The Barmakids (Persian: برمکیان Barmakīyān; Arabic: البرامكة - al-Barāmikah, from the Sanskrit: pramukha प्रमुख "leader, chief administrator, registrar");[1] also wrongly called Barmecides (philologically, the third syllable contains an unvoiced velar, not a sibilant) were an influential family from Balkh in Bactria where they were originally hereditary Buddhist leaders,[2] and subsequently came to great political power under the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad.Khalid, the son of Barmak became the Prime Minister or Wazir of Al Saffah, the first Caliph of the Abbasid dynasty. His son Yahya aided Harun Al-Rashid in capturing the throne and rose to power as the most powerful man in the Empire. The Barmakids were remarkable for their majesty, splendor and hospitality. They are mentioned in some stories of the Arabian Nights.
Origins[edit]
The family is traceable back to the hereditary Buddhist administrators, Sanskrit प्रमुख Pramukha (Arabized to Barmak), of the Buddhist monastery of Nava Vihāra (Nawbahar) west of Balkh.[3] Historians of Islam have sometimes considered the Barmakids to have been Zoroastrian priests before converting to Islam, an erroneous view based on the fact that Balkh was known as an important centre of Zoroastrianism, or from a simple failure of early Islamic sources to distinguish Zoroastrians from Buddhists. In fact, the Barmakids descended from the chiefs, or administrators of the Buddhist monastery called Navavihāra (Skt. नवविहार) or "New Monastery", that was described by the Chinese Buddhist diarist Xuanzang in the seventh century[4] which may have led to the Persian and Arabic error of thinking that the term "Nowbahār" was the name of a Zoroastrian fire temple headed by the Barmakids as reported in Islamic sources. The Pramukhas converted during the Arab invasion of the Sasanian Empire.
The Barmakids were highly educated, respected and influential throughout Arabia, Persia, Central Asia and the Levant. In Baghdad, the Barmakid court became a centre of patronage for the Ulema, poets, scholars alike.[5]
Khalid ibn Barmak[edit]
Khalid ibn Barmak occupied distinguished positions under first two Abbasid Caliphs, al-Saffah and al-Mansur. He had risen to be the vizier, following death of Abu Salma and Abul Jahm. Khalid was on such intimate terms with al-Saffah that his daughter was nursed by the wife of the Caliph. Likewise, Caliph's daughter was nursed by Khalid's wife. His son, Yahya ibn Barmak, at one time Governor of Arminiya, was entrusted by Caliph al-Mahdi (775-85) with the education of his son, Harun, the future Caliph al-Rashid.[6]
Under Abbasid regime Khalid rose to the headship of the department of Finance (diwan al-Kharaj) This department was concerned with Taxation and Land Tenure. Genuine budgets began to be drawn up for the first time and offices sprang up for various departments. The extensive staff of officials engaged in correspondence with the provinces and prepared estimates and accounts. An influential stratum of officialdom, the Irano-Islamic class of secretaries (kuttab in Arabic, dabiran in Persian), was formed which considered itself as the main support of the state. Their knowledge of the complex system of the kharaj (land tax) which took account not only of the quality of the land but of the produce of the crops sown, made the officials of the diwan al-Kharaj; the guardians of knowledge which was inaccessible to the uninitiated and was passed by inheritance.[7]
In 765, Khalid ibn Barmak received the governorship of Tabaristan, where he crushed a dangerous uprising. During his governorship of Upper Mesopotamia, Khalid, through a mix of firmness and justice, brought the province quickly into order and effectively curbed the unruly Kurds.[citation needed]
Influence under the early Abbasids[edit]
The Barmakid family was an early supporter of the Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads and of As-Saffah. This gave Khalid bin Barmak considerable influence, and his son Yaḥyá ibn Khālid (d. 806) was the vizier of the caliph al-Mahdi (ruled 775–785) and tutor of Hārūn al-Rashid (ruled 786–809). Yahya's sons al-Fadl and Ja'far (767–803), both occupied high offices under Harun.[citation needed]
Many Barmakids were patrons of the sciences, which greatly helped the propagation of Indian science and scholarship into the Islamic world of Baghdad and beyond.[8] They patronized scholars such as Gebir and Jabril ibn Bukhtishu.[citation needed] They are also credited with the establishment of the first paper mill in Baghdad.[citation needed] The power of the Barmakids in those times is reflected in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights; the vizier Ja'far appears in several stories, as well as a tale that gave rise to the expression "Barmecide feast".[9]
Disgrace and fall[edit]
In 803, the family lost favor in the eyes of Harun al-Rashīd, and many of its members were imprisoned.
According to Rit Nosotro, Harun al-Rashīd found his chief pleasure in the society of his sister Abbasa and Jafar bin Yahya, and, in order that these two might be with him continuously without breach of the restrictions on women, he persuaded them to contract a purely formal marriage. The condition, however, was that the two can meet only in his presence, so that they may not produce an heir. This not being observed, and Harun learning that Abbasa had borne a son, he caused Ja'far suddenly to be arrested and beheaded, and the rest of the family except Muḥammad, Yahya's brother, to be imprisoned and deprived of their property.[9][11]
However, al-Tabari and Ibn Khaldūn mentioned other reasons ensuring that their decline was gradual and not sudden. Their hypotheses are:
- The Barmakids' extravagance in spending to the extent that they overshadowed Hārun al-Rashid. It has been said that Jafar ibn Yahya built a mansion that cost twenty million dirhams and that his father, Yahya ibn Khalid, had gold tiles on the wall of his mansion. Hārun became upset one trip around Baghdad, and, whenever he passed an impressive house or mansion, they told him it belonged to the Barmakids.
- al-Fadl ibn al-Rabi, an Abbasid loyal civil servant very close to Hārun and a rival of the Barmakids, convinced Hārūn to assign spies to watch them, and that is how he found out about Yahya Ibn Abdullah al-Talibi's incident.[citation needed]
- The Barmakid Army: Although technically this army was under the Abbasids, in reality, the soldiers gave allegiance to al-Fadl Ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, Ja'far's brother; it numbered 50,000 soldiers. During their last days, al-Fadl ordered 20 thousand of them to come to Baghdad and claimed to create a legion under the name of the Karnabiya Legion. This made Harun very wary of their intentions.[citation needed]
- The Governor of Khurasan at the time, Ali ibn Isa ibn Mahan, sent a letter to Harun reporting about the unrest in his province and blaming Musa ibn Yahya, another brother of Ja'far, for it.[citation needed]
- The Yahya ibn Abdullah al-Talibi incident: In AH 176, Yahya ibn Abdullah went to Daylam in Persia and called for rule by himself in place of Hārūn. Many people followed him, and he became strong enough to cause unrest for the Abbasids. Hārūn managed to capture him and ordered that he be confined to house arrest at al-Fadl's house in Baghdad. However, al-Fadl, rather than making sure he would not escape, gave him money and a ride and let him leave Baghdad. The Abbasids considered that to be high treason.[citation needed]
Legacy[edit]
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A number of canals, mosques and other public works owe their existence to the initiative and munificence of the Barmakids. Al Fadl, son of Yahya bin barmak is credited with being the first to introduce the use of lamps in the mosques during the holy month of Ramadan. They are also credited with the establishment of the first paper mill in Baghdad. Ja'far, another son of Yahya acquired great fame for eloquence, literary activity and pen-manship. Hitti argues that chiefly because of him, Arab historians regard the Barmakids as the founders of the class designated as 'people of the pen' (ahl al-qalam). The long neck which Barmakids possessed is said to have been responsible for the introduction of the custom of wearing high collars. The first extant Arabic report on India was prepared under the directions of Yahya ibn Barmak (d. 805) by his envoy. Barmaks were responsible for inviting several scholars and physicians from India to the court of Abbasids. When Sindh was attacked by the Arabs during the Battle of Rajasthan; the city of Brahmanabad/Mansura was built by a Barmak. Later he was commissioned with building the capital of Baghdad. On 30 July 763, the caliph Al Mansur concluded the construction of the city. It is said that the Baghdadi capital had numerous Indian architectural influences, now largely ignored by historians.
See also[edit]
The Golden Age of Islam saw a flourishing of Islamic science, notably mathematics and astronomy, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries. While Islamic science mostly relied on Hellenistic predecessors, there was also significant input from the Sanskrit scholarly tradition of India, which had seen a period of fruitful development during the Gupta era (4th to 6th centuries).
Contents
[hide]History[edit]
For the best part of a millennium, from the Seleucid era and throughout the Sassanid period, there had been an exchange of scholarship between theGreek, Persian and Indian cultural spheres. The origin of the number zero and the place-value system notably falls into this period; its early use originates in Indian mathematics of the 5th century (Lokavibhaga), influencing Sassanid era Persian scholars during the 6th century.[1]
The sudden Islamic conquest of Persia in the 640s drove a wedge between the Mediterranean and Indian traditions, but scholarly transfer soon resumed, with translations of both Greek and Sanskrit works in to Arabic during the 8th century. This triggered the flourishing of Abbasid-era scholarship centered inBaghdad in the 9th century, and the eventual resumption of transmission to the west via Muslim Spain and Sicily by the 10th century.
There was continuing contact between Indian and Perso-Arabic scholarship during the 9th to 11th centuries while the Muslim conquest of India wastemporarily halted. Al Biruni in the early 11th century travelled widely in India and became an important source of knowledge about India in the Islamic world during that time.[2]
With the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th century, northern India fell under Perso-Arabic dominance and the native Indian tradition fell into decline, while at a about the same time the "Golden Age of Islam" of the Arab caliphates gave way to Turko-Mongol dominance, leading to the flourishing of a secondary "Golden Age" of Turko-Persian literary tradition during the 13th to 16th centuries, exemplified on either side of Timurid Persia by the Ottoman Empire in the west and the Mughal Empire in the east.
Astronomy[edit]
The Brahmasiddhanta of Brahmagupta was translated during the reign of Al-Mansur (753–774) Alfazari into Arabic as Az-Zīj ‛alā Sinī al-‛Arab,[3] or theSindhind. This translation was possibly a vehicle by means of which the Hindu numerals were transmitted from the Sanskrit to the Arabic tradition.[4]
Alfazari also translated the Khandakhadyaka (Arakand) of Brahmagupta .[7] Through the resulting Arabic translations known as Sindhind and Arakand, the use of Indian numerals became established in the Islamic world.[8]
Mathematics[edit]
Medical texts[edit]
Manka, an Indian physician at the court of Harun al-Rashid is said to have translated the Sushruta (the classical (Gupta-era) Sanskrit text on medicine) into Persian.[13]
| “ | A large number of Sanskrit medical , pharmacological and Toxicological texts were translated into Arabic under the patronage of Khalid, the vizier of Al-Mansur . Khalid was the son of a chief priest of a Buddhist monastery at Balkh. Some of his family was killed when the Arabs captured Balkh ; others including Khalid survived by converting to Islam . They were to be known as the Barmakids of Baghdad who were fascinated by the new ideas from India . Indian medical knowledge was given a further boost under the Caliph Harun al Rashid (788–809) who ordered the translation of Susruta Samhita into Arabic .[14] | ” |
| “ | We know of Yahya ibn Khalid al Barmaki (805) as a patron of physicians and, specifically, of the translation of Hindu medical works into both Arabic and Persian. In all likelihood however, his activity took place in the orbit of the caliphal court in Iraq , where at the behest of Harun al Rashid (786–809), such books were translated into Arabic. Thus Khurasan and Transoxania were effectively bypassed in this transfer of learning from India to Islam, even though, undeniably the Barmakis cultural outlook owed something to their land of origin, northern Afghanistan, and Yahya al Barmaki's interest in medicine may have derived from no longer identifiable family tradition.[15] | ” |
| “ | The Caraka Saṃhitā was translated into Persian and subsequently into Arabic by Abd-Allah ibn Ali in the ninth century .[16] | ” |
| “ | Probably the first Islamic hospital (Bimaristan or Maristan) was established in Baghdad Yahya ibn Khalid ibn Barmak, tutor and subsequently vizier of Harun al-Rashid when the latter became Khalif in 786. Yahya ibn Khalid ibn Barmak's hospital, usually referred to as the Barmakid Hospital must have been established before 803 , the year in which the Barmakid family fell from power . The Hospital is mentioned in two places in the Fihrist.(written in 997). Ibn Dahn, Al Hindi , who administered the Bimaristan of the Barmak. He translated from the Indian language into Arabic.
Yahya ibn Khalid ordered Mankah (Kankah), the Indian to translate it (an Indian book of medicine) at the hospital to render it in the form of a compilation [17]
| ” |
Al-Razi's Al-Hawi (liber continens) of c. 900 has also been claimed[who?] as containing "much Indian knowledge".[clarification needed][18]