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Revision as of 13:42, 6 March 2007 by Diyarbakir (talk | contribs) (restore Category:Cities in Turkish Kurdistan)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Template:Infobox town TR Diyarbakır (Ottoman Diyar-i Bekr دیاربکر 'land of the Bekr' as derived from Arabic; Kurdish Amed; Syriac ܐܡܝܕ Āmîḏ; Greek Template:Polytonic Amida; Armenian Ամիդ Amid) is a major city in southeastern Turkey situated on the banks of the River Tigris, and the seat of Diyarbakır Province. In 2000 census, the city had a population of 546,000 and the metropolitan area, of 721,000 in 2005. It is the second-largest city in Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia region, after Gaziantep. Within Turkey, Diyarbakır is famed for its culture, rich folklore and famed watermelons.
Diyarbakır has a large Kurdish population , prompting some Kurds and outside observers to often refer to it as the unofficial 'capital' of a Turkish Kurdistan . This term has no administrative basis and is open to controversy.
According to a November 2006 survey by the Sur Municipality, one of Diyarbakır's metropolitan municipalities, 72 % of the inhabitants of the municipality use Kurdish the most in their daily speech, followed by Turkish, and 69 % is illiterate in their most widely used vernacular .
History
“Amid(a)” was the capital of the Aramean kingdom Bet-Zamani from the 13th century B.C. onwards. “Amid” is the name used in the Syriac sources, which also testifies to the fact that it once was the seat of the Church of the East Patriarch and thus a Assyrian or Syriac stronghold that produced many famous Syriac theologians and Patriarchs; some of them found their final resting place in the St. Mary Church. There are many relics in the Church, such as the bones of the apostle Thomas and St. Jacob of Sarug (d. 521).
The city was called Amida when the region was under the rule of the Roman and then the Byzantine Empires. From 189 BCE to 384 CE, the area to the east and south of present-day Diyarbakır, was ruled by a Kurdish kingdom known as Corduene. It later became a province of the Roman Empire in 66 BCE.
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In 359, Shapur II of Persia captured Amida after a siege of seventy-three days. The Roman soldiers and a large part of the population of the town were massacred by the Persians. The heroic siege is vividly described by Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus who was an eyewitness of the event and survived the massacre by escaping from the town.
The Kurdish dynasty of Marwanid ruled the area of Diyarbakır during the 10th and 11th centuries CE. After the Battle of Manzikert, the city has been under the rule of the Mardin branch of Oghuz Turkish beylik (principality) of Artuklu (circa 1100-1250 in effective terms, although almost a century longer nominally). It has been disputed between the Ilkhanate and Ayyubid dynasties along with its surrounding region for a century after which it was taken over by the rising Turkmen states of Kara Koyunlu (the Black Sheep) first and Ak Koyunlu (the White Sheep). Following the Ottoman ascendancy established by Selim I in the region, the city has become part of the Ottoman Empire since the reign of Sultan Süleyman I's campaign of Irakeyn (the two Iraqs, e.g. Arabian and Persian) in 1534, at the same time as Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.
The Ottoman eyalet of Diyarbekir covered the geography corresponding to Turkey's southeastern provinces today, a rectangular area between the Lake Urmia to Palu and from the southern shores of Lake Van to Cizre and the beginnings of the Syrian desert, although its borders saw some changes over time. In 1864, together with the passage into vilayet system, it became the seat of the Vilayet of Diyarbekir.
Armenian historians at one time hypothesized that Diyarbekir was the site of the ancient Armenian city of Tigranakert, (pronounced Dikranagerd in the Western Armenian dialect) and by the 19th century the Armenian inhabitants were referring to the city as Dikranagerd. Scholarly research has shown that while the ancient Armenian city was in the close vicinity, it in fact is not the same place. The real location of Dikranagerd remains debated, but Armenians who trace their ancestry to Diyarbekir continue to refer to themselves as "Dikranagerdtsi" (native of Dikranagerd.) The "Dikranagerdtsi's" or Armenians of Diyarbekir were noted for having one of the most unusual dialects of Armenian, hard to understand for a speaker of standard Armenian.
In the 19th century, Diyarbakır prison had gained infamy throughout the Ottoman Empire as a site where political prisoners from the enslaved Balkan ethnicities were sent to serve harsh sentences for speaking or fighting for national freedom.
The 20th century was a turbulent one for Diyarbakır. During World War I most of the city's Syriac and Armenian population was driven from the city. After the surrender of the Ottoman Empire, French troops attempted to occupy the city.
Features
The city is surrounded by a dramatic and intact set of black basalt walls extending in a 5.5 km circle around the old city. The dramatic warren of alleyways and old-fashioned tenement blocks which makes up the old city contrast dramatically with the sprawling suburbs of modern apartment blocks and gecekondu slums to the west. Diyarbakır boasts numerous medieval mosques and madrassahs, crowned by the 11th century Ulu Cami ("Great Mosque") constructed by alternating bands of black basalt and limestone. The same patterning was used in the 16th century Deliler Han Madrassah, which is now a hotel, and the 12th century Castle Mosque (Kale Camii).
The Syriac Orthodox church of Our Lady (Syriac ܥܕܬܐ ܕܝܠܕܬ ܐܠܗܐ `Idto d-Yoldat Aloho, Turkish Meryemana kilisesi), was first constructed as a pagan temple in the 1st century BC, and is still in use as a place of worship today.
Diyarbakır also has one of the region's most lively and dramatic street markets.
Always a centre of Kurdish nationalism, Diyarbakır became a stronghold of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) after the beginning of the guerilla war in southeastern Turkey in 1984. During this conflict, the population of the city grew dramatically as villagers from remote areas where fighting was serious left or were forced to leave for the relative security of the city. Diyarbakır was also one of the areas where the Kurdish Hezbollah was most active in the early to mid 1990s, with this group often targeting PKK activists and the city's tiny Christian community of Armenians and Syriacs.
After the PKK's cessation of hostilities, a large degree of normality returned to the city, with the Turkish government declaring a 15 year period of emergency rule over on 30 November, 2002. The local economy is slowly improving and now Diyarbakır is safe to visit.
Sights of interest
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Famous people
- Abdülkadir Aksu: Current Turkish minister of interior affairs (of Kurdish background)
- Abdüssamed Diyarbekrî: Early 16th century Turkish historian based in Egypt.
- Ağa Ceylan: Founder of Ceylan Holding
- Ahmed Arif: Poet
- Aziz Yıldırım: President of Fenerbahçe sports club
- Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı: Poet
- Cemili: 15th century Chaghatay Poet
- Cihan Haspolatlı: Galatasaray SK footballer
- Halis Toprak: Prominent businessman
- Hamit Aytaç: 20th century master-artist of Turkish calligraphy
- Hesenê Metê: Kurdish writer
- Hikmet Çetin: Former Turkish foreign minister, currently NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan
- İzzet Altınmeşe: Folk singer
- Leyla Zana: Kurdish politician
- Lokman Polat: Kurdish writer
- Mehmed Emin Bozarslan: Kurdish writer
- Mehmet Polat: actor
- Orhan Asena: Turkish playwright
- Pir Ibrahim Gulshani Sufi saint and founder of the Gulshani Sufi order.
- Rojen Barnas: Kurdish writer
- Songül Öden: actress
- Süleyman Nazif: Prominent Young Turk
- Ziya Gökalp: Prominent ideologue of Pan-Turkism and Turanism
Gallery
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Diyarbakır's city walls
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The 12th century Ulu Cami dominates the city skyline
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Part of Diyarbakır's old city wall
- Diyarbakır is famous for its oversize watermelons, grown in a limited area (Hevsel Gardens) along the Tigris, using pigeon droppings(koğa) as fertilizer. Diyarbakır is famous for its oversize watermelons, grown in a limited area (Hevsel Gardens) along the Tigris, using pigeon droppings(koğa) as fertilizer.
See also
Notes
- The general view is that the name refers to the Arab Bekr tribe who settled in the region following the Islamic conquest in the 7th century . The Kurdish scholar Professor Mehrdad Izady, of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, suggests an alternative argument in his book The Kurds: A Concise Handbook according to which the name of Amid would have been changed by the Kurdish dynasty the Bagirawand (Bagratids) who would have renamed their capital after themselves.
- Distribution of Kurdish People — GlobalSecurity.org
- Administrative Units of Contemporary Kurdistan
- http://www.bianet.org/2006/11/01_eng/news88150.htm
- http://www.unpo.org/article.php?id=4081
- Diyarbakir Sur Belediyesi: "Sur Municipality Survey of Field Research" cited in the daily newspaper Radikal
- The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7
- Theodor Mommsen History of Rome, The Establishment of the Military Monarchy
References
- Izady, Mehrdad (1992). The Kurds: A Concise Handbook. Taylor and Francis International Publishers. ISBN 0-8448-1727-9.
External links
- Template:Tr icon Governorship of Diyarbakır
- Template:Tr icon Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality
- Template:Tr icon Diyarbakır Chamber of Trade and Industry
- Template:Tr icon Information on Diyarbakır
- Template:Tr icon Diyarbakır news
- Pictures of this city
- Diyarbakır Guide and Photo Album
- Diyarbakır Weather Forecast Information
- Armenian history and presence in Diyarbakir
- Explosion rocks SE Turkish city
| Diyarbakır in Diyarbakır Province of Turkey | ||
|---|---|---|
| Districts |   | |
| Metropolitan municipalities are bolded. | ||