Reshat Bardhi
| Grandfather Baba Hajji Dede Reshat Bardhi |
|
|---|---|
| Religion | Bektashi Order, Islam |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Albanian |
| Born |
March 4, 1935 Lusën, Ujmisht, Albania |
| Died | April 12, 2011 (aged 76) Tirana, Albania |
| Senior posting | |
| Title | Grandfather of the Bektashi Order |
| Period in office | 1990 - 2011 |
| Predecessor | Ahmed Myftar Dede |
| Successor | Edmond Brahimaj |
| Religious career | |
| Post | Head of Bektashi World Centre |
| Website | [1] |
Reshat Bardhi or Grandfather Baba Hajji Dede Reshat Bardhi (Albanian: Kryegjshi Baba Haxhi Dede Reshat Bardhi) (March 4, 1935 – April 2, 2011) was an Albanian religious leader and the former leader (Kryegjysh) of the Bektashi Order, an Islamic Sufi order based in Albania and other countries.
Dede Reshat was born on 4 March 1935 in village of Lusën, in the region of the northern Albanian town of Kukës. In 1944, as the destruction of war raged around him, Dede Reshat moved to Tirana with his family. It was there that he received both his secular as well as Islamic religion education.
When he was 14 years old, Dede Reshat visited the Mother Tekke of the Bektashi Sufi Order (asitâne-i madhe) and from that time took up residence there. Four years later, at the age of eighteen, he was initiated as a dervish, and served as rehber in the ceremonies that took place on the sacred premises of the Mother Tekke.
Between 1957 and 1967, Dede Reshat was placed under house arrest by the communist government along with Dedebaba Ahmed Myftar in a small tekke near Drizar, Mallakastra. In the ten years of exile, this tekke served as the unofficial Mother Tekke of the Bektashi community. Believers would come here illegally from all over Albania and Yugoslavia.
With the closure of all houses of worship and the prohibition of religion by the communists in 1967 (which lasted until 1990), Dede Reshat was forcibly assigned work on a state-run farm, where he was continually harassed, both psychologically and physically, by state security officers. Meanwhile, his residence in Tirana was turned into an illegal center for keeping Bektashism alive.
Along with a group of devout Bektashi believers Dede Reshat reopened the Mother Tekke of the Bektashi Sufi Order on March 22, 1991, the day of the festival of Sultan Nevruz. During the communist period, the building had been used as state-run home for the elderly.
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Wikipedia