Safi-ad-din Ardabili

Sheikh Safi-ad-din Is'haq Ardabili (of Ardabil) (1252–1334) (), 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 and he was of PersianMeyers Konversations-Lexikon, Vol. XII, p. 873, original German edition, " Persien (Geschichte des neupersischen Reichs)", () and Kurdish 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. He was a seventh-generation descendant of Firuz Shah Zarrin Kolah, a local Iranian dignitary.

Sheikh Safi al-Din inherited Sheikh Zahed Gilani's Sufi order, the "Zahediyeh", which he later transformed into his own, the "Safaviyeh". 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...
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