The Safavid order, also called the Safaviyya (
Persian: صفویه), was a
tariqa (
Sufi order)[1][2] founded by the
Kurdish[3][4]mysticSafi-ad-Din Ardabili (1252–1334). It held a prominent place in the society and politics of northwestern Iran in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but today it is best known for having given rise to the
Safavid dynasty. While initially founded under the
Shafi'i school of Sunni Islam, later adoptions of Shi'i concepts such as the notion of the
Imamate by the children and grandchildren of Safi-ad-Din Ardabili resulted in the order ultimately becoming associated with
Twelverism.
Founder and foundation
Safī al-Din grew up in
Ardabil, but left it for lack of adequate teachers, traveling to
Shiraz and then
Gilan. In Gilan, he became the disciple of
Zahed Gilani, leader of the
Zahidī Sufi order. He eventually became Zahid's chief disciple and married his daughter. Upon Zahed Gilani's death, the Zahidiyyah came under Safī ad-Din's leadership and was renamed the Safawiyyah.
Safī al-Din's importance is attested in two letters by
Rashid-al-Din Hamadani. In one, Rashid al-Din pledges an annual offering of foodstuffs. In the other, Rashid al-Din writes to his son, the governor of Ardabil, advising him to show proper consideration to the sheikh.[5]
Growth of the order
After Safī al-Din's death, leadership of the order passed to his son,
Sadr al-Dīn Mūsā, and subsequently passed down from father to son. By the mid-fifteenth century, the Safawiyyah changed in character and became militant under
Shaykh Junayd and
Shaykh Haydar, launching jihads against the Christians of
Georgia. The later Safawiyyah is considered "
ghulat", meaning it had
messianic beliefs about its leadership and Shi'ite
antinomian practices outside of the orthodox norm of Twelver Islam.
Haydar's grandson,
Ismail, further altered the nature of the order when he founded the Safavid empire in 1501 and proclaimed Twelver Shi'ism the state religion, at which point he imported
ulama largely from
Lebanon and
Syria to make the Safavid practices orthodox.[6][7][8][9]
^G. E. Browne, Literary History of Persia, vol. 4, 33–4.
^Floor, Willem; Herzig, Edmund (2015).
Iran and the World in the Safavid Age. I.B.Tauris. p. 20.
ISBN978-1780769905. In fact, at the start of the Safavid period Twelver Shi'ism was imported into Iran largely from Syria and Mount Lebanon (...)