Episode 53: Downfall of the Baramika

Royal advisors, court attendants, and other officials began to hold some real political power in the Abbasid caliphate, a development which progressed with every caliph who came after the micromanaging al Mansur. The Baramika during al Rashid’s reign represented the pinnacle of this sort of bureaucratic authority and they established a level of political control that at times seemed to be almost complete. Their fall from grace was so shocking and sudden that it stands out as an oft recounted episode of Arab history, with several amusing explorations of what may have precipitated it.