Iran is a bread culture with a long history of bread-making. According to archaeologists, wheat was cultivated more than 9,000 years ago near the Caspian Sea in northern Iran. It is not fully known how many different types of bread exist throughout the land, but four of them are quite prevalent. Barbari is probably the second most mainstream bread in Iran. Until recently, Barbari bread of Iran was unknown in the West. Since the commencement of the 21st century, it has been progressively gaining popularity among professional bakers and consumers in North America and Western Europe.

In Persian, the adjective Barbari (بربری) means “of barbars”. And, the noun barbar (بربر) means “barbarian” or “foreigner”. Some hypothetically attribute the Barbari bread to the Hazara people (a people that are said to be of Mongolian and Turkic ancestry) who began to migrate from Afghanistan to Northern Persia (the modern-day Iran) about or over two centuries ago. According to this hypothesis, the Hazara migrants, whom the Persians referred to as the “barbars”, began baking the flatbreads in Northern Persia, which Persians eventually named “Barbari bread”, the bread of barbarians/foreigners. It is said that Hazara of central Afghanistan are skillful bakers, and bread-making is one of their main occupations.