My Master Mustafa Düzgünman – T. Alparslan Babaoğlu

With an original signed marbled paper inside.

As anyone who knew him would readily say, Mustafa Düzgünman was much more than a marbler. I believe that to know him well, one must understand his spiritual world, feel as he did his love for the Prophet’s family, and understand Hz. Hüdayi, to whom he was wholeheartedly devoted and whom he served for twenty-six years as custodian of his tomb. He was not occupied solely with his father’s trade as an herbalist or with the marbling for which he became famous. He was also a composer who wrote dozens of works, a master bookbinder, and a highly accomplished collector of prayer beads. In addition, despite the technical limitations of his time, he photographed thousands of calligraphic panels and gravestones in many mosques and dervish lodges—some of which have since disappeared—and helped preserve them for our cultural heritage. He was such a skilled photographer that he developed and enlarged the photographs himself. He was a poet, but also an exceptionally honest shopkeeper, mindful of God and scrupulous about respecting others’ rights: whenever he put a paper bag containing the spice he had weighed on the scale, he would place an identical bag on the other pan to balance the weights.