Re Listing of evidence that Safavids were Turkic speakers Tajik since you have ignored the numerous references which we bring and constantly are trying to purge out the word Turkic from Safavid page let me bring you some more summarized quotes Many of these may be already on this talk page it s just some people choose to ignore them and uphold their own POV The establishment of the Gajar capital in Tehran at the end of the eighteenth century was merely the last manifestation of what may well be a permanent tendency in the life of Iran There are manifold reason of this phenomenon Moreover the Turkish and Mongol origins of the earliest dynasties certainly played a major part in causing the capitals to be situated in the north and especially along the main invasion route following Alburz into Azarbaijan The princes of these basically nomadic states were anxious both to be near their tribes and to avoid the excessive heat of the climate farther to the south This helps to explain the evolution of Tabriz which despite all the vicissitudes was the capital successively of the Mongols the Qara Qoyunlu the Aq Qoyunlu and finally the Safavids all of whom stemmed originally from the Turkmen tribes of the north west from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries Tabriz was abandoned only for short periods and always for other cities in the same region Maragheh whose fertile pasture land had attracted Hulagu Ardabil the cradle of the Safavids and Sultaniyeh The Cambridge History of Iran in eight Volumes Volume 1 The Land of Iran Edited by W B Fisher Cambridge at the University Press 1968 Page 434 The origins of the Safavids are clouded in obscurity They may have been of Kurdish origin see R Savory Iran Under the Safavids 1980 p 2 R Matthee Safavid Dynasty at iranica com but for all practical purposes they were Turkish speaking and Turkified Their eponymous ancestor Safi al Din 1252 1334 was a disciple of Shaikh Zahed of Gilan a Sunnite Sufi pir or spiritual leader Safi al Din succeeded his pir and settled in Ardabil in eastern Azerbaijan and founded the Safavid Order He was buried there and his tomb and the citybecame a place of pilgrimage for his devotees In the course of time and under the leadership of Safi al Din s descendents the order became a militant Shiite one with golat or extremist features receiving support from Turkish and Turkmen tribes in Azerbaijan and eastern Anatolia such as the Shamlu Ostajlu Takallu D u l Qadr Qajar and Afshar tribes who had strong devotional ties to the heads of the Order The oldest poet of Azeri literature known so far and indubitably of Azeri not East Anatolian or Khorasani origin is Emad al din Nasimi about 1369 1404 q v Other important Azeri poets were Shah Esma il Safawi Khata i 1487 1524 and Fozuli about 1494 1556 q v an outstanding Azeri poet During 17th 20th centuries a rich Azeri literature continued to flourish but classical Persian exercised great influence on the language and literary expression On the other hand many Azeri words about 1 200 entered Persian still more in Kurdish since Iran was governed mostly by Azeri speaking rulers and soldiers since 16th century Doerfer 1963 75 these loanwords refer mainly to administration titles and conduct of war Shah Abbas II r 1052 77 1642 66 q v was himself a poet writing Turkic verse with the pen name of Tani The Zands were an Iranian people and their decades of dominance were one of the few periods between the arrival of the Salj qs and the twentieth century during which effective political power was exercised by a dynasty that can be regarded as in some sense ethnically Persian David Morgan Medieval Persia 1040 1797 History of the Near East ISBN 0582493242 With the exception of some very local dynasties the Zands were the only Iranian dynasty that had come to power since the Buyids in the 10th century The Azeri Turks are Shiites and were founders of the Safavid dynasty Thanks