CHAPTER SAFAVIDS The Safavids were perhaps Persia’s first truly national dynasty, yet they were probably of Kurdish origin and, at least in their early years. Turkish-speaking, the family descended from Shaykh Safi-al-Din (d.1334), who had established a Sufi order at Ardabil in Azerbaijan. Though later Safavid histories deny it, he was very probably Sunni. Only in the fifteenth century was the order firmly Shi’ite and the founder of the dynasty. Shah Ismail (1501-24), adopted a wholly fictitious genealogy claiming descent from the Hol> Prophet (PBUH) through an and line. The early rulers were principally engaged in the defense of Persia against the Ottomans from the northwest and the Shay ban id Uzbeks from the noitheast. Tabriz, the original capital, was abandoned for the safer Qazvin, while Baghdad was lost to the Ottomans and frontier towns such as Herat and Mashad frequently changed hands.
