The Rise and Fall of the Barmakids

This volume offers the first annotated English translation of iyal-Dn Baran’s The Accounts of the Barmakids, based on a little-known manuscript housed in the Bodleian Library, MS Ouseley 217. The Barmakids, originally from the Balkh region in modern-day Afghanistan, were a prominent family of converts to Islam who rose to great power in the 8th century, under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates. Their influence reached its height under the Abbasid caliph Hrn al-Rashd, who eventually brought about their downfall. The Barmakids have intrigued both medieval and modern scholars, with their legacy preserved in regional lore and Western popular culture, the latter particularly through the One Thousand and One Nights. While early Arabic sources provide factual accounts of the family, Baran’s Persian story cycle, written in the 14th-century, paints a more vivid picture. Contained within this work are 70 tales, including stories of generosity, wise leadership, romance and skulduggery.

Author Biography

Pejman Firoozbakhsh is a Research Associate at the University of Hamburg and a former member of the Invisible East programme at the University of Oxford. He is a linguist interested in the formation and development of early New Persian, West Iranian dialects, Persian codicology and textual criticism. Pejman Firoozbakhsh’s recent publications include “Manuscript of a Persian Qaṣīda from about the Year 400/1007”, in Bi yād-i Īraj Afshār, edited by Jawād Basharī (vol. 2. Tehran: Duktur Maḥmūd Afshār, 1402/2024, 661–72) (In Persian) and ‘The Story of Rustam and Suhrāb,’ by Abu al-Qāsim Firdawsī, edited by Jalal Khaleqi Motlaq (Tehran: Sokhan 2014; rev. 2020). He has also contributed to a book by Arezou Azad The Warehouse of Bamiyan: Economic Life in Medieval Afghanistan (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). Arezou Azad is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Invisible East programme at the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. She is also Professor and Chair of the Arts and Heritage of Afghanistan at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) in Paris. She has authored four other peer-reviewed books: The Rise and Fall of the Barmakids (Edinburgh University Press, 2026), The Warehouse of Bamiyan: Economic Life in Medieval Afghanistan (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), Faḍāʾil-i Balkh or “The Merits of Balkh”, an annotated translation of a 13th-century history of Balkh (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2013).