Background
He was a seventh-generation descendant of Firuz-Shah Zarrin-Kolah, a local Iranian dignitary.
He was a seventh-generation descendant of Firuz-Shah Zarrin-Kolah, a local Iranian dignitary.
Sheikh Safi al-Din"s has composed poems in the Iranian dialect of old Tati. Sheikh Safi al-Din inherited Sheikh Zahed Gilani"s Sufi order, the "Zahediyeh", which he later transformed into his own, the "Safaviyya". Sheikh Safi al-Din, in turn, gave a daughter from a previous marriage in wedlock to Shaikh Zahed Gilani"s second-born son.
Over the following 170 years, the Safaviyya Order gained political and military power, finally culminating in the foundation of the Safavid dynasty.
Only a very few verses of Sheikh Safi al-Din"s poetry, called Dobaytis (double verses), have survived. Written in old Tati and Persian, they have linguistic importance today.
According to Minorsky, Sheykh Safi al-Din"s ancestor Firuz-shah was a rich man, lived in Gilan and then Kurdish kings gave him Ardabil and its dependencies. Minorsky refers to Sheykh Safi al-Din"s claims tracing back his origins to Ali ibn Abu Talib, but expresses uncertainty about this.
(Other transliterations for Safi al-Din: Safi al-Din, Safi ad-Dîn, Safi Eddin, Safi od-Din, Safi El-Din, Safieddin, Safioddin) Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili"s Mausoleum.
The male lineage of the Safavid family given by the oldest manuscript of the Safwat as-Safa is:"(Shaykh) Safi al-Din Abul-Fatah Ishaaq the son of First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Shaykh Amin al-din Jebrail the son of al-Saaleh Qutb al-Din Abu Bakr the son of Salaah al-Din Rashid the son of Muhammad al-Hafiz al-Kalaam Allah the son of Javaad the son of Pirooz al-Kurdi al-Sanjani (Piruz Shah Zarin Kolah the Kurd of Sanjan)" similar to the ancestry of Sheykh Safi al-Din"s father in law, Sheikh Zahed Gilani, who also hailed from Sanjan, in Greater Khorassan.
