafar himself, called Jaafar the Barmekide, also vizier to Harun Ar-Raschid. Of his somewhat sardonic shrewdness this is a good example. Having learned that Ar-Raschid was much depressed in consequence of a Jewish astrologer having predicted to him that he would die within a year, he interviewed the Jew, who had been detained as a prisoner by the khalif's orders.
Jaafar addressed him in these terms: "You pretend that the khalif is to die in the space of so many days?"
"Yes," said the Jew.
"And how long are you yourself to live?" said Jaafar.
"So many years," replied the other, mentioning a great number.
Jaafar then said to the khalif: "Put him to death, and you will be thus assured that he is equally mistaken respecting the length of your life and that of his own."