De stichting is genoemd naar de geleerde Hacı Bayram-ı Veli.

Hacı Bayram-ı Veli is geboren in een kleine dorp genaamd Solfasol in de provincie Ankara, in het jaar 1352. Zijn echte naam is Numan(Hij veranderde het in Bayram nadat hij zijn spirituele leider Somuncu Baba ontmoette tijdens het festival van Eid ul-Adha). Op school was hij heel gedreven en al snel kwam hij met zware vakken zoals, filosofie, wiskunde, Arabisch, Koran wetenschap, islamitische rechtsscholen etc in aanmerking. Nadat hij afgestudeerd was, heeft hij in Ankara aan het Kara Medrese (een Ottomaanse universiteit) als professor gewerkt. In ongeveer 1394 migreerde hij naar Bursa. Hier is hij aan het  Çelebi Sultan Mehmet medrese (Yeşil Medrese) als professor verder gaan werken. Dit heeft hij tot 1400 gedaan.

Na 1400 besloot Hacı Bayram-ı Veli met zijn şeyh(Sjeik) op bedevaart te gaan. Zijn reis naar Damascus, Mekka en Media duurde ongeveer drie jaar. Nadat Sultan II.Murad Han  in 1421 aan de troon steeg nodigde hij Hacı Bayram-ı Veli uit om te komen naar Edirne. Nadat hij de uitnodiging kreeg is hij samen met zijn student Akşemseddin richting Edirne vertrokken. Bij zijn aankomst merkte Sultan Murad gelijk al iets spiritueels. Hij was zo onder de indruk dat de Sultan besloot Hacı Bayram-ı Veli  twee maanden te gast te houden. In deze twee maanden heeft Hacı Bayram-ı Veli advies en ondersteuning aangeboden. Na zijn twee maanden is hij weer richting Ankara gaan reizen.

In 1426 is hij nogmaals richting Edirne gaan reizen en daar heeft hij geholpen met het bouwen van de historische brug Uzunköprü. 1429 was de laatste keer voor hem dat hij een reis richting Edirne heeft gemaakt. Hier gaf hij het nieuws dat Istanboel door Fatih Sultan Mehmet veroverd zou worden. Hacı Bayram stierf in het jaar 1430 op 78 jarige leeftijd in Ankara.

Hij is erg geliefd onder de mensen in Turkije doordat hij een voorbeeld voor vele was. Een van zijn waarden is eerlijk geld verdienen, blijven werken en geen last zijn tot anderen. Daarom gingen heel veel prediken over dit onderwerp. Zelf werkte hij in de landbouw. Hij vond discipline in het onderwijs erg belangrijk, hierdoor waren al zijn leerlingen goed opgevoed.

“Woede en haat, verblind ogen die de waarheid ziet. Boosheid verminderd het logisch nadenken en zorg voor misleiding. Waarborg wat je is toevertrouwd. Het geloof is namelijk ook toevertrouwd aan je.”

Ankara – Haci Bayram-i Veli Moskee en Turbe (zie  360.com.tr)

ANKARA HACI BAYRAM VELİ COMPLEX
The Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque is located in the Ulus district of Ankara immediately beside the Temple of Augustus, an imposing building of the Roman period that gives its name to the square in which it stands. The temple was erected in the first century A.D. as a memorial to the capture of Ankara from the Galatians by the Roman Emperor Augustus. The structural and conceptual symbiosis arising from the formal consensus of the two contrasting worlds constituted by the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque and the Temple of Augustus symbolises the broad tolerance of the Turk while at the same time presenting in concrete form the all-embracing ideals of Hacı Bayram Veli. The Hacı Bayram Veli Mosgue was built in H. 831 (1427-28), two years before Hacı Bayram Veli’s death. The sources offer very little information concerning the earliest architectural State of the building, which underwent a considerable number of repairs in the succeeding centuries.
The building has no vakfiye (deed of trust), the place of a vakfiye being taken by a decree dated H. 1194 (1782) on p. 312 of register No. 485 in the archives of the General Directorate of Pious Endowments. The Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque is a rectangular building on a north-south alignment with stone foundations, brick walls and a tiled roof. The ground floor covers an area of 437 m2. while the gallery covers an area of 263 m2. On the south of the building lies the tomb of Hacı Bayram Veli and on the east the Temple of Augustus. The temple meets the mosque at the north-east corner in a south-west, north-east alignment.
The eastern facade of the building contains a door set towards the north of the axis with rectangular mouldings and a shailow round arch. This door, like those on the west and north, opens into the portico and leads directly into the prayer hail immediately in front of the women’s gallery. At the corner of this door towards the north there is another door in the portico opening into the çilehane (cell where the novice undergoes his ordeal). There are ten windows on the eastern facade of the mosque, three above and three below on the right, i.e. to the south of the door, and two above and two below on the left. The south-east corner of this facade of the mosque is immediately adjacent to the Temple of Augustus. The windows and brick revetment on this facade date from a later period. The most interesting section of the building is undoubtedly the western facade. This facade presents a tiered appearance arising from the fact that the original portico had been closed in by walls to form a side section. The north-west side of this facade is articulated by three pointed arches and the northern side by a single pointed arch.
The second entrance to the mosque is located in the north- west corner of this facade. An attempt has been made to illuminate the prayer hail and the upper gallery by means of three rectangular windows in the lower part of the western face of the western wall, seven rectangular windows in the middle and five pointed arched windows above. Two of these windows on the lower row are placed in iron grilles arranged in a pointed arched niche. There is an inscription on the right and left of the closed arch on the Southern facade of the second tier later added to the prayer hall on the two-storeyed western facade of the mosque. İn the upper section of the inscriptions there is a rectangular window, with two pointed-arched windows with plaster lattice work. There is also another window in the centre. İn addition to this, there is a “Kelime-i Tevhîd” in sülüs lettering resembling green glazed tiling between the two rows of windows above and between the windows in the middle. A certain vitality is lent by the repetition of a band of the same colour under the roof on the tiled facades beginning from the bottom of the pediments of the lower row of windows. The portico later added to the building is situated on the northern facade of the mosque.
A third entrance to the prayer hall opening on to the portico lies on the central axis of this facade. Together with the two windows in pointed-arched niches to the right and the left, this facade is articulated by five windows, one above the door exactly in the middle and the others at the level of the lower windows. The Hacı Bayram Veli Tomb is situated on the Southern facade of the mosque a little to the east of the mihrap axis with the minaret immediately adjacent to the south-east corner of the tomb. This facade, which, like the other facades, was revetted with tiles at a later period, contains two windows in the section to the south of the tomb, one above and one below, and a single window on the east.
The minaret of the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque forms, as we have already indicated, an organic whole with the south-east corner of the Hacı Bayram Veli Tomb adjacent to the kible facade of the mosque. The mosque has two galleries, a characteristic feature of mosques erected by the Sultans or members of the imperial dynasty, and the reason for this must have lain in a desire to show special reverence and respect to Hacı Bayram Veli. The base of the cylindrical brick minaret supports an irregular five-sided polygon against the outer wall of the tomb. The spolia employed in this section must have been obtained from the remains of the Roman temple next to it. The base, which rises to the height of the drum of the tomb, is interrupted by a narrow moulding, the section above this being composed of brick. There is another narrow stone moulding between the shaft of the minaret and the base, with the transition to the circular shaft effected by inverted triangles. There are three white mouldings up to the first gallery and one between the two galleries. The minaret is fairly tail, with a first gallery followed by a second smaller gallery on a slightly tapering shaft and the whole culminating in a “petek” and conical roof. The minaret, which is out of keeping with the proportions and appearance of the mosque itself, was erected together with the tomb after the completion of the mosque. The sources contain a rather obscure reference on the basis of an inscription on the base of the minaret or on a tombstone in the vicinity of the minaret to a certain Muhammed Bin Ebubekir Hamdanî (Hemedanî) as the architect of the mosque. Mübarek Galip, on the other hand, claims that this was the architect responsible for the repair of the mosque but gives no date. We have not ourselves been able to identify this inscription, but it is mentioned in therecords of the General Directorate of Pious Endowments as a repair inscription.
The Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque contains a prayer hall 13.5 m in width and 20 m in depth with three entrances on the east, west and north. The east and west doors on the same axis are located immediately in front of the gallery. İn front of the door on the east there is a flight of seven steps. The west door opens into a side section on a north-south alignment created by its inclusion in the body of the mosque. The portico in the form of an open rectangular colonnade with flat roof on an east-west alignment to the north of the prayer hall is the original portico section of the mosque. Later, in 1970, a two-storey concrete portico was added to this section, and another portico was created on the western facade by closing the arched opening in the south wall of the west wing. Access to the wooden mezzanine floor now used as a women’s gallery is afforded by a stairway on the north- east of the portico. This section, which continues on the west facade, has branches on the west and north facades in the form of an “L” with equal branches.
The gallery has seven windows with plaster lattice work opening on to the upper floor of the portico and three windows opening on to the west facade. This wooden gallery, which is surrounded by a wooden balustrade, is supported, together with the upper wing on the west, by wooden pillars. To the right of the north door there is a muezzins’ gallery, also surrounded by a wooden balustrade, opening on to the prayer hall from below the women’s gallery . The women’s gallery, including the ceiling, is adorned with side mouldings with rich painted decoration. The flat wooden coffered ceiling över this section is adorned with a triple corbelled cornice and a decoration of laths and spheres. The gallery walls and ceiling are surrounded by a wooden cornice decorated with various floral compositions. The same is repeated in the women’s gallery. Another remarkable feature consists of the rich painted decoration in the centre of the Bursa type arches. The hexagonal rosette surrounded by a border consisting of six rows of flowers in the centre of the roof of the prayer hall is repeated on a smaller scale in the middle of the ceiling in the northern wing of the women’s gallery.The boss in the upper ceiling at the back is divided into ten equal sections, with five small gilt spherical decorations and one large on each branch of the star spreading out from the centre.The wide cornice is also adorned with painted decoration. The decoration on the ceiling of the west wing is in the same style but with a rectangular panel. The panel has eight lobes, with three complete stars in the centre and six half stars at the sides. The small sections and the cornices, two wide and one narrow, display painted decoration with gilt spherical decoration.
The section in the form of a balcony extending towards the prayer hall in the centre in the north is adorned with painted decoration of the same type. Although we have no certain knowledge of the identity of the artist responsible for the painted decoration Gönül Öney and Mübarek Galip have suggested the name of Nakkaş Mustafa. Though the painted decoration would appear to belong to a date between the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th, it seems very likely that it was restored during later repairs, particularly those carried out in 1940. The wooden elements, such as the doors, windows and galleries, were later reconstructed in oak. İn addition to the painted decoration on wood, the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque is also very rich in tiled decoration, containing a large quantity of tile decoration both old and new. Most recently, during the 1940 repairs, the whole of the interior, apart from the inner walls under the women’s gallery, was revetted with blue and white tiles up to the level of the top of the lower row of windows. The 18th century Kütahya tiles under the muezzins’ gallery constitute the most remarkable of the decorative elements. Under the gallery there are three rows of indigo tiles followed by a wide sülüs inscription frieze in white on indigo filled with medallions with flowers in the centre. After the end of the tiles transition to the wall is effected by painted decoration in the form of a palmette composition. İn the inscription, the “Besmele” is followed by the “innâ fetehnâ leke” sura. The sura inscription ends with a signature in the form “Ketebehû el-fakir eş-Şeyh Muhammed”, but no date.
The building is contructed of stone from the foundations to the basement, while the upper section of the walls is revetted with brick up to the flat wooden ceiling. Under the brick revetment. there are fairly thick mudbrick walls, probably dating from the 15th century. No information is available regarding the form of the building in the 15th century, but it very probably resembled the present building in having a tiled roof and flat ceiling. İn the middle of the flat wooden ceiling, divided into sections by laths to produce a a type of coffering, there is a large hexagonal centre-piece, a smaller replica of which was formerly to be found in the middle of the ceiling of the women’s gallery on the north side. There is a five-sided mihrab on the south wall of the prayer hall a little to the east of the main axis, a minber beside it a little to the west and a pulpit on the other side. On this same wall, there is a stained glass window with plaster latticework at the level of the upper floor at equal distances from the south-east and south-west corners. The plaster mihrab with stalactite niche constructed in the moulding technique covers one third of the wall. İn form and dimensions it resembles the mihrab in the Ankara Arslanhane , while in the materials employed it resembles those in the Ankara mesjids of the 17th and 18th centuries. The upper part of the mihrab, which is surrounded by an outer border consisting of a stalactite moulding, presents the appearance of a battlement composed of palmette motifs. The second border from the outside contains a repetition of the Kelime-i Tevhid, while the third border is filled with a geometric composition formed by intersecting stars.
The fourth and last border contains a series of Kelime-i Tevhids in nesih lettering. The base of the niche and the corners are decorated with another geometric composition consisting of intersecting polygons. The pediment of the mihrab contains a panel with suras from the Koran written in five rows of nesih lettering. Three of these contain the words “Ve inne’lmesâcide ve’la’tedu ma Allahı ahaden” from the 18th verse of the Cin Sura. Under each of the panels there is a battlement-type arrangement formed by palmette leaves. The stalactite hood of the mihrab and the upper borders surrounding the rectangular niche belong to different periods. Ankara was one of the most important centres of the Anatolian Turkish art of woodwork throughout the Seljuk and emirates period. The woodwork ateliers produced practically every type of artefact by practically every type of technique. The oldest surviving product of this centre is the minber in the Alaeddin Mosque of 1178. Ankara retained its position as an important centre of woodwork until the end of the 15th century, but although a certain vitality still continued to be displayed in this sphere in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was in no way comparable with the vitality displayed in the 13th-15th centuries.
During the later period more attention was given to the techniques employed in applying painted decoration on wood rather than to woodwork in itself. The painted decoration on the 18th century wooden minber in imitation kündekâri technique in the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque has been repainted many times. The same can be seen in the minbers in various Ankara mosques and mesjids of the 17th and 18th centuries and may be regarded as a mark of the period. The panels in the lower sections of the openwork balustrades on the steps of the minber consist of twelve-pointed stars and the polygons remaining between them combined by means of fine strips of wood. The whole of the minber was later painted in various shapes and forms. The minber possesses no construction or repair inscription, but more recently various prayers and a kelime-i tevhid were inscribed on each of the three inscriptions on the lintel of the door, in the panels under the gallery and in the upper portion of the pabuçluk. The pulpit in the south-east corner of the kible wall of the prayer hall is neither old nor original. The tile revetment on the interior north and west walls of the prayer hall is repeated on this side. All the walls in the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque are fairly thick but the east wall is even thicker than the others. This thick mudbrick wall, the exterior of which is faced with brick, is covered on the inside with tile panels up to the level of the top of the lower row of windows, while the section above this is covered with painted decoration. The windows on this wall are prevented from giving proper illumination to the prayer hall by the high walls of the Temple of Augustus. Better illumination of the portico is achieved through the use of more frequent and larger windows. The problem of illumination in Turkish mosque architecture, which was solved by using a large number of windows opening into curtain walls between the baldaquins supporting the large domes of the 16th century Ottoman classical mosques, makes itself very clearly felt in this particular building. The lower floor, i.e. the basement of the prayer hall in the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque, contains a çilehane, (a cell where the novice undergoes his ordeal). This has two main entrances, one opening beside the east door of the prayer hall, another in the east corner of the portico.
The basement in which the çilehane is located is rectangular, like the prayer hall itself, but the sides are irregular with plain, white-washed stone walls. There is no decoration. The wooden ceiling covering this section also constitutes the floor of the prayer hall. From both entrances a flight of stairs leads down into an irregular rectangular room directly below the north-east corner about one tenth the size of the prayer hall. To the west of this room there is a second room about half the size. The first of these rooms is an entrance that can be used for various purposes, the second is an ablution chamber. There are two niches on the west wall of the second room and a platform (seki) in the north. The rooms of the çilehane are arranged along an irregular corridor opening into the first room. There are four in all. The cell at the end is located almost directly under the mihrab. These rooms, which are roughly square in shape and contain ventilation chimneys, were most probably used by members of the religious order such as Hacı Bayram Veli himself and pupils such as Akşemseddin and Sheikh Eşrefoğlu Rumi. The building was thoroughly renovated in the 18th century so it would seem reasonable to assume that the Çilehane had its share in the changes. As mentioned above, the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque was built in 1427-28, two years before the death of its founder, but later repairs completely destroyed the original character of the building and it now displays the structural and decorative characteristics of later periods. The first repair was carried out during the construction of the tomb and minaret following Hacı Bayram Veli’s death. Later, in the 16th century, a certain amount of repair was carried out on the painted decoration, but it was in 1714, during the reign of Sultan Ahmet III (1703-1730), that the building underwent a reaily thorough and lasting repair. İt was this repair, commemorated in the inscriptions on the south-west facade, that endowed the building with the character it still displays to a certain extent at the present day. Almost all the decoration in the prayer hall, apart from the tile revetment encircling the interior at the leve! of the lower windows, dates from the period of this repair. Shortly after this, the work of repair and renovation begun during the reign of Ahmet III was continued under Sultan Mustafa III (1757-1774). The tiles under the muezzins’ gallery date from this period. Apart from some references in the inscriptions there is very little reliable information regarding the repairs carried out prior to the proclamation of the Republic, but during the republican period, from 1940 onwards, an abundance of information becomes available. İn 1940, when a number of mosques in Ankara underwent repair, comprehensive repairs were also carried out in the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque.
The exterior facade was thoroughly renovated and the brick facing renewed. The arched opening in the south-west corner of the mosque was blocked up and that section incorporated in the building. İt was during this period that modifications were made to the wooden doors and windows. Various repairs, both large and small, were carried out in 1942, 1954, 1969-71 and 1986-87. The addition of a two-storey reinforced concrete portico to the portico on the north side constitutes the most important change in the plan of the building carried out in recent times. This section was also faced with brick, like the other exterior surfaces, in order to make it conform to the general appearance of the building, but after 1970 an association formed by the congregation of the mosque erected, without any proper permission, a W.C., a Koran school, a shadirvan and ablution building, all quite out of keeping with the mosque itself, as well as a library and an imam’s room. İn conclusion, we may say that the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque fully reflects neither the architectural appearance or characteristics of the 15th century in which it was erected nor the identity of 18th century. Ottoman architecture with which it was later endowed and still bears, to a certain extent, at the present day. The history of its architecture is thus not to be traced within the general panorama of either 15th or 18th century Ottoman architecture, but rather within the local Ankara building tradition.
The mosque, which is typical of the 15th century only in the simplicity of its plan, its minaret and its çilehane, is remarkable for its woodwork, plaster and tiles, as well as for the rich repertoire of decoration applied to them. The structural and intellectual composition expressing a global consensus of two utterly opposing concepts formed by the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque and the famous Roman Temple of Augustus, with which it has stood side by side for so many centuries, displays in concrete form the harmonious and harmonizing approach typical of Hacı Bayram Veli’s teaching, while at the same time preserving to the present day the broad tolerance of the Turkish people that Hoca Ahmet Yesevi bequeathed to Hacı Bayram Veli.