How did the 18th century poet Mirza Abdul Qader Bedil (d. 1720) reach an elevated status of fame and formidability in the milieu of modern Afghanistan? This reception of Bedil led not only to a large number of scholarly works by Afghan specialists and literary exegetes but also to the prominence of Bedil as a poet of ethereal lyric and variegated valence in the popular imagination of citizens during a time when Bedil remained largely unknown and dismissed in neighboring Iran (a phenomenon that is now being interrogated and changing, given the steady rise in the popularity and stock of Bedil). My presentation traces the presence of esoteric circles of Bedil-Khwāni (close reading of Bedil) in various parts of what is now modern Afghanistan and focuses on the centralization of these gatherings in Kabul. In these gatherings of Bedil-Khwani, which were only accessible to the scholarly class and formed by individuals who were either mystics or had mystical proclivities, Bedil’s poetry and philosophical architecture were elucidated, discussed, and debated. It is precisely during some of the formative decades of the modern Afghan state that relations and renegotiations between such mystics and a number of prominent musicians (usually looked down upon in mystical and scholarly circles in Afghanistan), operating with new technologies of radio and television, that the poetry and poetics of Bedil shifts from the parameters of esoteric gatherings and is broadcast to the general Afghan population. This knitting of Bedil scholars and musicians reaches a melodic tapestry in the relationship formed between the mystic Abdul Hamīd Asīr, popularly referred to as Qandī Aghā, and Muhammad Hussein Sarāhang, the master par excellence of Afghan music. This Relationship carried the poetry of Bedil to all corners of Afghanistan and proclaimed his poetry as an integral aspect of Afghan identity and literary consciousness; the texture of which is still felt. The selection of Bedil’s poetry and the venues of performance were willful and possible only via the guidance of Qandī Aghā. I will show how prior to his recruitment by Qandī Aghā, Sarāhang was not only unfamiliar with Bedil’s poetry but also did not have the literary training and knowledge to engage with his writings. Now, however, in the realms of Afghan literary, musical, and popular imagination, the ballads of Bedil are intertwined with the voice of Sarāhang and the music of Sarāhang is the voice of Bedil.