The Safavid dynasty was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran from 1501 to 1736.
The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safavid order of Sufism, which was established
in the city of Ardabil in the Iranian Azerbaijan region. It was an Iranian dynasty of Kurdish
origin, but during their rule they intermarried with Turkoman, Georgian, Circassian, and Pontic
Greek dignitaries. From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over parts
of Greater Iran and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming the
first native dynasty since the Sasanian Empire to establish a national state officially known
as Iran.
The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 and, at their height, they controlled all of what
is now Iran, Azerbaijan Republic, Bahrain, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North
Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Despite their demise in 1736, the legacy that they left behind was the revival of Iran as
an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and
bureaucracy based upon "checks and balances", their architectural innovations and their
patronage for fine arts. The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era
by spreading Twelver Islam in Iran, as well as major parts of the Caucasus, Anatolia,
and Mesopotamia. Genealogy—ancestors of the Safavids and
its multi-cultural identity The Safavid Kings themselves claimed to be
sayyids, family descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, although many scholars have
cast doubt on this claim. There seems now to be a consensus among scholars that the
Safavid family hailed from Iranian Kurdistan, and later moved to Iranian Azerbaijan, finally
settling in the 11th century CE at Ardabil. Traditional pre-1501 Safavid manuscripts trace
the lineage of the Safavids to the Kurdish dignitary, Firuz-Shah Zarrin-Kolah.
According to historians, including Vladimir Minorsky and Roger Savory, the Safavids were
of Turkicized Iranian origin
From the evidence available at the present time, it is certain that the Safavid family
was of indigenous Iranian stock, and not of Turkish ancestry as it is sometimes claimed.
It is probable that the family originated in Persian Kurdistan, and later moved to Azerbaijan,
where they adopted the Azari form of Turkish spoken there, and eventually settled in the
small town of Ardabil sometimes during the eleventh century.
By the time of the establishment of the Safavid empire, the members of the family were Turkicized
and Turkish-speaking, and some of the Shahs composed poems in their then-native Turkish
language. Concurrently, the Shahs themselves also supported Persian literature, poetry
and art projects including the grand Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, while members of the family
and some Shahs composed Persian poetry as well.
The authority of the Safavids was religiously based, and their claim to legitimacy was founded
on being direct male descendants of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, and regarded
by the Shiʻa as the first Imam.
Furthermore, the dynasty was from the very start thoroughly intermarried with both Pontic
Greek as well as Georgian lines. In addition, from the official establishment of the dynasty
in 1501, the dynasty would continue to have many intermarriages with both Circassian as
well as again Georgian dignitaries, especially with the accession of Tahmasp I.
Culture The Safavid family was a literate family from
its early origin. There are extant Tati and Persian poetry from Shaykh Safi ad-din Ardabili
as well as extant Persian poetry from Shaykh Sadr ad-din. Most of the extant poetry of
Shah Ismail I is in Azerbaijani pen-name of Khatai. Sam Mirza, the son of Shah Ismail
as well as some later authors assert that Ismail composed poems both in Turkish and
Persian but only a few specimens of his Persian verse have survived. A collection of his poems
in Azeri were published as a Divan. Shah Tahmasp who has composed poetry in Persian was also
a painter, while Shah Abbas II was known as a poet, writing Azerbaijani verses. Sam Mirza,
the son of Ismail I was himself a poet and composed his poetry in Persian. He also compiled
an anthology of contemporary poetry.