Münir Ertegün
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mehmet Münir Ertegün (1883 Istanbul - 1944 Washington D.C.) was a famous Turkish politician and diplomat of late Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republican time. Ertegün is the father of Ahmet Ertegün and Nasuhi Ertegün, brothers who founded Atlantic Records and iconic figures of American Music Industry.
Born to a civil servant father, Mehmet Cemil Bey, and a mother who was a daughter of Sufi shaikh Ayşe Hamide Hanım, he studied Law in Istanbul University and graduated in 1908. He was a close figure and aide to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the Turkish Independence War and a counselor in law to the Turkish committee in the Treaty of Lausanne.
Ertegün was a participant to the Treaty of Lausanne as a counsellor of Turkish committee. After the foundation and the recognition of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, he was appointed as the first Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to the United States in Washington, D.C. and held the post until he died there in 1944. His body was carried back to Istanbul, Turkey, by the USS Missouri and buried in the garden of sufi tekke, Özbekler Tekkesi in Sultantepe, Üsküdar next to his shaikh grandfather Şeyh İbrahim Edhem Efendi, who was once the head of the tekke.
[edit] Trivia
When Münir Ertegün, the Turkish ambassador, died in Washington D.C. in 1944, there was no mosque to hold his funeral in, which sparked the construction of the Islamic Center of Washington, the first and grandest mosque in the city.
