safavind were multi-ethnic from kurdish Iranic descent. Most scholars and historians agree on this today.
BTW, here's something to read about Azerbaijani Turki in the Safavid times:
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And here's from Prof. Minorsky:
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"The Formation of the Safawid Empire
Safawid rule over Persia is conventionally dated from Shah Isma'ils capture of Tabriz in the aftermath of his victory over the Aq-Qoyunlu ruler Alwand at Sharur in 907/1501. But there was still a very long way to go before Isma'il could be regarded as anything more than a potential successor to the Aq-Qoyunlu in Azarbayjan. Nor, for some years, was the geographical shape of the new state by any means clear. It may be that Isma'il's expectation was that he would be able to set up an essentially Turkmen empire after the Aq-Qoyunlu pattern, consisting of eastern Anatolia, Azarbayjan, westem Persia and Iraq. After all, the military following on which he depended was Turkmen in composition, he had fixed his capital at Tabriz, the now traditional Turkmen centre on the periphery of Persia proper, and he may have seen himself as in some sense the legitimate successor to his Aq-Qoyunlu grandfather, Uzun Hasan. The direction of Isma'ill's early campaigns certainly suggested that it was the Turkmen heritage he was primarily interested in."
Source: David Morgan. "Shah Isma'il and the Establishment of Shi'ism", Ch. 12 of his Medieval Persia: 1040-1797, Longman, New York, 1988, pp. 112-123.
"In 1501 Ismail, the leader of a Shiite religious group the Safavids, became Shah of Persia. Ismail was ethnically Turkish, as therefore was the Safavid dynasty that he now founded. His accession to power and the establishment of his family on the throne reignited the border wars between the rulers of Iran and those of the Middle East."
Source: Christopher Catherwood. A Brief History of the Middle East: From Abraham to Arafat. ISBN-10: 1841198706
"The Safavid threat to the Ottomans was rendered at once more acute and more intimate by the Turkish origin of the Safavid family and their extensive support in Turkish Anatolia. It is ironic that in the increasingly angry correspondence between the two monarchs that preceded the outbreak of hostilities, the sultan wrote to the shah in Persian, the language of urban, cultivated gentlemen, while the Shah wrote to the Sultan in Turkish - the language of his rural and tribal origins."
Source: Bernard Lewis. The Middle East. ISBN: 0684832801
"The Azeri Turks are Shiites and were founders of the Safavid dynasty."
Source: Richard N. Frye, Tamara Sonn. A Brief History of Islam, Blackwell Publishing, 2004, p. 83.
Source:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-...-create-free-trade-zone-11.html#ixzz2dGqp5dJA
