A Travel Story : Şanlıurfa – Balıklıgöl

A Travel Story : Şanlıurfa – Balıklıgöl

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P.S :

East is always a misery instead of the West...And influences of this misery i decided to go with my friend Ömer. I did this travel with Ömer because he is a Kurdish and also from Mardin and he has got a lot of relatives and friends in the East.

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I want to point out we made this trip in Ramadan,a holy month that Muslims do not eat food and drink and do not make sexual intercourse from dawn to sunset.(i write down about Ramadan in short)

And if you want to make a trip i advise not make this trip in Ramadan.Because in East the folk is too religious and you can not find anywhere to eat something.

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Şanlıurfa

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The history of Sanlıurfa can be traced back around 9000 years and the atmosphere is one of living history, where traditional life, culture and even clothing is more akin to the Middle East with Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic all being spoken. Sanliurfa (often referred to as Urfa) is also a place of pilgrimage for many religions, containing what is thought to be the birthplace of the prophet Abraham. According to Jewish and Muslim scriptures, he was summonsed by God whilst living here.

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The traditional and religious conservatism, combined with the ancient historical monuments, has also given it the name City of the Prophets and has made Urfa a unique place to visit. Away from the city, the ancient village and genuine living museum Harran with its famous bee-hive type houses, has been continuously inhabited for more than 6000 years.

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Balıklıgöl ( It means The lake with fishes)

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The lake is located inside the city center and has the appearance of a natural aquarium with the fishes swimming inside the waters and with the centuries old plane trees and willow trees.

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The lakes are two in number; Ayn-ı Zeliha and Halil-ür Rahman. As Prophet İbrahim begins to struggle with the monarch of the period Nemrut and with the idols that his folk worships and begins to break and destroy such idols defending the idea of a single god, he was cast into fires by Nemrut from the location which is known as the Şanlıurfa Castle. As the God himself orders the fire as “O fire, be cool and secure to İbrahim.”, the fire turn into water and the stones turn into fishes.

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The place where Prophet İbrahim falled is named as “Halil-ür Rahman Lake”. The step daugter of Nemrut Zeliha falls in love with Prophet İbrahim. Zeliha begs and prays for Prophet İbrahim to his step father Nemrut. As she realizes that Prophet İbrahim is fallen into fire, she casts herself into the fire. The place where Zeliha falled is called as “Ayn-ı Zeliha Lake“.