smail was born to Martha and Shaykh Haydar on July 17, 1487 in Ardabil. His father, Haydar, was the sheikh of the Safaviyya Sufi order and a direct descendant of its Kurdish[16][17][18] founder, Safi-ad-din Ardabili (1252--1334). Ismail was the last in line of hereditary Grand Masters of the Safaviyah Sufi order, prior to his ascent to a ruling dynasty. His mother Martha, better known as Halima Begum, was the daughter of Uzun Hasan by his Pontic Greek wife Theodora Megale Komnene, better known as Despina Khatun.[19] Despina Khatun was the daughter of Emperor John IV of Trebizond. (She had married Uzun Hassan in a deal to protect Trebizond from the Ottomans.[20]) Ismail grew up bilingual, speaking Persian and Azerbaijani.[21][22] Although Ismail I did not only have Kurdish ancestry but also of various other ethnic groups,[23][24][25][26] the majority of scholars agree that his Empire was an Iranian one.[8][9][10][11][27] In 700/1301, Safi al-Din assumed the leadership of the Zahediyeh, a significant Sufi order in Gilan, from his spiritual master and father-in-law Zahed Gilani. Due to the great spiritual charisma of Safi al-Din, the order was later known as the Safaviyya. Like his father and grandfather Ismail headed the Safaviyya sufi order. An invented genealogy claimed that Sheikh Safi (the founder of the order and Ismael's ancestor) was a lineal descendant of Ali. Ismail also proclaimed himself the Mahdi and a reincarnation of Ali.[28] Life[edit] In 1488, the father of Ismail was killed in a battle against the forces of the Shirvanshah king Farrukh Yassar and the Aq Qoyunlu, in 1494 the Aq Qoyunlu Turks captured Ardabil, killing Ali Mirza Safavi (the eldest son of Haydar), and forcing the 7 year old Ismail to go into hiding in Gilan, where he received education under the guidance of renowned scholars. When Ismail reached the age of 12, he came out of hiding and returned to Iranian Azerbaijan along with his followers. Ismail's advent to power was due to Turkoman tribes of Anatolia and Azerbaijan, who formed the most important part of the Qizilbash movement.[

• published: 04 May 2014
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