Ṣafī al-Dīn

Ṣafī al-Dīn (born 1253, Ardabīl, Iran—died September 12, 1334, Ardabīl) was a mystic and founder of the Ṣafavī order of mystics and progenitor of the later Safavid dynasty.

Ṣafī al-Dīn, a descendant of a family of provincial administrators, obtained his early education in Ardabīl, where his family may have held dependencies as a land grant from the central government. Later, in Shīrāz, he was influenced by Sufi (mystical) teachings. He then traveled to Gīlān (the Iranian Caspian province), where he spent 25 years as a murīd (spiritual follower) of Sheikh Zāhid, whose daughter Bībī Fāṭimah he married. After a dispute over the rightful successor to Sheikh Zāhid, Ṣafī al-Dīn returned to Ardabīl, where he formed the Ṣafavī order.

The fame of Ṣafī al-Dīn increased as the new order gained recruits. The popularity of the order can be attributed in part to Ṣafī al-Dīn’s policy of hospitality, especially to all who sought refuge. One of the sheikh’s appellations was Khalīl-e ʿAjam (the Iranian Abraham, who is noted for hospitality in Iranian folklore). The order appears to have been a Sunni order of mystics following the Shāfiʿi school of Sunni law. It seems to have incorporated the popular veneration of ʿAlī (who was to Sunnis one of the four Rashidun caliphs) without actually adhering to the doctrines of his party, that of the Shiʿah. Later, Safavid court historians, who subscribed to the doctrines of the Twelver Shiʿah, claimed that Ṣafī al-Dīn was Shiʿi and a sayyid (descendant of ʿAlī), but these claims were fabricated in order to promote the state ideology.