Khurramites

[3] An alternative name for the movement is the Muhammira (Arabic: محمرة, "Red-Wearing Ones"; in Persian: سرخ‌جامگان Surkh-Jâmagân), a reference to their symbolic red dress.

[citation needed] The Qizilbash ("Red-Heads"') of the 16th century – a religious and political movement in Iranian Azerbaijan that helped to establish the Safavid dynasty – have been described as "spiritual descendants of the Khurramites".

This message was further bolstered by the appearance of al-Muqanna, "The Veiled" prophet, who claimed that the spirit of God had existed in Muhammad, Ali and Abu Muslim.

Javidhan, when stuck in the snow on his way back from Zanjān to Badd, had to seek shelter at Balalabad and happened to go into the house of Babak's mother.

Javidhan therefore asked the woman for permission to take her son away to manage his farms and properties, and offered to send her fifty dirhams a month from Babak's salary.

Taking advantage of the turmoil created by the Abbasid Civil War, they began making attacks on Muslim forces in 816 in Iran and Iraq.

At first, Caliph al-Ma'mun paid little attention to the uprising because of the difficulty in intervening from far-away Khorasan, the appointment of his successor and the actions of al-Fadl ibn Sahl.

[6][7][11] Before Afshin's departure, the caliph had sent a group under Abu Sa'id Muhammad to rebuild the forts demolished by Babak between Zanjan and Ardabil.

[6][12][13] The Abbasid suppression of the rebellion led to the flight of many thousands of Khurramites to Byzantium, where they were welcomed by Emperor Theophilos, and they joined the Byzantine army under their Iranian leader, Theophobos.

Some of them "believed in free sex, provided that the women agreed to it, and also in the freedom of enjoying all pleasures and of satisfying one's inclinations so long as this does not entail any harm to others".

[17] Naubakhti states that they also believe in reincarnation (metempsychosis) as the only existing kind of afterlife and retribution and in the cancellation of all religious prescriptions and obligations.

[19] According to Turkish scholar Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı the Qizilbash ("Red-Heads") of the 16th century – a religious and political movement in Azerbaijan that helped to establish the Safavid dynasty – were "spiritual descendants of the Khurramites".