The Earliest ᶜAlid Genealogy for the Safavids: New Evidence for the Pre-dynastic Claim to Sayyid Status

Abstract

Studies on the pre-dynastic claim of the Safavids to sayyid status suffer from a dearth of primary source materials. Scholars have advanced various conjectures, but it is not yet clear when the Safavids began to promote this claim or indeed when the so-called “official” Musavid genealogy was developed. This study presents a genealogical chart drawn in the third quarter of the fifteenth century (most probably in the 1460s) in Iraq (most likely in Najaf), which records the “official” genealogy in an unequivocal manner. This chart is a valuable document in that it testifies to the circulation of the “official” genealogy some three to four decades before the establishment of the Safavid dynasty. A survey of the studies to date on the question of the pre-dynastic claim is also offered in order to clarify the significance of the chart.