WOOD MASTER ALİ ÖNDER FROM GÜRÜN AND HIS WORKS

Abstract

Wood art is one of the arts products, starting from the early periods of Turkish-Islamic art. The origin of wood is the Arabic hasebin (wood, timber) and its plural wood. It means wood material and timber used for production purposes. The beginning of the use of wood with its durability and texture, needs of people, has led to the emergence of woodworking in architecture, art history and handicrafts. It has changed and developed in the historical process. The samples found in the kurgans in the Altai show that the Central Asian Turks were interested in wood. The first examples of Islamic architecture in Syria, the wooden works of the Umayyad’s and later the Abbasids bear the traces of woodwork of the period. The Seljuk’s were also interested in wood, and the Ottomans brought woodworking to the highest level. They created works such as pulpit, mihrap, lectern, Qur'an case, drawer and coffin from wood used in architecture as building materials. Mihrab is a word derived from the root of harp, meanings the Arabic palace, the harem, the sultan's throne is located place, the statue cell of the Christian saints, the arbor, the pavilion, the high place, the head of the assembly. In the historical course, it became the name of the place where the imam stood in mosques. The pulpit, the stepped architectural element in mosques to be seen better and to be heard better while giving a sermon, is the word is derived from the root nebr meaning raising. It’s the place you go up gradually. Kürsü is Kürsi in Arabic means a chair that is placed on top of each other or formed from various parts and sat on. In Anatolia, the art of wood maintains its importance with cultural interaction and changes until today. With the use of technological innovations, today the number of masters who produce handicrafts has decreased considerably. In this study, information has been given about Ali Önder, one of the masters who set his heart on this work, and the construction stages of the pulpit, lectern and mihrap he prepared, and about the wooden art. Önder was born in 1933 in the Gürün district of Sivas. He started to learn woodworking from his father at the age of seven, and has been continuing his professional life, for 35-40 years by making mihrab, pulpits and lecterns. Önder does not charge for the works he prepared for mosques, was awarded the International Goodness Award given to seven people from different parts of the world by the Turkish Religious Foundation.