Was Doctor Dahesh Born in 1909 or 1912?

[Daheshville]

While searching and reading the various files on Daheshisme.org (where Arab-speaking individuals can see the original documents authored by Dr. Ghazi Brax pertaining to what he has learned regarding a myriad of subjects) we found this important document:



This is the affidavit/proof of Citizenship issued to Doctor Dahesh after his citizenship was reinstated.

Why is that document important?

Firstly, it proves that his family name was spelled "Achi" (phonetically in English: Ashi) and **not** El-Ashi or El-Achi.

Secondly, it kind of (or maybe not) solves a troubling mystery that we've been grappling with for a long time...

You see, on the day of Doctor Dahesh's funeral, Mario Henri Chakkour received one of 20 sets of photocopied documents (that included poems by Doctor Dahesh, his prayer, ... and Father Noah's Letter).

Interestingly, the person preparing these sets hand-wrote, in blue ball point pen the date of birth and death being "June 1, 1912 - April 9, 1984" and, another person, using red felt tip, added "Jerusalem" at the beginning of the date line and "........." (We prefer not to reveal the town in which he passed away)

Then, that person (who we believe to be Chucri Chakkour, because ... he was the only one to the best of our knowledge who had mastered the Daheshist Calendar...) added "18-1-43 Daheshist"

Therefore, two people initially saw "1912" as being the date of birth, and then 18 other people subsequent to that...

Meanwhile... Everywhere we look, and certainly on our own "Dahesh.org" we see 1909... Mainly because, we could not verify the nature of the discrepancy.

But, today, and assuming that this image (shown above) is a faithful copy, we clearly see that the document indicated he was born in "Jerusalem, 1912" (We circled "1912" in Red).

[Johnson]

So the conclusion from all this is that Dr. Dahesh was born in 1912... I am trying to think if there are any other implications derived from this change or rather "correction" of Daheshist history.

[Ziyad]

Actually, these kind of discrepancies are common in the Levant. Usually, when parents go to the mukhtar (city hall in the villages) to register their child, the mukhtar writes as date of birth the date the parents came.

So it might be that Dr Dahesh was born in 1909, but that his parents did the formalities in 1912.

My Aunt was born in September but her parents did not go to city hall before January so on her official papers, it is indicated that she was born in January.

Anyway, that's one possible explanation.

[Daheshville]

Thank you, that makes perfect sense.

At the risk of sounding like "Colombo"... there is still the matter of why both of the young lady—at the time— (who happened to be very knowledgeable about Dr. Dahesh's life) and who prepared the booklets for the funeral service herself and Chucri Chakkour—who added the date of death in Daheshist years, in red felt tip pen—left it "as is".

In other words, she wrote "1912" and Chucri Chakkour saw it, and so did 18 other people. And even if from among these 18 people, only 2 or 3 knew the dates... that's still 4 or 5 people that didn't comment.

And what makes all this even more difficult to resolve is this: As far as physical appearance goes, there isn't that much difference between someone born in 1909 or 1912...

But is that difference important anyway?

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't... But if "Centuries" have any significance in terms of the Divine scale as it relates to Divine messages (again, this is complete and utter conjecture) then either 2009 or 2012 might be important dates—turning points even.

[Daheshville]

Mystery Solved

Doctor Dahesh himself gives us the clear answer on the first page of "The Planet of Eternal Splendor" (from the book "Songs of a Worshiper" which is part of the series titled: "Gardens of the Gods Adorned with the Paradisaical Flowers")

The first line on page 94 reads:

"Sixty and seven years and I am walking in a never-ending path"

He finished writing the essay at 6:50 a.m. on July 19, 1976 in the U.S.A.

We subtract 67 from 1976 and we are left with 1909 (more or less, in this case, more since he was born on a June 1st... But, close enough.)

What this means is that June 1, 2009 will mark the beginning of the 100th year since the birth of Doctor Dahesh and June 1, 2010 the first centennial of his birth.