He said in Kunasa (a neighborhood of) Kufa: “Whoever relates a virtue of ‘Ali (a.

He said in Kunasa (a neighborhood of) Kufa: “Whoever relates a virtue of ‘Ali (a.s.) for which I have not composed a poem, I will give him this horse with all the things on it. The transmitters of hadith related hadith and Sayyid recited his poems on the related subjects until a man related a virtue, about which Sayyid had not said any poems. He fulfilled his promise, and then composed a poem for that virtue.

In the reign of Harun a large number of the Alawis and Talibis were killed as martyrs whose names and date of martyrdom were not registered due their great number, including Idris b. ‘Abd Allah b. al-Hasan al-Muthanna who had a vast rule in Egypt and Africa and was cunningly poisoned by Harun. Similarly, some Sadat [^2] such as Yahya b. ‘Abd Allah b. al-Hasan al-Muthanna and his son Muhammad b. Muthanna, and Husayn b. ‘Abd Allah b.

Isma’il, a descendent of Ja‘far Tayyar, who was killed due to the wounds of scourge; or ‘Abbas b. Muhammad, a descendent of Imam al-Sajjad (a.s.), who was clubbed to death by the cursed Harun who called him the son of an adulterous woman and he retorted that Harun’s mother was indeed adulterous because she had been a slave girl with whom the slave dealers had adulterous liaison.

Harun got furiously angry and clubbed him to death.[^3] All in all, a great number of Alawis were murdered during the rule of Harun and the story of Humayd b. Qahtaba and the killing of sixty of the Sadat in one night are recorded in history.[^4] In 189/804, the prosperity star of the Barmakids, who had been given the authority to run the state, began to die out, and they were wiped out by Harun, with their condemnatory story being recorded in history as a lesson for others.

Ma’mun carried out this plot so cunningly that Ja‘far b. Yahya Barmaki who was Ma’mun’s brother-in-law and very close and dear to him did not have the slightest idea of what would happen until the night that Harun ordered his agent to murder him. When Harun’s agent went to his house for executing the order, he (Ja‘far) told him: “Ma’mun makes such jokes with me a lot.” Finally, it was arranged for him to be taken to the back part of the Harun’s tent and to ask Harun’s view again about his murder.

When he directly heard the order of his murder, he tied his own handkerchief over his eyes and was beheaded.