Ja'far ibn Yahya

Common card · No. 363535

Jaʽfar ibn Yahya Barmaki or Jafar al-Barmaki (Persian: جعفر بن یحیی برمکی, Arabic: جعفر بن يحيى, Jaʽfar bin yaḥyā) (767–803), also called Aba-Fadl, was a Bactrian vizier of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, succeeding his father (Yahya ibn Khalid) in that position. He was a member of the influential Barmakid family, formerly Buddhist leaders of the Nava Vihara monastery. He was born in Medina in 767 and, executed in 803 at the orders of Harun al-Rashid. He had a reputation as a patron of the sciences, and did much to introduce Indian science into Baghdad. He was credited with convincing the caliph to open a paper mill in Baghdad, the secret of papermaking having been obtained from Tang Chinese prisoners at the Battle of Talas (in present-day Kyrgyzstan) in 751.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Various, Public domain