Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasides, was founded by their second Khalif, Al-Mansur, in A.D. 760, finished in four years, and raised to a high degree of splendour by Harun-ar-Rashid. Originally it was considered only as a great strategic point, and its garrisons were to keep the surrounding country in subjection. Eventually it became the centre of learning and civilization, and an Arab author wrote of it as follows: 'Baghdad is certainly the capital of the world, and the mine of every excellence. It is the city whose inhabitants have always been the first to unfurl the banners of knowledge, and to raise the standard of science; indeed, their subtlety in all branches of learning, their gentle manners and amiable disposition, noble bearing, acuteness, wit, penetration and talent are deservedly praised.' Baghdad, at the beginning of the ninth century of the Christian era, was the centre of all that was grand and brilliant in the Muhammadan world. Art and commerce, literature and science, were cultivated to a high degree, and the luxury and extravagance of court life exceeded almost the imagination of temperate European minds.
Everything curious, romantic and wonderful, narrated in the 'Nights' is connected with Harun-ar-Rashid's name, or supposed to have happened in his reign. Thus, his vizier, Jaafar, the Barmekide, the superintendent of his harem, Mesrur, and his spouse, Zobeida, were first made known to novel-readers, and their importance as historical personages were duly appreciated afterwards, when Erpenius, Pococke, Herbelot, and Reiske elucidated the history of the Khalifate by translating the works of the Arab chroniclers Abul-Faraj, Al-Makin, and Abul-feda. Later on still further information was made public about the translations made from Greek and Syriac into Arabic during his reign, as also concerning his position, not only as a lover of tales, but as a promoter of jurisprudence, a patron of the medical and mathematical sciences, and a builder of magnificent and useful edifices. His court was also well attended by poets and singers.
Harun was not, indeed, the first prince who made arrangements for translations from the Greek and the Syriac. In this he had been preceded, as already mentioned, by the Omaiyide prince, Khalid, the alchemist. But during the reign of Harun the business of translation was carried on to a much greater extent than it was under his predecessors, the Khalifs Mansur and Mahdi, during whose time translations were undertaken from Greek into Syriac, from Indian (Sanscrit) into Persian, but not yet into Arabic. The translators were mostly Christians and Jews. Theophilos of Edessa, the Maronite translator of Homer and of other Greek classics into Syriac, was an astronomer and an historian. Both he and the physician Georgios, son of Bakhtyeshun, from the university of Jondshapur, were Christians. Nubakht, the astronomer of the Khalif Mansur, was a Magian (Zoroastrian), Yahya bin Maseweih, Harun's physician, translated medical works. Hajaj bin Yusuf bin Matta dedicated his first edition of the elements of Euclid to Harun, and the second to Mamun.
As the family of the Barmekides played an important part, not only in politics, but also in literature, until its chief members were annihilated by Harun's orders, a brief notice of them may here be given.
Khalid bin Barmek was the son of a priest at the fire temple of
Nevbehar in Balkh, and became in course of time vizier of the first
Abbaside Khalif, and was retained in that office by the second Khalif,
Al-Mansur, and by the third, Al-Mahdi. He died A.D. 780.
Yahya, the son of Khalid, not only himself became the vizier of Harun, but also his two sons, Fadhl and Jaafar. Yahya was very liberal, and gave away sometimes considerable sums of money for very small services, or, indeed, for no service at all. After his son Jaafar had been executed, Yahya was thrown into prison, along with his other son, Fadhl, at Old Rakka, where he died in A.D. 805, at the age of seventy or seventy-four.
Fadhl, the son of Yahya, was more liberal but less eloquent than his brother Jaafar. Harun esteemed the two brothers so highly that he entrusted his son Muhammad to the care of Fadhl, and his son Mamun to the care of Jaafar. Afterwards he made Jaafar his vizier, and sent Fadhl to be Governor of Khurasan. There Fadhl built mosques, reservoirs of water and caravanserais, augmented the army, and attracted numbers of emigrants to the country, whereby he gained the approval of Harun, who ordered his poets to sing his praises. After the execution of Jaafar, Harun took Yahya, with his son Fadhl and all the Barmekides, to Rakka, giving Yahya the option to go where he liked; but he preferred to be imprisoned with his son in Rakka. There Fadhl died in A.D. 809, and when Harun was informed of his death, he said: 'My own is not far,' and died a few months afterwards in Tus, the modern Mashad. The death of Fadhl, as a generous patron, was bewailed by several poets, such as Abul Hojna, Otbi, Abu Nuwas, and others. Fadhl was also notable for his filial piety, and when the use of cold water injured the health of his father whilst they were in prison, he used to warm the water by placing a pot of it on his own stomach.
Jaafar (the brother of Fadhl and a son of Yahya), who was slain A.D. 802, is to be mentioned here, not for his tragic fate, which is well known, but rather for his literary attainments, especially his oratory and his style, in both of which he excelled. From his long biography, written by Ibn Khallikan, there will be given here only some extracts relating to science and literature. He was a great master of speech, and expressed his thoughts with much elegance. In one night he endorsed more than a thousand petitions addressed to the Khalif with his decisions, all of which were in perfect concordance with the law. His instructor in jurisprudence had been Abu Yusuf the Hanifite, whom his father Yahya had appointed to teach him. The favour enjoyed by Jaafar with Harun-ar-Rashid was so great that this Khalif caused one robe to be made with two separate collars, which they both wore at the same time. Ibn Khallikan narrates the traditions relating to the fall of Jaafar and his family; the one refers to his amours with Abbasa, the sister of Harun, and to the birth of a child; the other to the escape of a member of Ali's family entrusted to Jaafar's guardianship by Harun. The true cause was probably the Khalifs envy of the power, wealth, and generosity of the Barmekides, along with the backbitings of their enemies. Jaafar was slain at Al-Omr in the district of Al-Anbar, his head and the trunk of his body were set up opposite to each other on the two sides of the bridge of Baghdad, and his death was lamented by various poets.
After Mamun (A.D. 812-833) the most intellectual Khalif appears to have been Radhi-billah (A.D. 934-940). His poems were collected in a Diwan. He was the last Khalif who presided not only over the Government as a sovereign, but also over the pulpit as Imam; indeed, he may be said to be the terminal point of the power, brilliancy and independence of the house of Abbas, which henceforth gradually declined till its final extinction with the conquest of Baghdad by the Mughals in A.D. 1258.
The great chess-player, Abu-bakr as Sauli, bears witness, in Masudi's 'Meadows of Gold,' to the great accomplishments of Radhi-billah, and to his love of the sciences. Of games, chess and nerd[4] flourished during his reign, and although the perfection of song and of lute-playing had already passed away, singers and musicians are still mentioned. Of the amusements of the court, hunting appears to have flourished most, and the learned poet Koshajim, who wrote on the game of nerd, also left instructive poems on the chase. Radhi-billah appears to have been fond of books of travel and of natural history, and of the society of men of letters and of science, and liked listening to recitals on the history, politics, and glory of the old Persian kings.