(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - 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, a Press TV correspondent reported from Macedonia.
He had undergone two heart surgeries, one on 2000 and the second on 2004.
Top government officials, including the Albanian President Bamir Topi and Prime Minister Sali Berisha offered their condolences.
“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,” the Albanian president's official website stated.
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.
No date has been set for Baba Reshat's funeral procession.
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