[6] It was an Iranian dynasty of Kurdish origin,[7] but during their rule they intermarried with Turkoman,[8] Georgian,[9] Circassian,[10][11] and Pontic Greek[12] dignitaries, nevertheless, for practical purposes, they were Turkish-speaking and Turkified.

Despite their demise in 1736, the legacy that they left behind was the revival of Iran as an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon "checks and balances", their architectural innovations, and patronage for fine arts.

[3] The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era by establishing Twelver Shīʿīsm as the state religion of Iran, as well as spreading Shīʿa Islam in major parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, Caucasus, Anatolia, the Persian Gulf, and Mesopotamia.

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 Turkicized and Turkish-speaking,[24] and some of the Shahs composed poems in their then-native Turkish language.

[27][28] The authority of the Safavids was religiously based, and their claim to legitimacy was founded on being direct male descendants of Ali,[29] the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, and regarded by the Shiʻa as the first Imam.