Explanation:
ruling dynasty of Iran whose establishment of Twelver Shiʿism as the state religion of Iran was a major factor in the emergence of a unified national consciousness among the various ethnic and linguistic elements of the country. The Safavids were descended from Sheikh Ṣafī al-Dīn (1253–1334) of Ardabīl, head of the Sufi order of Ṣafaviyyeh (Ṣafawiyyah). Although the early Ṣafavī order was originally Sunni, following the jurisprudence of the Shāfiʿī school, it gravitated toward Shiʿism over time, perhaps pulled along by the popular veneration of ʿAlī. By the time of the order’s fourth leader, Sheikh Junayd, it had become explicitly Shiʿi.
