Safi-ad-din Ardabili

Sheikh Safi-ad-din Is'haq Ardabili (of Ardabil) (1252–1334) (Persian: شیخ صفی‌الدین اسحاق اردبیلی‎‎ Shaikh Ṣāfī ad-Dīn Isḥāq Ardabīlī), was the Kurdish and Sunni Muslim eponym of the Safavid dynasty, founder of the Safaviyya order, and the spiritual heir and son in law of the great Sufi Murshid (Grand Master) Sheikh Zahed Gilani, of Lahijan in Gilan province in northern Iran. Most of what we know about him comes from the Safvat as-safa, a hagiography written by one of his followers.

Safi-ad-din was of Kurdish origins. 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.

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 Al-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.

An etched figure of a giant hand, in Safi-ad-din Ardabili Mausoleum, showing Twelver Shi'a sign of Panj-tan-e Āl-e Abā

Sheikh Safi al-Din inherited Sheikh Zahed Gilani's Sufi order, the "Zahediyeh", which he later transformed into his own, the "Safaviyya". Sheikh Zahed Gilani also gave his daughter Bibi Fatemeh in wedlock to his favorite disciple. 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.

Sheikh Safi al-Din has composed poems in the Iranian dialect of old Tati. He was a seventh-generation descendant of Firuz-Shah Zarrin-Kolah, a local Iranian dignitary.

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.

• Monika Gronke, Derwische im Vorhof der Macht: sozial- und wirtschaftsgeschichte Nordwestirans im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 1993
• Mazzaoui, Michel, The Origins of the Safavids: Shi'ism, Sufism, and the Gulat, Wiesbaden, West Germany: F. Steiner, 1972.