Safavid "Kurdish/Iranic Theory"

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   The following were originally posted by Tajik, a Wikipedia member.  These quotes are from Encyclopaedia Iranica and others.
Before I begin, let me first write about Encyclopaedia Iranica.

http://www.iranica.com/
Encyclop�dia Iranica is a Columbia University  project and is prepared by its Center for Iranian Studies.  
Since 1979, the Encyclopaedia has been supported as a "major project" by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the foremost sponsor of educational, academic and research projects in the US.  
Encyclop�dia Iranica is a historic undertaking: the most extensive compendium ever conceived on the past and present culture of the people who speak an Iranian language and their contribution to the broader history of human civilization.  In fact it is the only precise and reliable reference work on the lands, life, culture and history of all Iranian peoples and their interaction with other societies. 

This encyclopedia is produced in one of the most respected universities in the USA, and it is made both by Iranian, and non-Iranian scholars and historians.  It is said to be the highest athority on Iranian history, and highly accurate.  
Now to the topic. I was curious as to when the turkic migration into central and west asia began.  While searching, I found this, and while reading it, it made sense, and if the evidence is correct, then it prooves that the Safavids were not Turkic.

" ... If one looks at the record of Iranian historians during the same period, the scene is similar: a rather barren landscape relieved by a few lofty peaks. In 1927-8 Ahmad Kasravi led the way with the publication of three seminal articles entitled Nizhad va Tabar-i Safaviyya (`The genealogy of the Safavids'); Safaviyya sayyid nabuda and (`The Safavids were not sayyids'); and Baz ham Safaviyya (`The Safavids again')[17]. Kasravi disputed the validity of the `official' Safavid genealogy contained in the Safvat al-Safa and followed by most later Safavid chronicles[18], and argued convincingly that the ancestors of Shaykh Safi al-Din, who founded the Safavid Order (tariqa), were indigenous inhabitants of Iran (az bumiyan-i bastan-i iran budan) and were of pure Aryan stock (juz nizhad-i aryani nadashta and). Today, the consensus among Safavid historians is that the Safavid family hailed from Persian Kurdistan. Kasravi's important articles were published in the journal Ayandeh, which was not readily available in the West, and, despite the fact that they were republished as a pamphlet in 1944, in an expanded and revised form, they unfortunately continued to be overlooked by many historians. These included the Turkish scholar Zeki Velidi Togan who, working on the oldest available MSS. of the Safvat al-Safa, independently reached many of the same conclusions reached by Kasravi thirty years earlier[19]. At the same time, Togan tried to lay to rest the persistent claim by Turkish historians that Shah Isma'il I was a Turk, but this claim resurfaced from time to time in the writings of Turcophiles, such as David Ayalon[20], and was usually based on the fact that Isma'il spoke the Azari dialect of Turkish, which Toynbee calls one of "the vulgar tongues of camp and court"[21], and had written poems in Azari under the pen-name of Khata'i. ..." Roger M. Savory, Professor Emeritus University of Toronto (one of the authors of the "Encyclopaedia Iranica")

Now regarding Shah Ismail's poetry, which is used as evidence by Pan-Turkists to justify their claim:

"...Shah Esma@�^l wrote poetry under the pen-name K�at�a@�^. Although his son Sa@m M^rza@ as well as some later authors assert that Esma@�^l composed poems both in Turkish and Persian, only a few specimens of his Persian verse have survived (Sa@m M^rza@, p. 9: one bayt; Fak�r^ Herav^, pp. 68-70: one mok�ammas; Tarb^at, Da@ne�manda@n-e A�d�arba@yja@n, p. 136: three bayts). His poetical output in Turkish, however, is sizeable, though indeterminate due to the absence of critical editions. The oldest extant manuscript of his d^va@n (Tashkent, dated 942/1535) contains 262 qas�^das and @gazals and 10 quatrains (Mamedov, 1975, pp. 13-14), while the second earliest copy (Paris, dated 948/1541) preserves 254 qas�^das and g@azals, 3 mat�naw^s, 1 morabba�, and 1 mosaddas (ed. Gandjei, p. 8). In addition to the d^va@n, Esma@�^l composed at least two independent lengthy mat�naw^s in the hazaj meter, namely the Nas�^h�at-na@ma, which is sometimes incorporated into the d^va@n, and the Dah-na@ma (comp. 911/1505-6). Apart from this poetical corpus that is almost exclusively in traditional �aru@z� (q.v.), there exist a sizeable number of poems in syllabic meter that carry the pen-name K�at�a@�^. Although a strong argument was put forth that these syllabic poems should be ascribed to poets belonging to Bekta@�^-�Alaw^ circles in Asia Minor (Gandjei, 1971), the possibility that Esma@�^l I did in fact compose some of them, perhaps with the purpose of attracting Turkish-speaking tribesmen to the Safavid cause, cannot be precluded. For long his poems were recited in Bekta@�^-�Alaw^ circles, and the extremist �abak sect of Iraq included some of them in their sacred book (Gandjei, in EI2 IV, pp. 188-89)..."
And this next piece of text, suggests that Shah Ismail did not even right he poems, stating that he was too young, to have written them and to pre occupied with other tasks:

"... The Safavid propaganda (da�wa). What is clear is that Esma@�^l reached sanctuary in G^la@n at the court of the local ruler Ka@r K^a@ M^rza@. Esma@�^l was then seven years old. Five years later, when he was twelve (905/1499), he emerged from the forest of G^la@n to make his bid for power in Persia. Two years after that, when he was still only fourteen, he was crowned Shah at Tabr^z (906-7/1501; Qa@z�^ Ah�mad, p. 85; Moz�t�ar, ed., pp. 145-46). Though he was the focal point of the Safavid revolutionary movement, his youth must have precluded him from being the driving force in planning the final stages of this revolution. The driving force consisted of a closely-knit group of devoted qezelba@� followers known as the ahl-e ek�tes�a@s� (Savory, 1987, X, p. 234). Throughout his five years of hiding in G^la@n, Esma@�^l had kept in touch with his disciples through a network of officers termed k�al^fa, abda@l, dada, k�a@dem, and p^ra, all under the command of the k�al^fat al-k�olafa@ (Tad�kerat al-molu@k, tr. Minorsky, comm., pp. 125-26 and p. 125, nn. 4-5; Savory, 1987, X, pp. 226 ff.). The function of this network was to disseminate the propaganda (da�wa) designed to win adherents to the Safavid cause among the qezelba@� Turkman tribes of Anatolia, southern Caucasus, and Azerbaijan. The original basis of this da�wa was the traditional relationship between a Sufi shaikh in his capacity as spiritual director (mor�ed) and his disciples (mor^ds), a relationship which demanded the unquestioning obedience of the mor^d to the orders of his mor�ed. In the last half of the 9th/15th century, however, the Safavid da�wa incorporated many antinomian and extremist doctrines characteristic of g@ola@t groups in general (see Hodgson). According to K�onj^, who was hostile to the Safavid cause, Jonayd's mor^ds openly called him "God (ela@h), and his son, Son of God (ebn Alla@h) . . . in his praise, they said "he is the Living One, there is no God but he" (p. 272, tr., p. 57). In the time of H�aydar's succession as the head of the Safavid Order, the k�olafa@ "came from every direction and foolishly announced the glad tidings of his divinity" (olu@h^yat; K�onj^, p. 273, tr., p. 57). To make this da�wa more effective, Esma@�^l addressed to his Turkman followers simple verses in the Azeri dialect of Turkish, using the pen name (tak�allos�) of K�at�a@�^ (see ii). These poems provide incontrovertible proof that Esma@�^l encouraged his disciples to consider him a divine incarnation (see Minorsky). The heady brew of this da�wa produced in Esma@�^l's followers a fanatical devotion to their leader that is commented on with astonishment by contemporary Italian merchants visiting Persia (e.g., Angiolello and Ramusio, p. 206). ..."

Encyclopaedia Iranica

Book 1, p. 240, line 6 (left) - my comments are in parentheses --> [...]: 

" ... Azari [= Middle-Iranian language spoken in Azerbaijan before the Turkic conquest] lost ground [in Azerbaijan] at a faster pace than before, so that even the early Safavids, originally an Iranian-speaking clan (as evidenced by the quatrains of Shaikh Safi-al-Din, their eponymous ancestor, and by his biography), became Turkified ..." 

It is further stated in p. 241: 

" ... The language of these poems [= Azerbaijani Persian ("Azeri")] is almost identical to that of Shaikh Safi-al-Din's dobaytis ... of the written remains of Azeri, the dobaytis of Shaikh Safi-al-Din are the most important: They are relatively old, their linguistic area and their author are known, and they are accompanied by a paraphrase in Persian which helps their understanding. ..."
So in conclusion, this theory can be well supported, and makes sense.  And also, it is thought that Ismail's mothers side was turkic, while his fathers side was Iranic, and that is how Ismail may have learned Turkish.  And because the lineage is passed through the male, Ismail would therefore have considered himself Iranian, and not Turkic at all.

I would like to add myself, that the Safavids, as well as the Qajars later, both considered themselves Iranian, both glorified the Persian past of Iran, and neither thought of themselves as controlling a Turkic empire of any kind, but rather, a part of the Iranian Dynasty, and a part of the Iranian Empire (Persian Empire as known internationally).  Ever map, letter, delegation from these empires clearly point these points out.