Baban Family

Prominent Iraqi family.

The oldest known ancestor of the Baban family is Mufti Ahmad, who was granted a huge lot of land by the Ottoman authorities in the north of Iraq. His son Sulayman Baba established himself as a powerful ruler and, in 1670, became the governor of the sanjak (an administrative unit smaller than a governorate) of Baban, from which the family derived its name. The most well-known ancestor of the family is Sulayman Pasha al-Kabir, who was called Abu Layla.

— MAMOON A. ZAKI