Today marks the 6th anniversary of the passing away from life, in Detroit, USA, of father Arshi Bazaj.
Arshi Bazaj was born in the village of Shkoza in Vlora in 1910. He completed four primary classes in his native village and then became involved in religion. From the age of 7, his parents often took him to the tekke, to his father Bektash Aliaj, where he grew up with the Bektashi spirit. When he turns sixteen, he takes up arms as a myhib and continues to work and live in the Golimbas tekke in Vlora. In 1926 he was consecrated a dervish by his father Bektash Aliaj and, thanks to Bektashi traditions, undertook for several months a pilgrimage to the Bektashi Hajj of Turkey, a tour which is visited by other Bektashi tekkes. He returns to Golimbas and in particular, in the month of Ashura, visits famous tekkes such as that of Bllaca in Dibër, that of Shememi-Babai in Kruja, the Great Tekke of Elbasan, that of Melçan in Korça and that of father Selimi in Gjirokastra .
In August 1939, dervish Arshiu, with the blessing of his father Bektash Aliaj, joined the nationalist forces led by Hysni Lepenica, in the battles against the Italian occupier, in the district of Vlora. Meanwhile, the increase of political and military power of the national-liberators was being accompanied by harsh attitudes towards the nationalists, be they clergy, such as the dervish Arshi Bazaj. Under the pretext that "he had to give an account to the partisan command of Vlora", two or three illegal communists knock one evening in the Golimbas tekke. But Bektash Aliaj's father refuses to send the dervishes there, telling them that everyone, from the Vlora partisan command, was welcome in the tekke. Two months later, seeing what was happening to many nationalist fighters, Father Bektashi gave his dervish the blessing and sent him to the Koshtan tekke in Tepelena.
But even in Koshtan, in the summer of 1945, the dervishes are wanted again and this was the reason why, together with some other nationalists, he went to Greece. He stays there for almost two years in the refugee camp in Llavrios and is then sent to Italy. In 1953, at the request of the Bektashi tekke of Mukatam in Egypt, he went there and, a year later, it was the Albanian nationalists stationed in the USA, who took him to the distant continent.
From 1954 until he closed his eyes in December 2015, Father Arshi Bazaj, was and remained not only loyal to Father Rexhebi (founder of the first Bektashi tekke in Detroid-Michigan), but also the wise cleric, son of Vlora, that spreads peace and love to all generations of Albanians in America.
Prepared by:
Nuri ÇUNI
Kujtim BORIÇI
