Urfa and the Fish

In Urfa, after shrugging off my sedative induced irritability, I strolled through the colourful bazaar. Noticing that the hole in an embarrasing region of my old green chinos had grown unmanageable, I scanned the lanes for some trousers. Given the abundance of bread Turkish restaurants pile on at every opportunity, my waistline hadn't shrunk as I'd thought it would with all my wandering and modest consumption of beer. What Turkish culture considers 'XL' just won't do. Eventually some graciously loose fıtting blue slacks appeared, however. So that was lucky, and I could sit down in peace, unworried I'd unnerve any onlookers.

Urfa, or Sanlıurfa (Glorıous Urfa) as its been known since 1984, is famous for being the site of Job's patient exasperation with God and the birthplace of 'Father' Abraham. Well, the Iraqis say he was born ın Ur south of Baghdad but it would be mean-spirited to quibble. Of course, some think this ancient desert wanderer is an irrelevance today, even if he existed, which they might question, along with the rest of the Genesis account. Yet, even if Abraham is only a phantom, a potent phantom he has proved to be - with historical consequences rivalling the impact of the contemporaries of Agamemnon and Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.

Without Abraham, no Judaism, no Christianity, no Islam. 'Oh, what a joy!, a world without the desert God of death and destruction!', I hear simmering on the lips of the bold. Yet, whatever your paradigm and purview, his significance remains. Regarding Islam, he is an interesting point of departure between this religion and its grandfather, Judaism, if Christianity be considered its Father. While both religions accord Abraham special sıgnificance, Islam especially honours his first son Ishmael, the reputed ancestor of the Arabs (naturally), while Judaism places special honour on the head of his younger half-brother Isaac, the father of Jacob, later called 'Israel', the ancestor of the Jewish people (again, naturally) and possibly, depending on your taste for hidden history, the lost ten tribes of Israel, wherever and whoever they might be.

I say that, but then it's a little intriguing, to the likes of me anyway, how Islam honours so many of the Isaac- descended prophets written about in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures (including Jesus), and then suddenly switches in the seventh century AD to consider a descendant of Ishmael, Muhammad, to be the last and greatest of all prophets. Why the switch, I'm wondering? And why, if Ishmael is so special, didn't God send prophets to the earth, or even only to the Arabs, through Ishmael instead? Maybe Joshua in Pammakale was right after all. Maybe Muslims still do, or at least should, view the Jews as God's chosen people, despite their irksome habit of clinging to a pre-Islamic creed.

Hmmmmmmmmm.....answers on a postcard please- to my head. I think I need to get me a an Imam to talk to.

In Urfa there is a lake filled with a wild conflagration of tusslıng fish. They tussle even more furiously when you feed them the fish food you can buy. Are they the best fed fish ın Mesopotamıa? No doubt. They are supposed to symbolise the burning coals set alight by Nimrod to burn Abraham on. The water in which they swim, or try to swim- as they don't get much room given their number - symbolises the fire that was set to do the burning. Thankfully history was saved from an absence of monotheism. Abraham was hurled into the air and landed in a bed of roses. Phew!

I'm not sure If I'm coming across all smarmy and scoffy. It's not my intentıon. I guess I just like having fun with religion and don't see why it should be a creature of fear, or docile unprobing thought patterns. Presumably the creator the Unıverse has liberty enough to be a jolly and joyful fellow?

After walking around the citadel and to the Otogar (bus stop) to research buses to Harran, I had the most fabulous meal yet consumed in Asia Minor by this humble stomach, and retired to bed.