Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Two: A strife-torn citadel
Diyarbakir… is an uncut diamond
History is littered all around within the confines of its citadel… whose walls are so magnificent that other such structures just pale into insignificance…
For instance… when I saw the Lal Qila in Delhi for the first time… I actually gasped for breath and wondered… would I be able to see anything of equal magnificence ever… and then when I saw Tughlakabad in the same city… I knew that I have to see a lot in this world. Diyarbakir reminded me that a lot remains to be seen.
For last one week, people had been telling me to avoid Diyarbakir… some rejecting it as a group of crumbled monuments… some terming it a badland… and some saying that it was a rendezvous of thugs and con-masters. Diyarbakir- if is anything of the above… I didn’t see any evidence.
For instance… its mighty ramparts… they are about 1500 years old… and everybody warned me that don’t go atop them… they are infested with drug-addicts and petty criminals- who won’t blink before mugging me. And yet when I dared to I got a fresh whiff of air, a scene so majestic that I was dumbstruck… at a distance, I could see the Tigris River… the sister of Euphrates… along the banks of which Mesopotamia breathed… almost 7000 years ago.
Diyarbakir has a checkered history… in old ages it lied at the cross roads of mighty empires like Assyrians, Persians, Byzantine and the Armenians… changing hands from one to another… seeing bloody battles every time it changed hands… it, perhaps was important as an important trade and agriculture center… sitting beside the Tigris… and overlooking all the important trade routes… everyone, therefore, wanted to control Diyarbakir (or Amida).
Diyarbakir, however, was captured in the early years of Islam by the invading Arab Armies… and thereafter became a Muslim city… first ruled by Kurds… then by Kurdish governors of the Selcuks… and then by the Selcuks… and then Ottoman.
Realizing the importance of the city, Kurdish rulers strengthened the might citadel… with massive ramparts of black basalt stones… the walls of Diyarbakir are almost 6-7 kilometers long… originally built by the Roman rulers… they were added and strengthened by the Kurds… and now even after 1500 years of that strengthening… they engulf the entire city in its strong clasp… as if they have been built only a few hundred years ago… no sign of decay… no sign of weakness… these walls define Diyarbakir.
And no place can be more poignant a reminder of the history in the heart of Diyarbakir… than the Ulu Cami (the grand mosque) revered to be 5th most revered mosque in the Arab, Levant and Anatolia combined. Omar dropped me at a market place in-front of Ulu Cami… I roamed inside the mosque… and everywhere I could see the traces of the grand history…. Foundations of a Pagan Temple… Roman pillars with Greco-Roman artwork… a solar clock built by Byzantine… and then finally the Mosque built by the Kurds… it has seen all and weathered the history.
The streets of Diyarbakir are a maze… and therefore finding the uncut diamonds littered all around is difficult. I was told that there is a functioning Syrian Orthodox Church and an Armenian Church somewhere… but finding it was difficult… the Turkish Government has hardly made Diyarbakir geared for tourism and therefore there are no road-marks anywhere.
Someone told me that I should try to go to Behrampasha Mosque… there is a small tourist office over there… I started navigating the place… to reach the non-descript tourist office, which in other tourist spots should have been right in the heart of the city.
The modern history of Diyarbakir is written with blood, cruelty and deceit.
Once Diyarbakir had a huge Armenian and Syrian Christian population… but during the Young Turk movement… the Turks and Kurds came together to flush them out… Armenians had no place to go… they were mercilessly butchered in what is today known as Armenian genocide… while Syrians were only a wee bit lucky… many of them migrated to Syria- which due to its historical eclectic nature provided them refuge… and some others migrated eastwards in Syrian dominated areas like Mardin and Midyat… one of my next destinations. It is indeed an irony that today… the Kurds, who betrayed their neighbors during the flushing out of Orthodox Christians… are at the receiving end… and Diyarbakir has become a battle ground between the Turks and Kurds.
I finally found Behrampasha mosque tucked away in one of the non-descript quarters of the city. It was, apart from its anonymity… a very visit-worthy building… made up of black and white stones… a typical Seljuk building.
A couple of steps away, I found the tourist office… which was converted from an old Diyarbakir house… the place didn’t looked anything like a tourist office… but more of a tea-house… a number of locals sitting here and there… and sipping tea… and smoking Sheesha…. The environment of the place was very informal… and it had an air of comfort all around… I felt that I have come to a right place…
The people were rather surprised to see me… for they were not accustomed to see a tourist walking into this office… and occasionally if somebody walked in- he used to be some white man… not a South Asian…
They tried talking to me… but nobody knew English… they first tried Turkish… and then they spoke something which distantly resembled a language that I knew… Persian.
I said a few words in Persian… and that seemed distantly similar to them… and the ice broke.
They were using the Kurmanji Kurdish.
History is littered all around within the confines of its citadel… whose walls are so magnificent that other such structures just pale into insignificance…
For instance… when I saw the Lal Qila in Delhi for the first time… I actually gasped for breath and wondered… would I be able to see anything of equal magnificence ever… and then when I saw Tughlakabad in the same city… I knew that I have to see a lot in this world. Diyarbakir reminded me that a lot remains to be seen.
For last one week, people had been telling me to avoid Diyarbakir… some rejecting it as a group of crumbled monuments… some terming it a badland… and some saying that it was a rendezvous of thugs and con-masters. Diyarbakir- if is anything of the above… I didn’t see any evidence.
For instance… its mighty ramparts… they are about 1500 years old… and everybody warned me that don’t go atop them… they are infested with drug-addicts and petty criminals- who won’t blink before mugging me. And yet when I dared to I got a fresh whiff of air, a scene so majestic that I was dumbstruck… at a distance, I could see the Tigris River… the sister of Euphrates… along the banks of which Mesopotamia breathed… almost 7000 years ago.
Diyarbakir has a checkered history… in old ages it lied at the cross roads of mighty empires like Assyrians, Persians, Byzantine and the Armenians… changing hands from one to another… seeing bloody battles every time it changed hands… it, perhaps was important as an important trade and agriculture center… sitting beside the Tigris… and overlooking all the important trade routes… everyone, therefore, wanted to control Diyarbakir (or Amida).
Diyarbakir, however, was captured in the early years of Islam by the invading Arab Armies… and thereafter became a Muslim city… first ruled by Kurds… then by Kurdish governors of the Selcuks… and then by the Selcuks… and then Ottoman.
Realizing the importance of the city, Kurdish rulers strengthened the might citadel… with massive ramparts of black basalt stones… the walls of Diyarbakir are almost 6-7 kilometers long… originally built by the Roman rulers… they were added and strengthened by the Kurds… and now even after 1500 years of that strengthening… they engulf the entire city in its strong clasp… as if they have been built only a few hundred years ago… no sign of decay… no sign of weakness… these walls define Diyarbakir.
And no place can be more poignant a reminder of the history in the heart of Diyarbakir… than the Ulu Cami (the grand mosque) revered to be 5th most revered mosque in the Arab, Levant and Anatolia combined. Omar dropped me at a market place in-front of Ulu Cami… I roamed inside the mosque… and everywhere I could see the traces of the grand history…. Foundations of a Pagan Temple… Roman pillars with Greco-Roman artwork… a solar clock built by Byzantine… and then finally the Mosque built by the Kurds… it has seen all and weathered the history.
The streets of Diyarbakir are a maze… and therefore finding the uncut diamonds littered all around is difficult. I was told that there is a functioning Syrian Orthodox Church and an Armenian Church somewhere… but finding it was difficult… the Turkish Government has hardly made Diyarbakir geared for tourism and therefore there are no road-marks anywhere.
Someone told me that I should try to go to Behrampasha Mosque… there is a small tourist office over there… I started navigating the place… to reach the non-descript tourist office, which in other tourist spots should have been right in the heart of the city.
The modern history of Diyarbakir is written with blood, cruelty and deceit.
Once Diyarbakir had a huge Armenian and Syrian Christian population… but during the Young Turk movement… the Turks and Kurds came together to flush them out… Armenians had no place to go… they were mercilessly butchered in what is today known as Armenian genocide… while Syrians were only a wee bit lucky… many of them migrated to Syria- which due to its historical eclectic nature provided them refuge… and some others migrated eastwards in Syrian dominated areas like Mardin and Midyat… one of my next destinations. It is indeed an irony that today… the Kurds, who betrayed their neighbors during the flushing out of Orthodox Christians… are at the receiving end… and Diyarbakir has become a battle ground between the Turks and Kurds.
I finally found Behrampasha mosque tucked away in one of the non-descript quarters of the city. It was, apart from its anonymity… a very visit-worthy building… made up of black and white stones… a typical Seljuk building.
A couple of steps away, I found the tourist office… which was converted from an old Diyarbakir house… the place didn’t looked anything like a tourist office… but more of a tea-house… a number of locals sitting here and there… and sipping tea… and smoking Sheesha…. The environment of the place was very informal… and it had an air of comfort all around… I felt that I have come to a right place…
The people were rather surprised to see me… for they were not accustomed to see a tourist walking into this office… and occasionally if somebody walked in- he used to be some white man… not a South Asian…
They tried talking to me… but nobody knew English… they first tried Turkish… and then they spoke something which distantly resembled a language that I knew… Persian.
I said a few words in Persian… and that seemed distantly similar to them… and the ice broke.
They were using the Kurmanji Kurdish.
2 comments:
You had mentioned about majestic forts like Lal Quila in your write-up. You should see the Chitradurga Fort in Karnataka for its uniqueness. I visited this recently and you have to see it to believe it...This fort is different. ..Not to miss the 75 feet down Chndravalli caves nearby...and the cave paintings of stone age inside
Would make a visit there for sure! Thanks for the information...
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