Trip to Harran, Şanlıurfa & Eski Halfeti

The weekend started early for me, Ana (Spain) and Filipa (Portugal), other volunteers in Antep. At 7 a.m. we were already hitchhiking our way to Harran, about 40 km southeast of Şanlıurfa.

Resting in a gas station near Nizip

When we got there, we found this interesting place that, according to the earliest known records, exists at least since 2.300 BC. Harran is famous for its traditional dome houses – kubbe evler – which are constructed entirely without wood. It is thought that these pieces of ancient engineering have been unchanged for at least 3,000 years! A guide explained us that the purpose of this shape and the materials used is to keep the interior of the houses cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

The interior of a dome

To see these curious houses was the major reason to visit this ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia. We didn’t expect much more, so the surprise was brutal…

During the late 8^th and 9^th centuries, Harran was a centre for translating works of astronomy, philosophy, natural sciences, and medicine from Greek to Syriac, and thence to Arabic, taking the knowledge of the classical world to the emerging Arabic-speaking civilization in the south. So, Harran is the place of the first Islam’s University!

The grand Mosque of Harran, also known as the Paradise Mosque is the oldest mosque built in Anatolia as a part of the Islamic architecture, between the years of 744 – 750 AC, and it’s minaret is 33,3 meters high.

Unfortunately, translations at the site are not good and we couldn’t understand (and still don’t know) if the University and the grand Mosque are part of the same structure or not.

There is also a castle being rebuilt, part of the effort to bring back the old Harran’s cultural symbols.

It was becoming late, and we headed to Şanlıurfa. That night we decided we still had energies to visit the city, and it was the right thing to do. Balıklıgöl was waiting for us. It’s just the place where the miracle of Abraham took place…

The story goes like this:

“Abraham, peace be upon him, the father of prophets, taught people that the stars are only stars, the moon only the moon, the sun only the sun and that King Nemrud was only a human being who had been created by Allah the mighty and the merciful in order to destroy the truth of wisdom and love which were embodied in Abraham’s existence. A fire the likes of which had never been seen was started right here and…"

  
... then the miracle occurred. The fire turned into water and pieces of wood into fishes, and Abraham escaped alive.

I didn’t know this story and place and I find them fascinating. It is best to go there at night, the illumination is very good and there is less people.

The next day we continued our discoveries, in this place and around, we visited the hill of the castle, where we could see the old part of the city.

Panoramic view of the old part of Urfa

Coming back to Antep, we still had time to visit Eski Halfeti, a small town on the east bank of river Euphrates (Fırat) and a place with one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve been in my life.

Interestingly, after the construction of the dam at Birecik in the 1990s most of the villages in the margin of the river were submerged. The old town of Halfeti is only partially submerged and is now a turistic site.

Eski Halfeti and river Euphrates

It is good to be informed about the history of the area where you are going and places to visit, but it’s also nice to be surprised by the history and astonishing beauty of such places!

Paco