Seyed Amin Mehrabi

Seyed Amin Mehrabi – maqam expert (maqams being the traditional melodic pieces of the tanbur), singer of kalam (the sacred hymns of the Yarsan) and interpreter of the Yari daftars (the Yarsan sacred books), and son of Seyed Fazl Ali Mehrabi – was born in 1307 SH (1928/29) in Gahvareh.

His father was one of the masters of Shahnameh recitation and an interpreter of Hafez in his time; from early childhood Seyed Amin became acquainted at his father's side with the melody of the Shahnameh and with mysticism, and this familiarity with the Shahnameh sowed in his heart, in those days of childhood and youth, the seed of love and affection for learning kalam and the interpretation of the Yari daftars.

Later Seyed Amin came into the presence of the matchless master of the interpretation of the Yari daftars, Ka Bashar Bazhuei, the scribe of Agha Seyed Shamseddin Heydari, and from Ka Bashar he drew on the boundless sea of knowledge and of philosophical and mystical teachings, and on the precious treasure of the Heydari Chehel-tan daftars.

Seyed Amin was a contemporary of the late Seyed Vali Hosseini and of Seyed Mahmoud Alavi. In the interpretation of the Yari daftars and in the mystical sciences he counts among the rare geniuses of the history of the Yarsan community; he never held back in interpreting the Yari daftars and in imparting knowledge and mysticism to those who longed for this path, and always, with heart and soul, lovingly and sincerely, he passed on to his devotees and pupils what he had gathered from the great masters of this path.

Besides interpretation, he was one of the outstanding maqam experts and kalam singers of his time.

For many years Seyed Amin Mehrabi spent his time in Tehran guiding and teaching the concepts of the daftar, kalam and tanbur in the service of the devotees of this path, and for some time he did the same in the jamkhaneh (the Yarsan ritual gathering house) of the cities of Kermanshah and Sarpol-e Zahab.

He belonged to the Mehrabi Seyeds of Gahvareh, a family with a brilliant record of service to the Yari faith and of preserving and spreading this path.

For a time, at the invitation of friends and acquaintances, Seyed Amin Mehrabi also lived in Europe in order to teach and promote the Yari faith among its devotees. He finally passed away in 1393 SH (2014/15) at the age of 86, taking with him into the earth the precious treasure of love and mysticism that he carried in his heart.

Valuable works and manuscripts of his survive through which his views can be studied, and his nephew (brother's son) Seyed Bijan Mehrabi, one of his pupils and an heir to his views, is among the sources accessible to the public.

Source: Telegram channel “Navaye Tanbur”, 17 August 2017.