And yet, sad to relate, there is a dark spot in the career of Harun-al-Rashid. This is due to his inhuman treatment of the Barmecides, whose tragic fate at the hands of the Caliph is one of the most shocking occurrences in oriental annals. One of this ill-fated family, Yaya ibin Barmek, was Harun’s vizier, who, by his consummate ability, had contributed more than any other man towards the success of the Caliph’s reign. It was he, and not the Commander of the Faithful, who directed the course of events that rendered the reign of Harun-al-Rashid the culminating point of Islamic history. His son Jaafer was the most cherished friend of the Caliph and his constant companion in his nightly incognito wanderings through the city of Bagdad. “Harun’s attachment to Jaafer was of so extravagant a character that he could never bear him to be absent from his side, and he went to the absurd length of having a cloak made with two collars, so that he and Jaafer could wear it at one and the same time.”[438]
But to wipe out a fancied indignity he did not hesitate foully to murder his friend and companion, “by far the most lovable and attractive character of the many that live for us in the Thousand and One Nights.[439] He cast his old and loyal vizier, the father of Jaafer, into prison. Not content with this barbarous treatment of men to whom he owed so much, he vented his fury on their family and did not abate his anger until he had slain more than a thousand of the Barmecides. So great an impression did Harun’s atrocious treatment of his best friends make on his contemporaries that it became “the proverbial example in oriental history of the change of fortune and the mutability of royal favor.” It is because of this barbarous cruelty and his revolting treachery that the Harun of history is so unlike the Harun of legend, in which he is always painted as a merry monarch—the patron of scholars and the boon companion of congenial friends. And it is because of this that we must refuse him his long-accorded title of “The Just” and “The Good,” although, in view of his achievements as a ruler and his unfailing and generous patronage of men of science and letters, we cannot deny him the epithet of “The Great.” Were it not for the stain on his escutcheon, due to his infamous treatment of the Barmecides, we could, with some semblance of truth, say of this illustrious Caliph of Bagdad, in the words of Tennyson:
Sole star of all that place and time,
I saw him in his golden prime,
The Good Harun-al-Rashid.
One cannot speak of the services rendered to science and literature by Harun-al-Rashid without referring to his distinguished son and successor, the Caliph Al-Mamun. Although the power and the greatness of the empire had suffered a notable diminution after the death of Al-Rashid, the glory of Bagdad as a center of learning still retained all its former luster. Some, indeed, will have it that its prestige was enhanced and that Al-Mamun and not Harun was the father of letters and the Augustus of the Abbasside Caliphate. For the first thing he did on ascending the throne was to invite the Muses from their favorite seats in the Byzantine Empire to the capital of the Caliphs on the Tigris.
Study, books and men of letters almost entirely engrossed his attention. The learned were his favorites and his ministers were occupied alone in forwarding the progress of literature. It might be said that the throne of the Caliphs seemed to have been raised for the Muses. He invited to his court from all parts of the world all the learned with whose existence he was acquainted, and he retained them by rewards, honors and distinctions of every kind. He collected from the subject provinces of Syria, Armenia and Egypt the most important books which could be discovered, and which, in his eyes, were the most precious tribute he could demand. The governors of provinces and the officers of administration were directed to amass in preference to everything else the literary relics of the conquered countries and to carry them to the foot of the throne. Hundreds of camels might be seen entering Bagdad loaded with nothing but manuscripts and papers and those which were thought to be adapted for the purpose of public instruction were translated into Arabic that they might be universally intelligible. Masters, instructors, translators, and commentators formed the court of Al-Mamun, which appeared to be rather a learned academy than the centre of government in a warlike empire. When the Caliph dictated the terms of peace to the Greek Emperor, Michael the Stammerer, the tribute which he demanded from him was a collection of Greek authors.[440]
History was but repeating itself, for, as in the days of ancient Rome, so also in the most brilliant period of Bagdad
Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes
Intulit agresti Latio.[441]