The Barbat [barbat], also known as the Ood [ud], is a short-neck fretless lute with a big and pear-like resonating body. It has a small fingerboard with five double-courses of strings tuned in fourths.

Traditionally played with an eagle's quill, the Barbat produces an agreeable warm bass sound.

The Barbat is the ancestor of the European lute, and functions as a bass instrument.

After Tanboor [tanbur] it is the oldest string instrument in Iran. In 800 B.C a kind of Barbat was used. In some books the invention of this instrument is a scribed to Barbad [bArbad]. As it is told in some books, the reason to name this instrument Barbat is that this name is the Arabic form of Barbad, but in some other books it is told that Bat means chest, so the similarity between the form of a Barbat and the chest of a drake is the other reason for its name.

After Islam’s attack to Iran this instrument was taken to Arabia and after a while it came back to Iran with a bit change in it, its body became bigger and the neck got shorter.

For Islamic culture penetrated in to Europe, this instrument was used is some parts with different names , for example in Italy it was called 'Lotto', in France 'Loth' in Portugal 'Aland' and in Spain 'Loud'. It is likely that the earliest Barbat were carved from a solid piece of wood, much like the Chinese Pipa and Japanese Biwa which are also descendants of the ancient Persian Barbat.

This instrument was abolished in Safavidth period by an unknown reason (maybe because of the religious fanaticism), even till recent decades.

Originally Barbat were strung with gut strings (although it is possible for silk to have been employed near the Persian-Chinese border) but today nylon has all but replaced gut.