Harun al-Rashid

This is a bad source, because the article is disorganized and disorderly.  For example, the article was talking about his life, and randomly adds a paragraph about his death and the events following it. Then, the article abruptly returns to talking about his life and his relationship with Charlemagne.  The article is also very disorganized.  Having all the points of his life thrown under a single section makes the article hard to read and takes away the reader's ability to focus.  It would have been better if there were individual sections discussing the different aspects of his life.  That way, the readers will be able to focus on small increments of information at a time.  I think this is an objective source as most of the information is fairly straight forward and factual.  For example, It shows Harun as being gruesome when he executed Ja' far, cut his body in two, and placed it on either side of a bridge for three years.  However, the article clarifies that this story was probably not true, and that the actual story was more realistic.

I have a couple of questions about the article. First off, did the Barmakids ever regain their prominent positions as administrators? And second, how was Harun as a ruler? was he benevolent, like Benjamin of Tudela describes him, or was he a tyrant? This Wikipedia page does answer most of my questions, as it is very specific and detailed.  I would go to a trusted site, such as an online database or a public library to find out more about him, rather than use Wikipedia.  If I Google searched his name, I would filter it by including specific words in my searches that will yield more specific results.  Furthermore, I would only look at the first 2 or 3 pages, because after that the results seem to become increasingly irrelevant.

I think Harun is so prevalent, because He is the caliph, which is a position higher than the king.  Because of this high position and power, I think it is natural for people to associate him with ridiculous and exaggerated stories that emphasize his power more.  I also think Wikipedia tempers his fame/notoriety, because the article denounces the exaggerated stories in the Thousand and One Nights tales as being fiction and states that he was much less legendary in real life.