
New evidence shatters the claim that the Safavids invented their Arab/Alid genealogy after taking power.
a Safavid genealogy dating to the **1460s** that already traces the family through **Musa al-Kazim to Ali ibn Abi Talib**.
That is around **40 years before** Shah Ismail founded the Safavid state in 1501, and it even predates the famous 1485 and 1491 *Safwat al-Safa* manuscripts.
So the claim that the Safavids only fabricated this ancestry after becoming rulers is simply incompatible with the surviving evidence.