Ka Bashar Bazhuei

Ka Bashar Bazhuei was one of the great masters of kalam (the sacred hymns of the Yarsan) and of the interpretation of the Yari daftars (the Yarsan sacred books) in the time of Agha Seyed Shamseddin Heydari. He was one of the pioneers of daftar reading from the supreme Heydari daftar archive (daftarkhaneh) and a pupil of Agha Seyed Shamseddin.

At first Ka Bashar had no schooling at all in reading and writing. Like many of the old masters, he learned to read and write by way of drawing, and from then on he began copying the Yari daftars.

Ka Bashar spent most of his life in the service of his spiritual guide (pir and morad), Agha Seyed Shamseddin, at the Heydari tekyeh in the holy site of Tutshami.

After acquiring pure daftar knowledge in the service of Agha Seyed Shamseddin Heydari, and through much ascetic discipline and study, he attained the rank of master in the explanation and interpretation of the Yari daftars.

Ka Bashar had a gift for poetry and a fine literary talent for expressing literary concepts and unfolding the meanings of the daftars in a simple, fluent way; many works of his survive, such as philosophical and explanatory poems on the interpretation of the Yari daftars, which pass from hand to hand among those devoted to daftar interpretation.

He had such command of the original language of the Yari daftars that he even composed his questions and letters in the poetic language of Gorani Kurdish.

In one of his letters to Ayatollah Taleqani he put challenging questions to him in Gorani Kurdish verse with unparalleled courage, and in another poem he also posed very important and key questions, beautiful to read, on the Yari faith and on matters of the daftars to the masters, Kakis and Seyeds of the people of Gurehjub and Kerend.

Ka Bashar also had a poetic correspondence with Darvish Ayaz, son of Darvish Qoli Kerendi, and exchanged beautiful interpretive poems with him on matters of the daftars and of the Yarsan community.

Another set of very beautiful and meaningful interpretations and questions in keeping with the daftars are the letters in verse that Ka Bashar wrote to Kaki Mohammad Qoli and Ali Mirza.

Ka Bashar's poems contain the deep philosophy of the Yari faith and the history of the Yarsan community, and at times even accounts of the lives of old masters and authorities, and even of masters of his own time, on the daftar and the tanbur of the Yarsan, all of which he expressed with great beauty.

In 1314 SH (1935/36), after much effort and study, Ka Bashar compiled a very large and beautiful anthology from the Yari daftars of the Heydari period held in the supreme Heydari daftar archive; it is graced by the signature of Agha Seyed Shamseddin Heydari. This copy was perhaps among the first copies of the Yari daftars of the Heydari Chehel-tan (Forty) period of Seyed Brakeh of Guran to be spread widely and in large numbers among the people; before this, Seyed Bahram Abbasvandi and Ka Rahim Kakaei, the secretary of Seyed Rostam, had also copied Yari daftars.

In a famous book known as Tafsir-e Ka Bashar (“Ka Bashar's Commentary”), in simple and eloquent language and on the basis of evidence from the kalams and daftars, Ka Bashar gave a comprehensive and complete account of the Yari faith and its eras, from pre-eternity to the close of the Yarsan eras in the era of Seyed Brakeh of Guran – a work unique of its kind and the first of its kind.

Thousands of copies of Tafsir-e Ka Bashar, and of the interpretive, meaning-unveiling works and poems in keeping with the daftars that he left behind, have been made and passed from hand to hand in the region, so that today there is hardly a daftar scholar in the region who has not benefited from Ka Bashar's precious words and interpretations on daftar matters and the Yarsan community.

Ka Bashar Bazhuei never married and remained single to the end of his life. He usually wore a white robe and devoted his whole life to daftar reading, interpretation and the teaching of the daftar and the matters of the Yarsan community.

Ka Bashar was a matchless and learned master of the Yarsan daftar, and a kind, well-mannered and sweet-spoken man, so that everyone today remembers him fondly.

The Persian version of this page quotes excerpts, in Gorani verse, from a letter Ka Bashar wrote to Agha Seyed Shamseddin while the latter was imprisoned in Tehran, and from Agha Seyed Shamseddin's reply.

Source: Telegram channel “Navaye Tanbur”, 7 September 2017.