Khorram-dīnān

Khorram-dīnān, esoteric Islāmic religious sect whose leader Bābak led a rebellion in Azerbaijan (now divided between Iran and Azerbaijan) that lasted from 816 until 837.

The doctrinal beliefs of the Khorram-dīnān are not altogether clear. Although the sect accepted the general principles of Islām, its members also believed in transmigration of the soul and placed special emphasis on the Zoroastrian dualism of light and darkness. They differed from Sunnite Muslims (the major branch of Islām) in that they believed in the Shīʿite doctrine of the imamate (the belief that the religious community should be led by the descendants of the union of Fāṭimah, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, and ʿAlī, the Prophet’s nephew).

The Khorram-dīnān differed from most Shīʿites, however, in believing that the imamate should be hereditary in the person of Abū Muslim (d. 755), who had led a revolutionary movement in Khorāsān. According to some sources, Bābak, spiritual leader of the Khorram-dīnān, claimed, in the early 9th century, to be a descendant of Abū Muslim. Other sources, emphasizing the belief in transmigration of souls current among the Khorram-dīnān, maintain that Bābak claimed to possess the soul of Jawizān ibn Sahl, a former leader of the Khorram-dīnān. In 816 Bābak, believing that he had a divinely inspired mission to right all the wrongs of the temporal world, led the Khorram-dīnān in open rebellion against the ʿAbbāsid caliphs that ruled from Baghdad. The rebellion lasted 20 years and was suppressed only in 837, when Bābak was captured. Although the rebellion died out with Bābak’s execution in 838, the Khorram-dīnān survived as a sect until the 11th century.