Şanlıurfa

Our day started with a series of mishaps.

First, we lost power at the hotel for about an hour … Mui got to take a shower, but not me.

Next, we found a big pandemic no-no in the dining room … a self-serve breakfast buffet … literally plundered by the 40-strong tour group staying at the hotel. Luckily, fresh-from-the-fryer cheese pastries, hard boiled eggs, and hot tea was brought out after the group departed, so we didn’t go hungry.

A car battery that had given up the ghost overnight completed the trifecta of mishaps. Though Ali, our driver/guide, insisted he had turned off the headlights, it turns out that he’d actually left the parking lights on. That’ll do it. To save time, Mui, Deniz, and I hopped in a cab to go to our only sightseeing stop in the city, leaving Ali to revive the battery with help from a taxi driver.

Balıklıgöl, in a nearby district of Şanlıurfa Merkez (city center), is also known as the Sacred Pool of Abraham or Halil-Ür-Rahman Lake. Tradition has it that this is where Nimrod, a great grandson of Noah and a king in Mesopotamia, threw the Prophet Abraham into a fire.

The story goes that, Abraham, who lived around 2000 BC, rejected Nimrod’s claim that he was god. He destroyed the idols that were worshipped by Nimrod’s followers, thus inciting the idol-worshippers to burn him alive. They built a great fire and catapulted Abraham from the hill overlooking the city. In fact, two columns that still stand in the fortress above the city are said to be part of the catapult.

The story continues with god saving Abraham from a fiery death by turning the pyre into water and the firewood into fish (carp), which are considered holy to this day and are thus protected. Abraham landed in the water and the surrounding area became a rose garden. His wife, similarly catapulted from the hill, landed in another fire-turned-lake a little further down from the lake where Abraham landed.

We wandered along the edge of the Sacred Pool of Abraham, passing by Makam-ı İbrahim Mosque and Cave … accepted as being the birthplace of Abraham.

By the time we were ready to leave Balıklıgöl, Ali had arrived with the van … the battery fully operational again. Time to drive to the place that was our primary reason for coming to the Province of Şanlıurfa.Læs mere