Bābak (d. 223/838) was the leader of a major Khurramī revolt in early ʿAbbāsid Iran. The son of an Aramean peddler from Iraq and an Azerbaijani village woman, he grew up as a Muslim under the name of al-Ḥasan; his two brothers also bore Muslim names. Initially he worked for Arab warlords in the Tabriz region in Azerbaijan, first as a cowherd, later as a groom, but eventually he found employment with Jāvīdhān, the leader of a native cult society, who converted him to Khurramism. Bābak eventually succeeded