He completed his early education in the towns of Damaneh and Daran in Fereydan and his high school in Isfahan and Shiraz.

In the United States, too, in addition to studying linguistics, Bashiri taught Persian at the University of Michigan and trained Peace Corps volunteers in Vermont, New York, and New Jersey.

In 1972, he was employed as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Iranian and Turkish Languages and Literatures at the University of Minnesota.

During his early years at Minnesota, he used the theoretical framework that he had developed in his dissertation as the base for writing Persian for Beginners.

Bashiri has traveled extensively in Iran and Central Asia, including stints as a visiting scholar in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Several times between 1987 and 2005, he was the Chair of, first, the Russian and East European Studies, and later the Slavic and Central Asian Languages and Literatures.

His hobbies include writing realist fiction, fishing, and painting Central Asian and Iranian rural life.