Short answers, pulled from the story.
Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili founded the spiritual order that became the Safaviyya, but Shah Ismail I officially established the Safavid Empire in July 1501. Ismail was only 14 years old when he captured Tabriz and proclaimed himself King of Kings to mark the birth of the empire.
The Safavid family originally spoke Old Azari, an extinct Northwestern Iranian tongue, while their roots were tied to Kurdistān and the local Turkic-speaking population of Azerbaijan. Historical records suggest they were of Kurdish or Iranian extraction before later claiming descent from the Prophet to gain legitimacy.
The Battle of Chaldiran took place on the plain near Khoy in 1514 where Sultan Selim I defeated Shah Ismail I with superior artillery. This defeat destroyed Ismail's belief in his invincibility and triggered ten years of civil war between 1524 and 1533 due to resurfaced tribal rivalries among his Qizilbash followers.
Shah Abbas I created a standing army independent of the Qizilbash tribes consisting of 10,000 to 15,000 cavalry ghulām regiments and 12,000 musketeers and artillerymen recruited from Circassian, Georgian, and Armenian backgrounds. These soldiers were loyal only to him rather than local tribal chiefs, allowing him to recapture Herat and Mashhad in 1598 and Baghdad by 1616.
In 1599 Shah Abbas sent his first diplomatic mission to Europe which traveled through Norway and Germany before reaching Rome to meet Pope Clement VIII. The expedition never returned to Iran due to shipwrecks on their journey around Africa but sparked European fascination with Iranian culture and established lasting commercial links.