Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/384

350 to be altogether dispensed with, to the most important extra-metropolitan post at his disposal, i.e. the government of Khorassan, an office involving the administration of nearly one-half of the dominions of the Khalifate. The manner in which this transfer of power was received by the Barmecides, as told by Ibn Khellikan, is strikingly illustrative of the magnanimity of the members of that illustrious house and their invincible attachment to one another. According to the famous biographer, Er Reshid said to Yehya, “Dear father, I wish to transfer to Jaafer the signet now held by my brother Fezl. I am ashamed to write that order to Fezl: do it for me.” Yehya accordingly wrote to Fezl, saying, “The Commander of the Faithful commands that the signet be passed from thy right hand to thy left;” to which Fezl made answer in these words: “I hear and obey the word of the Commander of the Faithful concerning my brother. No favour is lost to me, which goes from me to Jaafer, and no rank is taken from me, when he receives it.” On hearing this reply, Jaafer exclaimed, “What an admirable being is my brother! How noble is his soul!”

Naturally enough, Jaafer and his brilliant kinsmen were the objects of the bitterest jealousy and hatred to the courtiers and ecclesiastics of the day,—to the former especially for their Persian origin and for their commanding talents and popularity, and to the latter more particularly for their tolerance and their well-known, or at least shrewdly-suspected, adherence to some form of Persian Rationalism,—and many were the efforts, supported by lies and calumnies of the most unscrupulous character,