Albania mourns death of Bektashi leader

TIRANA, April 4 – Albania on Monday held a national day of mourning for the leader of the mystic Muslim Bektashi community.
Haji Dede Reshat Bardhi, 76, died Saturday at a Tirana hospital after a long illness.
On Saturday, April 2, 2011, Baba Reshat, who headed the World Headquarters of the Bektashi Muslim Order in the Albanian capital Tirana for the past 18 years, passed away after he had undergone two heart surgeries, one in 2000 and the second in 2004.
The day of mourning is being observed with the country’s flags at half-mast. Public institutions held a minute of silence at noon. The funeral was held at the Bektashi World Center in Tirana.
The Bektashi Order is linked to Sufism _ whose adherents follow a mystical interpretation of Islam _ and is centered in Albania despite decades of a strict official ban on religion under Communism.
Bardhi had led the community since 1993. He will be buried on Monday.
Top government officials, including the Albanian President Bamir Topi, Prime Minister Sali Berisha, Parliament Speaker Jozefina Topalli and opposition Socialist Party leader and Tirana Mayor Edi Rama expressed their condolences.
“I’ve had the privilege to get to know this great, wise and balanced person who, I believe, will be a point of reference as to how to behave in a society and to become a beacon of peace,” President Bamir Topi said.
“The example of this man with extraordinary human and spiritual virtues, of this devoted religious leader, who has given his precious and generous contribution not only to Bektashi religion, but also to the consolidation and restoration of democracy in Albania, obliges us all to honor and respect his life and work,” he said.
Baba Reshat was born in 1935 in the village of Lusem of the Kukes district of Albania. In 1991, he made the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Upon his return to Albania, he founded the World Headquarters of Bektashi Muslims.
On July 20, 1993, he was proclaimed as the spiritual leader of the group. He had traveled to the Islamic Republic of Iran in the past and attended numerous ceremonies at the Iranian embassy in Tirana.
Bektashism is an Islamic Sufi religion that originally began in the 13th Century.
The World Center of Bektashi, the Islamic order of dervishes that is said to have around seven million followers worldwide, was moved from Turkey to the Albanian capital Tirana in 1929.
A popular and moderate Sufi order, the Bektashis are recognized as playing an important role in the spread of Islam in Albania.