Safi-ad-din Ardabili

Sheikh Safi-ad-din Is'haq Ardabili (of Ardabil) (1252–1334) (Persian: شیخ صفی‌الدین اردبیلی), eponym of the Safavid dynasty, was 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. His origin is obscure[1] but he was most likely of Kurdish[1][2] background. Most of what we know about him comes from the Safvat as-safa, a hagiography written by one of his followers.

Sheikh Safi al-Din's has composed poems in the Iranian dialect of old Tati which is very close to Kurdish.[3][4] He was a seventh-generation descendant of Firuz Shah Zarrin Kolah, a local Iranian dignitary.[5]

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.

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.[6]

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.[7]

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)"[8] similar to the ancestry of Sheykh Safi al-Din's father in law, Sheikh Zahed Gilani, who also hailed from Sanjan, in Greater Khorassan.

(Other transliterations for Safi al-Din: Safi al-Din, Safi ad-Dîn, Safi Eddin, Safi od-Din, Safi El-Din, Safieddin, Safioddin)

Contents

See also

Safi-ad-din Ardabili
New title Leader of the Safaviya Order
1293–1334		 Succeeded by
Sadr al-Dīn Mūsā

Notes

  1. ^ a b Richard Tapper, Frontier nomads of Iran: a political and social history of the Shahsevan, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 9780521583367, p. 39.
  2. ^ EBN BAZZAZ Encyclopedia Iranica
  3. ^ "The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan" E. Yarshater, Encyclopædia Iranica
  4. ^ Ehsan Yarshater, Encyclopædia Iranica, Book 1, p. 240.
  5. ^ Barry D. Wood, The Tarikh-i Jahanara in the Chester Beatty Library: an illustrated manuscript of the "Anonymous Histories of Shah Isma'il", Islamic Gallery Project, Asian Department Victoria & Albert Museum London, Routledge, Volume 37, Number 1 / March 2004, Pp: 89 - 107.
  6. ^ Payvand News
  7. ^ Minorsky Vladimir, The Turks, Iran and the Caucasus in the Middle Ages. Preface by J.A. Boyle. Variorum Reprints, London 1978; page 517-518
  8. ^ Z. V. Togan, "Sur l’Origine des Safavides," in Melanges Louis Massignon, Damascus, 1957, III, pp. 345-57

Virtual Tour

Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili's Mausoleum Virtual Tour

Literature

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