For seventeen years Yaḥyá and his two sons, Faḍl and Ja‘far, remained deep in Hárún's confidence and virtual rulers of the State until, from motives which have been variously explained, the Caliph resolved to rid himself of the whole family. The story is too well known to need repetition.[491] Ja‘far alone was put to death: we may conclude, therefore, that he had specially excited the Caliph's anger; and those who ascribe the catastrophe to his romantic love-affair with Hárún's sister, ‘Abbása, are probably in the right.[492] Hárún himself seems to have recognised, when it was too late, how much he owed to these great Persian barons whose tactful administration, unbounded generosity, and munificent patronage of literature have shed immortal lustre on his reign. Afterwards, if any persons spoke ill of the Barmecides in his presence, he would say (quoting the verse of Ḥuṭay’a):--[493] "O slanderers, be your sire of sire bereft![494] Give o'er, or fill the gap which they have left." [Sidenote: Hárún al-Rashíd (786-809 A.D.).] Hárún's orthodoxy, his liberality, his victories over the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus, and last but not least the literary brilliance of his reign have raised him in popular estimation far above all the other Caliphs: he is the Charlemagne of the East, while the entrancing pages of the _Thousand and One Nights_ have made his name a household word in every country of Europe. Students of Moslem history will soon discover that "the good Haroun Alraschid" was in fact a perfidious and irascible tyrant, whose fitful amiability and real taste for music and letters hardly entitle him to be described either as a great monarch or a good man. We must grant, however, that he thoroughly understood the noble art of patronage. The poets Abú Nuwás, Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, Di‘bil, Muslim b. Walíd, and ‘Abbás b. Aḥnaf; the musician Ibráhím of Mosul and his son Isḥáq; the philologists Abú ‘Ubayda, Aṣma‘í, and Kisá’í; the preacher Ibnu ’l-Sammák; and the historian Wáqidí--these are but a few names in the galaxy of talent which he gathered around him at Baghdád. [Sidenote: Amín and Ma’mún (809-833 A.D.).] The fall of the Barmecides revived the spirit of racial antagonism which they had done their best to lay, and an open rupture was rendered inevitable by the short-sighted policy of Hárún with regard to the succession. He had two grown-up sons, Amín, by his wife and cousin Zubayda, and Ma’mún, whose mother was a Persian slave. It was arranged that the Caliphate should pass to Amín and after him to his brother, but that the Empire should be divided between them. Amín was to receive ‘Iráq and Syria, Ma’mún the eastern provinces, where the people would gladly welcome a ruler of their own blood. The struggle for supremacy which began almost immediately on the death of Hárún was in the main one of Persians against Arabs, and by Ma’mún's triumph the Barmecides were amply avenged. [Sidenote: Ma’mún's heresies.]