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TheSafavid order, (Persian:طریقت صفویه) also called theSafaviyya (Persian:صفویه), was aKurdishSufiShia order (Tariqa)[1][2] founded by the[3][4]mysticSafi-ad-Din Ardabili (1252–1334 AD). It held a prominent place in the society and politics of North Western Iran in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but today it is best known for having given rise to theSafavid dynasty.
The Safaviyya, while initially founded Safi-ad-Din Ardabili under theShafi'i school ofSunni Islam, later adoptions ofShia concepts by the children and grandchildren of Safi-ad-Din Ardabili resulted in the order becoming associated withTwelverism.[3][4] Safī al-Din's importance in the order is attested in two letters byRashid-al-Din Hamadani.[5][6][7][8] In one, Rashid al-Din pledges an annual offering of foodstuffs to Safī al-Din' and in the other, Rashid al-Din writes to his son, the governor of Ardabil, advising him to show proper respect and comportment to the mystic.[9]
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, and by the mid-fifteenth century, the Twelver Safawiyya changed in character, evolving into anextreme and intolerant form of Twelver Shi'ism, becoming militant underShaykh Junayd andShaykh Haydar by proclaimingJihad against the Christians ofGeorgia, and becomingexaggerative by adoptingmessianic beliefs about its leadership andantinomian practices outside of the norm of Twelver Islam at the time.[5][6][7][8]
Junayd's grandson,Ismail, further altered the nature of the order when he founded the Safavid empire in 1501 and proclaimed Twelver Shi'ism as the state religion, at which point he imported Twelver ShiaUlama largely fromLebanon andSyria to transform the order into a TwelverShi'i dynasty.[5][6][7][8]
In fact, at the start of the Safavid period Twelver Shi'ism was imported into Iran largely from Syria and Mount Lebanon (...)
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