The Safavid Kings themselves claimed to be Seyyeds,[40] family descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, although many scholars have cast doubt on this claim.[41] There seems now to be a consensus among scholars that the Safavid family hailed from Persian Kurdistan,[31] and later moved to 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 Zarin-Kulah.[32][42]
According to some historians,[43][44] including Richard Frye, the Safavids were of Turkicized Iranian origin:[33]
The Turkish speakers of Azerbaijan are mainly descended from the earlier Iranian speakers, several pockets of whom still exist in the region. A massive migration of Oghuz Turks in the 11th and 12th centuries not only Turkified Azerbaijan but also Anatolia. The Azeri Turks are Shiʿites and were founders of the Safavid dynasty.
Other historians, such as Vladimir Minorsky[45] and Roger Savory, support this idea:[46]
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 native Turkish-speaking and Turkicized,[18][47] and some of the Shahs composed poems in their native Turkish language. Concurrently, the Shahs themselves also supported Persian literature, poetry and art projects including the grand Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp,[48][49] while members of the family and some Shahs composed Persian poetry as well.[50][51] The authority of the Safavids was religiously based, and their claim to legitimacy was founded on being direct male descendants of the Ali,[52] the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, and regarded by Shi'ites as the first Imam.
Furthermore, the dynasty was from the very start thoroughly intermarried with both Pontic Greek as well as Georgian lines.[53] 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 advent of king Tahmasp I.[35][36]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavi...tural_identity
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