Exploring the Bashi Order: History, Teachings, and Future Prospects

I'm sure you've all heard the news that we might be getting a new micro State on the geographical map the sovereign state

of the Bashi order if this proposal becomes a reality this will be a very small new country in fact the smallest

state in the world lodged in the middle of Albania's capital city of tyrana and just like the Vatican in Rome for

Catholics serve as a kind of Muslim religious polity for the Bashi order so what is the Bashi order

what is its history and its mystical teachings how does it fit into the wider world of Islam and Sufism in fact the

Bashi are a very unique group and their practices and ideas may come off as surprising to both Muslims and

non-muslims [Music] [Applause]

[Music] I've been meaning to do an episode on the bachis for years at this point but

with the fairly recent news about the possible micro state of the Bashi order it seemed like it was time to talk about

this this fascinating group The bachis are a Sufi order at least in their Origins but have over the years and

centuries developed into something quite unique and distinct even from other communities of Sufism their founder was

by most accounts a Sunni Muslim preacher and Mystic and yet the Bashi order have adapted several key features of shi

Islam their Theology and teachings are heavily inspired by monistic currents like the school of IB Arabi they have

employed humor as an important teaching method and Des desite being Muslims many Bashi today even drink alcohol but let's

back up a bit first to understand the Bashi order today we of course need to have a better grasp of their Origins

their history and development over time the foundational figure of the Bashi movement from whom it also gets its name

is the 13th century Mystic bash Val he was a Sunni Sufi Mystic originally from Koran a vibrant and very important

region for various aspects of Islamic culture and expression including scholarship and

mysticism eventually perhaps due to the Mongol invasions in the region he much like many others at his time left

horasan and instead eventually settled in Anatolia where he would become seen as a mystical Saint a w which literally

means a friend of God in Arabic and it is here that the Bashi order would be established and based Hai Bach lived in

a very eventful period for the Islamic world as we saw his life coincided with the

Mongol invasions that would Peak with the sacking of Bagdad in 1258 and which deeply transformed the whole region it

was also around this same time that Islam started to become more prominent in Anatolia and this was a process in

which the Sufi Saints and teachers played a very important role with the invasion of the Mongols

and their widespread conversion to Islam Anatolia saw the arrival of many new people people who were new to the faith

and had little experience or knowledge of the religion's basic teachings and principles this made the region ripe for

charismatic and popular teachers who would represent and teach the religion to the people in a way that was

accessible and we see this with many of the sufis that became popular in Anatolia at this time and Bach was

one of the most significant of them all alongside other people of course like the world famous Jalal Adin roomi he was

seen as a kind of holy man who became very popular with the general population in the region Miracles were attributed

to him and he taught mystical Sufi practices and rituals that often also spoke to and might even have

Incorporated in different ways local customs and culture some sources have also claimed that Haj bkash was um

connected to the earlier very famous Turkish Sufi master and poet Ahmed yzui and his order so to say but much of

these details are uncertain and unknown his basic approach seems to have been one of Sunni Islam with a Sufi emphasis

and would probably have involved popular Sufi practices like zik the communal chanting of God's names or the

employment of music and singing for example now one of the reasons that Sufi holy men were especially successful at

spreading Islam to different parts of the world was that they often had a relatively tolerant and soft approach

when it came to local Customs often even adapting them or reconfiguring them to fit an Islamic framework and haibach

became very popular not just among Muslims but Christians and other groups as well while his contemporary and kind

of rival roomi in cona seems to have been especially popular with the urban population and the higher classes of

society had bkash W the hearts of the peasants and the rural population in Anatolia it's somewhat uncertain when he

died much like the rest of his life but he possibly passed away sometime in the 1290s although some have also argued

that his life may have extended into the 14th century whatever the case he would leave behind a lineage of Sufi

practitioners arguably an early version of the Bashi order it is for example argued that the popular Turkish poet

yunus em belong to this lineage his teacher tap supposedly being a direct disciple of

haash regardless this order doesn't seem to have survived to any major degree as a proper Tara or Sufi order um it seems

that um you know we don't really find much evidence for a Bashi order as such um for a couple of centuries after this

period even though of course Hai Bach was a very important figure and and and symbol for Anatolian religious practice

and particularly different forms of of Sufism or Islamic practice um and of course there was a kind of lineage from

hajib bash that might be seen as a kind of order but this was not an order it seems that was organized in any

particular way uh but more maybe a sort of loose um configuration of different um disciples or people within that wider

lineage many different groups in the region all saw hajab Bach as a central figure and inspiration including the

wider group often called the Alives now the difference between the the Bashi order properly and the alivies for

example can be a little confusing and and fuzzy sometimes the borders between them appear fuzzy

um and hopefully this will become a bit clear exactly what the difference is over the course of this uh discussion in

general you could say and this is at least how I've understood it is that the Bashi order proper as a kind of

organized order structure that would appear later on in history uh seems to have grown out of a wider alivei culture

right so an Al culture that was generally influenced by hyach that Trace their lineage back to him but wasn't

really organ organized in the same way as as an as a Sufi order traditionally right out of this grew a more organized

Sufi order eventually which is the Bashi order and does um distinguish themselves in some major ways from the more wider

alabi culture but still has a very close connection this is how I have managed to understand it this process happens to a

major degree thanks to a man called balam Sultan who became the head of an emerging group tracing their lineage

back to haab bash in the early 16th century balim Sultan who is called the second founder or second PE of the order

after hajib Beach within this tradition was born close to adrianople in the mid 15th century and seems to have grown up

in the Dara or Sufi Convent of a saint called s Ali sulan eventually he traveled to Anatolia

and to the shrine of bkash where there seems to have been a certain group of Proto Bashi you could say who he

became the leader of um until his death in um around 1517 so was 16 years later balim Sultan appears to be the one who

established a lot of the aspects of the Bashi order as we know them today it was here that we see some clear influences

from Shi Islam for example start to slip into the doctrines such as the huge focus on Ali and the 12 imams and we'll

get to this later on it's also here that we see the emergence of the hierarchical structures and practices within the or

order balim Sultan seems to have established the idea of the unmarried clergy that the Babas or leaders of the

order lived lives of celibacy basically which was a very unusual thing in Islam even within within Sufism where

aesthetic practices and renunciation is is common generally um living a celibate lifestyle alone was never really

encouraged right you were always expected to have a family to have children have a wife be a householder

essentially right so the fact that a very important part of the organizational structure of the bachis

is that the clergy basically lives at least a part of the clergy so it seems to be two aspects so one one for a

clergy that isn't celibate and one that is regardless the fact that there is a celibate clergy is quite unusual within

the wider framework of Islam the structuring of the order into different hierarchical ranks is also attributed to

Bim Sultan a structure which basically remains to this day just like other sui orders bagism is initiatory in nature

and conceives of an ascending mystical path of different stations or Maks the first level is the ashik this is from

the Arabic meaning lover this is someone who is basically drawn to or is interested in the Bashi order but who

isn't officially initiated yet then the second level is the moib this is the basic stage of initiation so you become

initiated into the order you become a moib the third stage is the derish this is someone who really takes the mystical

path seriously and begins growing his beard and is also allowed at this point to wear the Taj the the distinctive

Bashi headwear and then there is the Baba these are equivalent of a sheh or mid In classical Sufism the head of a

particular Bashi or Lodge and a spiritual guide for those below him in rank number five there is the de or

sometimes called the Khalifa the grandfather a kind of a special Rank and leader for the order um he's often this

Khalifa is is often leader of a certain geographical area so it's almost like a bishop in Christianity you could say

there are some similarities to to that position within Christianity for the the the de Khalifa in the Bachi order and

then six there is the de Baba the highest ranking person and leader of the entire order so there's always there's

just one leader there's one de Baba at all times that is the leader of the whole group if you want to continue this

comparison with Catholicism which I don't know if we should but anyway if the deis are the Bishops then the dead

bab like the pope basically is the one leader of the whole thing so that's the the six levels of of Bashi hierarchy you

could say as the Bashi order as such developed under and after Bim Sultan thus being a kind of more organized or

institutionalized movement within the wider aliv environment of Anatolian religious and mystical practice that

that saw hraach as a central and founding figure it would grow to become quite prominent in the Ottoman Empire

especially for the military but before we continue with this very fascinating history of the bachis let's actually

slow down and look at the teachings the the the doctrines and philosophy you could say of Bashi of the Bashi some of

the basics to know are of course that bachis identify as Muslims and so they operate under a basic Islamic framework

this includes a view of sacred history with all the prophets of the biblo quranic stories as well as the

prominence of the Prophet Muhammad and the Quran because they also adopted sh beliefs to a major degree the figure of

Ali Abu Talib is also very important as well of course as the succeeding 12 imams of the TW sh Branch to get a

better overview of what TW verism or twver shiism is check out my dedicated episode on that topic so basically they

believe in God Allah of the Quran his prophets including most importantly of course Muhammad and the successorship of

Muhammad through Imam Ali and the 12 imams it's also clear that the Bashi and Bashi himself especially are

strongly related to what we call Sufism referred to sometimes as Islamic mysticism or tasa in Arabic indeed the

Bashi order is often basically seen as a Sufi order amongst a wide array of of different such orders in Islam again if

you want to deeper dive into what Sufism is and how that works in in in the whole story of Islam then check out uh several

dedicated episodes but primarily one uh just on Sufism what is Sufism that you can find on the channel but basically

also to understand bagism we need to be aware of the Sufi context that is also very important

to their Origins and their their ideas and their doctrines right so I've only covered both of these topics the shii

and the Sufi aspect very briefly here but hope hopefully more of those aspects will become clear as the discussion goes

on and we dive into more specific details indeed if we see the bachis as essentially a Sufi order then things

start making a lot of sense the basic features of the order follows that of a within the wider tradition of Islamic

mysticism firstly it is as we saw an initiatory tradition where there is a major emphasis on the role of the mid or

the referred to often in this tradition as we saw as the Baba he the spiritual master that the initiate the mid

attaches himself to and which teaches his students on the mystical and spiritual path the secrets and truths of

the path and of reality are to some degree esoteric they aren't meant for those who haven't walked the path and

are only taught directly by a mid to the initiated mid this mystical path just like in sism generally is aimed at

intimacy and Union with God and especially in this tradition a realization that God is the very reality

of all things not an external Creator but core to one's own being and only a teacher can guide you on this path quote

he who has not attained to the mid cannot know God or if you have a mid you may become a human being if you have no

mid you remain an animal as such their understanding of The Wider path of Islam which they also share in common with

other Sufi orders generally is they're dividing the stages or aspects of the path into four parts you could say what

they refer to as the four gateways the Sharia meaning the outer path of the law this is the outer exoteric practices of

the religion and Islam as taught in the Quran and by the prophet Muhammad as well as the laws on how to live in

society right the the The Wider practices and laws to live by as a Muslim the Shar theat meaning the path

specifically the mystical Sufi path one deepens one's relationship with the Divine and works to fight against the

self under the guidance of a mid or a master this is also within the wider scope of Muhammad's religion but in bism

is very strongly associated with Ali in particular then there is mifa meaning something like Gnostic knowledge this is

the direct apprehension of the truth that you can reach through walking the path of Tara a kind of knowledge

different from regular conceptual knowledge also refer to in Arabic as or tasting a kind of direct or

non-conceptual knowledge and lastly there is the meaning reality or or truth this is the highest stage where one

merges with the very reality experienced as Kingsley Burge described where one goes quote still further and becomes one

with sugar this is the object of direct knowledge of of the comparison that he uses in his book one becomes one with

sugar so that he could say I am sugar that and that alone would be to know what sugar is right so you can you can

uh apply this to to knowing god right you can only know God by becoming God because only God can know God this is

the logic again these four are very commonly referred to in the Sufi tradition as four equally necessary

aspects of The Wider holistic path to God and of Islam none of them usually at least cancel out the other but are all

simultaneously necessary for example the very famous Persian poet jalad RI writes in his masi

quote the Sharia is like a candle which shows the path unless you obtain the candle the path cannot be traveled once

you have come to the path your traveling is on the when you reach the destination that

is and presumably as well now the most common idea for this within Sufism is that all of these four aspects are

equally necessary right so even when you have walked the path and reached M for example you still need the Shar as a

kind of um as a kind of shell right you still need the outer practice of the religion and you're not supposed to just

because you walk on the path or you reach mif that you can sort of dispense with the law right this is the most

common way to interpret it but there have been certain um Sufi figures and movements that have um been a bit

more radical in their interpretation and saying things like that once you reach a certain stage and the the the outer

exoteric aspects of religion aren't as necessary anymore right the Sharia aspects perhaps um aren't required in

the same way that they were before because the Sharia is meant for regular people just living in this world and not

for Mystics Etc right and the Bashi In fact seems to be maybe one such group because when we look at their practices

and their ideas they come off sometimes as quite heterodox compared to what we would um perhaps problematically

referred to as Orthodox Islam or even Orthodox Sufism so to say an interesting and probably important factor for this

feature of their movement is that they seem to have had their origins in some way in the so-called kalaria movements

at least broadly defined we covered this fully in a previous episode but the kalandia and related dervish groups in

the late middle ages and early modern period were Muslims who consciously chose to do things that were considered

Taboo in society or which were seen as heterodox or antinomian precisely as a spiritual method of fighting against

their naps the ego or the self thus we know that kandas would shave off all their hair their eyebrows and beard

which was very controversial in a society that um expected Muslims to keep a beard according to the Sunnah because

the prophet had a beard so you're supposed to have a beard if you're an adult man so just shaving off the beard

was a controversial thing these kalandar would also sometimes barely wear any clothes at all walk around naked they

would drink wine and alcohol and even cases like public urination right so they would do things that were very

shocking went against social norms and things that were very much taboo uh precisely as I said as a spiritual

practice as part of this mystical path of denying their their ego and their self

um there were many such groups and they're sometimes called kalaria as a wider category and it seems that like

the Bashi at least the early Bashi before they were forly organized might have been characterized by such kandari

features the earliest attestation of the Bashi movement comes in the 15th century with the ottoman writer vahidi a very

important source for these movements in the Ottoman Empire and in his account the Bachi are essentially described as

similar to the kandas Shaving off all facial hair wearing particular clothing performing antinomian practices and also

having some clear shii Tendencies by by revering the 12 imams of shiism with the emergence of balim

Sultan and the systematization of the Bashi movement into a more traditional Sufi order these features seem to have

been toned down quite significantly although they have retained some antinomian features to this day despite

this the fact that the bachis are famously allowed to drink alcohol or that they have a reputation of being

quite relaxed regarding practices of the Sharia such as the five daily prayers for example this could arguably be a

direct or maybe indirect result at least of their Origins and relationship with the kandari movements this is me

speculating a bit but um I think that's at least somewhat well-founded speculation right and all this is deeply

connected of course to their more philosophical teachings about the nature of reality religion the human being and

so on we already touched on this briefly before by noting that the Bashi seek to become United with God as the absolute

reality of all things thus having what some might crudely describe as a kind of pantheistic adjacent and monistic

worldview and this is indeed significance for the Bashi especially how radically they seem to uphold these

ideas and often in outright defiance to the kinds of Islam that would oppose it indeed for understanding their

metaphysical and cosmological worldview one has to not only look at Sufism more broadly which does sometimes showcase

these monistic Tendencies and other times not but specifically at the influence of the widespread and popular

Akbar School of the Andalusian Master midin Arabi indeed when you dive into the

metaphysics and anthropology of the Bashi order you'll find that a lot of it is deeply and fundamentally influenced

and adopted from the thought of Arabi and his school in almost every facet even if the Bashi can appear to express

them more radically or take them even further sometimes the essence of this philosophy so strongly associated with

Arabi is usually known by the name the Oneness of being and its basic and non-basic ideas

are found clearly expressed in Bashi writings and doctrines God is Al the real the truth he is the very reality of

all things so that in a sense there is nothing in existence but God since God is identified with existence itself

right so this is the being existence all quote unquote other than

God is simply nothing non-existent from one point of view and the appearance of God's attributes by the light of being

from another it is hence all both God and not God in the sort of paradoxical way that Mystics likei love so much in

his absolute Essence his that which is identified with being as such God knows himself fully absolutely and perfectly

but as the famous expresses there is a hidden secret treasure within this pure Essence I was a hidden treasure and I

loveed to be known so I created the world that I might be known God thus creates the world to be a place of

manifestation for his attributes and names in a reflected form so that he can know and love himself through another

something that is other than himself there is an artificial Duality created between the knower and the known

between the lover and the Beloved but really it is all God knowing and loving himself put in another way the workings

of Love itself truly then as the Quran says whichever way you turn there is the face of God

because all things that we experience including ourselves are nothing but the light of being shining through the prism

of Multiplicity a prism itself determined in form by the names and attributes inherent imp pure being this

whole scheme and the Hadith of I was a hidden treasure would come to play an important role in Bashi ideas and

expressions for example in a famous NE or poem by Ed harabi quote we became aware of the mystery of kunuk Kens right

I was a treasure kunuk Kens this is the Arabic phrase at the beginning of that Hadith the mystical goal of the Bashi

like for so many other sufis is thus to overcome one's nafs one's ego or self in order to realize this fundamental truth

about reality that God is the fundamental reality of all things and that in King bur's words quote the

universe is a reflection of real existence in the error of non-existence for a good example of this

adherence to the doctrines of what some writers have often in a simplifying and somewhat misleading way

referred to as pantheism we can look at a set of principles to be followed by the bachis known as the three Sunnet and

the Seven fesses the first category the three sunnats are basically requirements on

the path like never losing side of the Divine reality to do away with hatred and surrender to Mystical States but in

the seven fuses we get tantalizing Clues to the deeply mystical and monistic base on which they stand I'll quot a section

here from the so-called sir the mystery book or the Book of Secrets the seven fuses are these first the person who is

a mid and a Seeker must recognize all existing things as God or reality and must not reveal to anyone The Secret of

those who have attained third he must meditate on Divine reality for every evil thing

comes into being as a result of forgetting the Divine reality there are many other aspects of particular doctr

and system building that were that have direct parallels with the akbari school and we can sort of draw lines between

them but a full such comparison is really beyond the scope of this episode but important to remember and a topic

that will return a bit later is the concept of the Muhammad the light of Muhammad or the Muhammad the Muhammad

and reality kind of logos principle upon which all creation is based this is sometimes identified byi with the first

intellect the in a philosophical sense which is clearly influenced by neoplatonism this is the fullness of all

of creation gathered into a single reality or archetype what's important about this

idea from a practical and mystical standpoint is that the goal of the human being who walks on the mystical

towards is to empty themselves of all created and elusory qualities so they can fully become the microcosm that

contains all of the macrocosm of the universe within himself in other words to become a full and perfect reflection

of all of God's attributes that are the basis of creation as a whole quote Kazu sulan says I have read I have known I

have understood now the rule of this world is in the hands of the perfect man insan C the person in the state and all

people in potentia thus embody this mad and is thus known by the principle of insan the complete human being in the

previous quote called the perfect man this is the person whose heart mirror has been so polished that they can

reflect and embody the principle of insan Muhammad in a perfect sense this is an incredibly important idea within

the wider history of Sufism and it seems to come from ibab in particular this is actually Central to his philosophy um

the idea of um some people question whether this should be applied to Babi I think that

there is certainly a legitimate reason to do so because he very much approximates those

ideas but this monistic um aspect of his thought is really not at the center of his of his

thought as many people want to assume rather if there's anything that is really at the center of what he's doing

it's this anthropology of the the complete human being and how we as humans are to to to reflect and mirror

this this wider principle The insan Camel as the logest principle also known as the muhamad and how that relationship

works that is really at the center of inari's thought I would say and we find it almost directly one to one here in

the Bashi order but aside from these features that they share at least in basic outline with other Sufi orders as

well as the general doctrines ofb Arabi who of course himself was a staunch Sunni Muslim there are other teachings

of the Bashi order that are very unique and which set them apart from other schools of Sufism and Islam the most

obvious and glaring one is the fact that they have adopted essentially a shii form of Islam rather than the sunnism

that most other Sufi orders follow this means as we mentioned before that they rever Imam Ali and the 12 imams that

followed him as significant figures for religious history as well as for the cosmology and metaphysics of the order

this is perhaps most clearly visible in the incredibly exalted role that Ali plays in reality according to them

indeed Scholars have sometimes referred to the core doctrines of the bachis as a trinity which is a bit of a problematic

term because of its obvious connections with Christianity but what it refers to and what it denotes is an idea that is

expressed by the Bashi as h Muhammad Ali this is an expression and conception that they share with a lot of other

General alivi movements as well and have profound metaphysical implications hak is of course one of the

names of God in the Quran and the notes in the Sufi tradition and particularly perhaps for the akaris a name of God

that denotes the deepest Essence and reality of God the name literally means the real or the truth secondly Muhammad

of course is the prophet of Islam obviously OB L and then there is Ali in itself not that unusual both Muhammad

and Ali play Central roles in sh Islam of course but where it gets really interesting is that the Bashi seem to

believe that in some way all these three are one or United quote God Muhammad Ali all are one secret the details of this

is likely one of the more secret esoteric teachings of the order and we should probably be careful in how we

interpret it we certainly shouldn't see it from a perspective of a Christian Trinity instead I believe that the

answer lies more in the akbari and monistic philosophy that seems to lie at the core of the order as we've seen to

return to the previous discussion in IB Arab's cosmology the first thing that God creates the kind of logos principle

or archetype from which and in which all things are then created is something called by many different names but among

them as we saw the muham the muhammadan reality this is an expression for the totality

of the Divine reality as Manifest in the world both in the macrocosm of the universe as a whole and the microcosm of

the human being the spiritually perfected human beings can achieve the state of being in sanal Cel the complete

human being which reflects in human form and in a perfect way the macrocosm and the entire Muhammad in reality so this

reality the light of Muhammad is what is to be achieved in the world by Mystic Seekers and which was of course most

perfectly embodied in the historical person of the Prophet Muhammad this is why he was able to say quote I was a

prophet before Adam was between water and Clay this muhammadan reality is a kind

of ismos between the reality of God's Essence and the created World it both is and isn't God and it both is and isn't

creation at least this is according to I's version of this scheme I think that the answer to at least part of what is

meant with hak Muhammad Ali can be found in this conception and Ali of course especially

in shei Consciousness plays a central role and part in this whole story while the prophet Muhammad gave us the Quran

and the outer exoteric laws of religion to live by it is Ali that inherits and teaches the esoteric the spiritual and

mystical aspects of that Revelation there is of course the famous saying by Muhammad quote I am the city

of knowledge and Ali is its gate so Ali partakes of the prophet's reality in several ways that same reality which is

the taji or manifestation of God and his attributes the whole world is the reflection and appearance of God in

limited form and Muhammad and the Muhammad and reality or the complete human being represents the culmination

and full accomplishment the full manifestation of that principle of which Ali partakes in a significant way this

this is my interpretation of the hak Muhammad Ali Doctrine where there seems to be a clear Union between the three

concepts in some way this can also be further nuanced by the general characteristics of's

doctrine of where everything is nothing but the or being of God and hence all things are

in a sense one including hak Muhammad Ali from a certain perspective quote there is no God but

God is love Muhammad the prophet of God is love Ali Prince of God is love three names in meaning one love love is the

light Gabriel saw in the midst of God Muhammad Ali as expressed in the Sufi School of love the God is love and the

world is th only love expressing itself everything is love especially those human beings that embody that light of

Muhammad which Gabriel saw in this poem It all becomes a single meaning and expression of love however it should be

understood specifically there is no denying that this is a central idea for the Bashi and that Ali has a very

exalted position indeed some argue that the Bashi order is one of those shii

movements where the status of Ali is upheld in a very radical way sometimes even seemingly identifying Ali as Divine

in some way this can be seen for example in some of the prayers or invocations that are used by the bachis as well as

in some of the poems that we' have already quoted one example is in the popular prayer of calling upon Ali Which

is popular even outside Bashi circles and goes like this quote in the Name of the King call upon Ali the manifestor of

Marvels Thou shalt find him a help unto thee in adversities I have need for Allah most high I call upon thee all

care and anxiety will clear away through the light of thy greatness oh Allah oh Allah oh Allah through the light of thy

Prophet ship oh Muhammad oh Muhammad oh Muhammad through the secret of thy saintship o Ali o Ali o Ali come to me

come to me come to me o Ali oh possessor of beauty and Perfection oh owner of divinity and Majesty for the sake of Al

Hussein and his grandfather and his father and his mother and his brother and his sons save us from All Care and

anxiety by the mercy of the most merciful of the merciful and oh best of those who help oh overturn of hearts and

Minds change our hearts and our minds for the sake of thy pleasure and the vision of those who long for thee and

the elect there is no one like Ali and there is no sword like the sikar he is the friend of Our Lord hear us for the

sake of the honorable Muhammad and haar another famous statement that is found both within and Beyond bism is the

statement that the Quran contains within itself basically all of reality it is it's also like a microcosm of all of

reality and the fa the first chapter of the Quran contains the entirety of the Quran on in a single Surah or chapter

and the first line of the F in the name of God the most compassionate and merciful in that line

is contained the entirety of the fa and within the first word of the first line the

bah is contained the entirety of that first verse and in the very first letter of the bismah the ba is contained the

entirety of the bismah and all of this is contained in the dot underneath the ba the first letter and then it is said

further that Ali is that dot but I think this is something that is quite hard to um analyze and retell if you're not

initiated into the order which I certainly am not this is one of those uh esoteric aspects and teachings of the

order and so it would be responsible to try to come to some sort of conclusion about things that um it's very easy to

misrepresent obviously it's a very contentious kind of topic within Islam um and it's it's often a lot more subtle

than any basic you know simplifications of of doctrines like this but in basic terms we can be sure that Ali plays a

very Central role for the bachis for the order but also in their view of Theology and and the world more generally and

just like other TW she is they also see a great importance in the 12 imams the 11 imams that followed ali um which

represent the transmission of spiritual knowledge and interpretation of the Quran there's also the so-called 14

Innocents these are children of some of the imams that were killed while still young and they play a quite prominent

role in the consciousness of the Bashi as well it's also often claimed that the Bashi believe in a form of metam

psychosis or reincarnation after death it seems that this might be something that is rejected in the learned and

official Circles of the order but which is still often held among the more General people of the community one

common way of conceiving this is that after someone dies they will be reincarnated as the animal which their

previous life mostly resembled so if you were a very greedy person perhaps you'll become a pig in the next life Etc and we

might actually be able to connect this to I Arabi as well who speaks in similar ways about our Fates in the next World

so to say after we die uh Arabi in fact talks about um this stage in between so when

we die we go to something called the bar uh which is a world where we stay in between this life and the day of

Resurrection when we'll be judged and then sent to either heaven or hell so in between there is this this bar and this

is a this is this is um a world of imagination to he also calls it it's a world of

similitude methal or world of imagination so it's not physical it's not a physical world but neither is it a

fully spiritual world it's a stage in between which is represented by by

imagination uh and so when we die we go to this imaginal world and here our soul will take the body the imaginal body not

the physical body the imaginal body of the animal that our soul resembled in life in the same kind of

way right so if you were greedy you would be a pig if you were I don't know what what characteristics or animals

associated with if you were um smart you'll be a fox I don't know I know what I'm talking about you know you

what I'm saying right so this is what IAB says about about the afterlife um it could be that this is a transmission

from of that idea into bism and that some people who are not maybe learn it within the order and and know the

subtleties of of these different worlds and interpretations have maybe interpreted that in a more physical way

as a classical reincarnation where we reincarnate physically as an animal in next life this is just me speculating

again but I think because of the similarity to iabi and the fact that we have concluded that there seems to be so

much influence from the akar school inabi this seems like a at least quite likely that there is some kind of

connection here another very significant aspect of this movement which set them apart from other orders similar to them

is their adoption and influence from the movement known as harism or Islamic lism this was a movement started by the

14th century Persian Mystic fah asadi a very fascinating historical figure that became famous at first primarily as an

accomplished dream interpreter later on he also developed an intricate system of interpreting the Quan and all of reality

through letters and language specifically the alphabet of the Arabic and Persian language which contain 28

and 32 letters respectively fah and his followers who became known as the huis or lists believe that reality was made

up of language and letters and that we can find traces of this metal language everywhere around

us an example of this esoteric lism in the hori tradition is the way one interprets the constitution of the human

being every human according to this philosophy has seven lines of hair on their face the hairline two eyebrows and

two sets of eyelashes this is four lines now this number seven corresponds to the number of verses in the fa the first

opening chapter of the Quran when men become older they receive more hair in the form of beards making

the lines on the face a total of 14 corresponding to the 14 letters that can be found in the beginning of some suras

of the Quran these mysterious letters that no one really knows what they're about if one doubles that number

counting the lines themselves and the places or seals where they sit so to say that becomes 28 which is of course the

number of letters in the Arabic alphabet which the Quran was revealed in furthermore humans are also expected to

part their hair or beard into two thus revealing another line a total of eight lines and if you multiply eight with the

four elements of nature you get 32 the number of Persian letters and of course this the number of letters in the meta

language that builds all our reality this is just a tiny example of a much more elaborate system of fascinating

correspondences relating to letters and numbers and their significance if you want a full introduction to F and the

huis I have once again made a dedicated episode on that topic as well last year we could which you can check out on the

channel what's important to know here is that these harui ideas seems to have influenced the Bashi to a major degree

at some point and we find similar kind of list speculation in their doctrines as well this is also seen for example by

the fact that the maidon the communal Hall where these ceremonies of the bachis are held this will often contain

different images or or paintings on the wall and one of the most common motifs for these images is the mysterious

letters that open many of the quranic suras some of them are really intricately and beautifully made where

the entire Surah in question of the Quran is written within these letters right so the letter is made up of the

quranic Surah itself in calligraphy right it's it's incredibly beautiful and this actually leads us to the question

of practice in bagism what are the practices and the rituals of this order because of the esoteric and secretive

nature of this tradition certain aspects of their practices seem hard to find Reliable information about we know from

before that they are Muslims and come from a Muslim background so they pray daily just like Muslims as well as

observe other aspects of the Sharia however it's often stated that the bachis have a rather LAX attitude toward

these practices such as prayer and fasting it's also widely known that the Bashi do consume alcohol even in the

form of R and even in a ritualistic setting these features of the order have caused others to sometimes criticize

them and call them non-muslims because of their seeming negligence of the observation of the Sharia

but one ritual that seems to be very prominent for the Bashi is something known as gem which literally means

Gathering here they will gather together in the communal Hall known as the maidon and engage in practices like SEMA this

is something that they also share to some degree with other Sufi orders Sama as it's known in Arabic has been a

prominent practice for many sufis where one will listen to music and sometimes even dance as a way of reaching higher

spiritual States the Bashi Sama seems to function in a similar way where music will be played often on the Bal or s a

kind of long neck loot instrument and neph or Bachi poems Will Be Sung people will often get up to dance sometimes in

Paris but this dance is a lot more choreographed and structured than the more usual spontaneous dancing of other

kinds of sama in other forms of Sufism there's often a kind of set choreography that the dervishes follow

and even people present that will make sure that no inappropriate movements are made especially when men and women are

dancing at the same time or together there's also a lot more elaborate ritual called the a which is performed when an

ashik a you know a kind of um um interested Outsider wants to become initiated formly into the order and take

on a mid as a teacher this ritual also takes place in the maidan and incorporates all the very symbolic parts

and aspects of this communal Hall in a very fascinating way as well as deeply structured movements and

prayers in his classic book The Bachi order of dervishes John Kingsley Burge gives us a very detailed and fascinating

description of this ritual step by step which is such an interesting read I highly recommend it for anyone that has

interested in this topic this book is really the only academic source that that gives an overview of the bachis and

it's quite old I believe it was written 1960s maybe maybe even earlier like 1940s it was it's pretty old but it

holds up for the most part it's it's a good read but a lot of the information is of course like a century old and

things have changed since then so you know keep that in mind but particularly this very detailed um description of the

a gem ceremony initiatory ceremony is really fasinating part of this book as we said the baches grew to be a quite

prominent Sufi order in the Ottoman Empire the order's relationship with the

ottoman state was quite complicated you'd think that given the quote unquote heterodox nature of the order and the

consciously Orthodox Sunni nature of the Ottomans that the bashist would have been maybe suppressed or looked down

upon and this was certainly true in certain periods but the bachis also in fact came to play a central role in the

Imperial policies and the military the famous special military core or infantry troops of the otoman Sultan known as the

janissaries was an important part of Ottoman military strategy recruitment for the janissary Corp usually was done

through the devira system where children from Christian families were often taken and forced to be recruited to the

janissaries and in the process also to become Muslims and interestingly bism became

the official religious order or orientation of the janissaries in other words the janissaries were essentially

Bachi and it was bism that the recruits were initiated into now because of this the Bashi order was quite valued by the

Ottomans and thus came to Great prominence through this treatment but things weren't always

great there were periods of intolerance and oppression interspersed with acceptance from the side of the Sultans

and in 1826 the sultan Mahmud II officially disbanded the genice series completely this had the result of also

changing the fortune of the Bachi significantly in this region as the order was basically outlawed as well

members of the order were exiled and sometimes even executed and here also Begins the proper establishment of the

order outside of Anatolia which had been its base for all of history over the course of the 19th and the early 20th

century the bachis managed to get some level of acceptance back in the Ottoman Empire but when the state was disbanded

in the 1920s by The reformist atat Turk and with the subsequent formation of the Republic of turkey all forms of dervish

orders and activity all forms of Sufism generally was outlawed in this new secular State as you know this Sufism

and the dervish orders were seen as old Superstition that threatened the new modern turkey the baches were of course

directly affected by this in a very major way and it is at this time that we see the major move of the order out of

turkey and Anatolia and toward other locals especially to Albania where the order is established its base from this

moment and which it remains to this day of course the 20th century wasn't without its struggles in Albania either

as the country adopted a very strict form of Communism where religious buildings were demolished including many

Bachi teas and people were generally forbidden from teaching religion at all it's only in the last few decades that

the bachis have been able to really flourish in Albania again and make up a colorful and prominent part of that

Society given its very complicated history including in Albania itself it's certainly very interesting that they are

now even considered by the Albanian government to be given its own micro state within the capital this would

certainly be a very interesting development in the world and historically and would be a very

interesting addition to the European geopolitical landscape the Bachi thus have a long and very complicated history

from its Origins with a Sufi Mystic bkash Val to its reemergence from The Wider Al the environment in Anatolia

into a new organized maybe Sufi order that contrary to most other such orders adopted clearly shii Muslim principles

and theology their philosophical and mystical teachings are clearly in line with and influenced by other prominent

currents such as the Akbar School of IB Arabi and are also generally esoteric and mysterious beyond the full grasp or

understanding of any Outsider but they also have features that clearly set them apart from other forms of Sufism or

Islam such as the exalted role of Ali certain practices that some even speculate could be related to

pre-islamic shamanistic traditions and of course the consumption of alcohol they have been an essential part of

Ottoman history as part of the janary core and saw very varied periods of persecution interspersed with tolerance

and acceptance wherever they have been located from Anatolia or turkey to Egypt and Albania and now they might be

getting their own micro state in the middle of Europe so certainly for all these reasons the

Bachi order remains probably one of the most fascinating and strange interesting features in the history of the Islamic

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