[FN#268] Ibn Khallikan (i. 310) says the eunuch Abu Háshim Masrúr, the Sworder of Vengeance, who is so pleasantly associated with Ja’afar in many nightly disguises; but the Eunuch survived the Caliph. Fakhr al-Din (p. 27) adds that Masrur was an enemy of Ja’afar; and gives further details concerning the execution.
[FN#269] Bresl. Edit., Night dlxvii. vol. vii. pp. 258-260; translated in the Mr. Payne’s “Tales from the Arabic,” vol. i. 189 and headed “Al-Rashid and the Barmecides.” It is far less lively and dramatic than the account of the same event given by Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii., by Ibn Khallikan and by Fakhr al-Din.
[FN#270] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxi.
[FN#271] See Dr. Jonathan Scott’s extracts from Major Ouseley’s
“Tarikh-i-Barmaki.”
[FN#272] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii. For the liberties Ja’afar took see Ibn Khallikan, i. 303.
[FN#273] Ibid. chapt. xxiv. In vol. ii. 29 of The Nights, I find signs of Ja’afar’s suspected heresy. For Al-Rashid’s hatred of the Zindiks see Al-Siyuti, pp. 292, 301; and as regards the religious troubles ibid. p. 362 and passim.
[FN#274] Biogr. Dict. i. 309.
[FN#275] This accomplished princess had a practice that suggests the Dame aux Camélias.
[FN#276] i. e. Perdition to your fathers, Allah’s curse on your ancestors.
[FN#277] See vol. iv. 159, “Ja’afar and the Bean-seller;” where the great Wazir is said to have been “crucified;” and vol. iv. pp. 179, 181. Also Roebuck’s Persian Proverbs, i. 2, 346, “This also is through the munificence of the Barmecides.”