Suruç Explained

Type:metro district
Suruç
Coordinates:36.9764°N 38.4269°W
Province:Şanlıurfa
Area Total Km2:744
Population Total:100961
Population As Of:2022
Postal Code:63800
Area Code:0414

Suruç (pronounced as /tr/; Kurdish: Pirsûs|script=Latn;[1] Sruḡ[2]) is a municipality and district of Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey.[3] Its area is 744 km2,[4] and its population is 100,961 (2022).[5] It is on a plain near the Syrian border 46km (29miles) southwest of the city of Urfa.

History

Suruç is situated in a fertile district that is well-suited to growing fruits and grapevines.[6] It is centrally located between the Euphrates on the west and Urfa and Harran on the east; it is about a day's journey from both cities (using pre-industrial transportation).[6] This traffic brought it some degree of commercial prosperity as well.[6] This was also helped by its historical status as a post station between Raqqa and Sumaysat.[6] The town itself was primarily agricultural, and Ibn Jubayr in the 12th century described seeing orchards and irrigation channels within the area of the town itself.[6]

In antiquity the Sumerians built a settlement in the area. The city was a centre of silk-making. They were succeeded by a number of other Mesopotamian civilisations. Constantine the Great, Roman emperor who reigned from 306 to 337, brought the town under the control of the city of Edessa. One of the most famous residents of the district is its 6th-century Syriac bishop and poet-theologian Jacob of Serugh.[7] The Catholic Church hold the bishopric as a titular see of that church,[8] though they had little presence in the area, while the Syriac church holds a separate Bishopric in the town.

Tell-Batnan was visited Emperor Julian on his march from Antioch to the Euphrates in 363.[9] The town surrendered in 639 to Iyad ibn Ghanm during the Muslim conquest of the Levant.[6] In the 900s it came under the Hamdanid dynasty.[6] Later, it was captured by the Byzantines during a period when they were relatively strong in the region.[6] In the late 1090s, a civil war between the Seljuk princes of Damascus and Aleppo enabled the early Artuqid prince Sökmen to establish a principality based at Suruç.[10] This only lasted briefly, though — in 1101, the crusader Baldwin I of Jerusalem captured Suruç.[11] For almost half a century, Suruç then formed part of the crusader County of Edessa.[6] This is alluded to in the works of the contemporary poet al-Hariri: the hero of his maqāmāt, Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī, is a native of Suruç who was driven out by the Christians.[6] Crusader rule in Suruç came to an end in January 1145, when the town was captured by Imad ad-Din Zangi.[6] In the 1300s, Abu'l-Fida described the town as lying in ruins.[6] In 1517 the area was brought into the Ottoman Empire by Selim I.

In late Ottoman times, Suruç was the seat of a kaymakam.[6]

21st century

On 19 October 2014, journalist Serena Shim was killed in Suruç.

On 20 July 2015, at approximately 12:50 GMT, a suicide bombing occurred. It killed 34 people and injured over 100 others outside the Amara Cultural Center.[12]

Ahead of the June 24th anticipated 2018 Turkish elections, four people were killed in Suruç while an AKP candidate toured the city's market.[13] According to pro-Kurdish sources, AKP representative Ibrahim Halil Yıldız went to local shopkeeper Hacı Esvet Şenyaşar where a brawl started.[14]

The Suruç hospital camera were damaged. This events happened days after Erdogan was filmed encouraging identification and intimidation of opposition voters on sites.[15]

Politics

In the local elections on 31 March 2019 Hatice Çevik was elected as Mayor.[16] Kenan Aktaş was appointed Kaymakam, as representative of the state.[17] On the 15 November 2019 Çevik was detained, and the next day she was dismissed and Kenan Aktaş appointed as a trustee.[18]

Composition

There are 95 neighbourhoods in Suruç District:[19]

Demographics

In his seyahatname, Evliya Çelebi mentioned that the plain of Suruj was initially inhabited by Arabs and Turkomans in mid-medieval era, while upon his visit in the 17th century, he observed that the plain was mainly inhabited by Kurds from the Dinayi, Barazi, Kuhbinik, and Jum tribes and Turkomans.[20]

According to Agha Petros, before the Assyrian genocide, Suruç (Serudj) had close to 2,000 Syriac residents.[21]

Today, Suruç is inhabited mostly by ethnic Kurds.

Ecclesiastical history of Batnae

Batnae was important enough in the Roman province of Osroene to become a suffragan bishopric of its capital Edessa's Metropolitan, yet was to fade. The most famous Bishop of the city was Jacob of Serugh, the great Syriac Christian hymnographer born around 451 at Kurtam on the Euphrates and educated at Edessa becoming a priest at Hawra in the Serugh district, as a wandering pastor of several villages. At the age of 67 he was made bishop of Batnan, where he died around 521. Jacob avoided the theological controversies of his age, and is claimed with equal eagerness by Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Christians as one of their own. He wrote several Hymns, 760 homilies and the Syriac translation of Evagrius.[22]

Another Bishop was Abraham of Batnae,[23] a contemporary of Basil of Caesarea.

The bishopric would be nominally restored in two different titular bishoprics, for different Catholic rite-specific particular churches.

Syriac titular see

Established in the early 20th century, under repeatedly changed names: Bathna(-Jarug), Bathnan(Sarugh), Bathnae. Suppressed in 1933, restored under its present name in 1965.

It has had the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank :

Notable people

See also

Sources and external links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî. Avcýkýran. Dr. Adem. Tirsik. 57. 17 December 2019.
  2. Web site: Serugh - Syriaca.org.
  3. https://www.e-icisleri.gov.tr/Anasayfa/MulkiIdariBolumleri.aspx Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi
  4. Web site: İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri. General Directorate of Mapping. 19 September 2023.
  5. Web site: Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2022, Favorite Reports. 19 September 2023. TÜİK. en. XLS.
  6. Book: Plessner . M. . Bosworth . C.E. . Bosworth . C.E. . van Donzel . E. . Heinrichs . W.P. . Lecomte . G. . The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. IX (SAN-SZE) . 1997 . Brill . Leiden . 90-04-10422-4 . 68–9 . 27 January 2023 . SARŪDJ.
  7. Book: Basil Watkins . 19 November 2015 . The Book of Saints: A Comprehensive Biographical Dictionary . 8 . Bloomsbury Publishing . 978-0-567-66415-0 . 1167590790 .
  8. http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/former/t0285.htm Titular Episcopal See of Batnæ
  9. Book: Michael H. Dodgeon . Samuel N. C. Lieu . 1 November 2002 . The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars AD 226-363: A Documentary History . Routledge . 362 . 978-1-134-96113-9 .
  10. Book: Yücel . Yaşar . Sevim . Ali . Türkiye Tarihi Cilt I. AKDTYK Yayınları . Ankara . 1990 . 164.
  11. Web site: Artuklu Haçlı Münasebetleri (1098-1124). Güray Kırpık . Gazi University. March 23, 2015.
  12. Suspected ISIS bombing kills 27 in Turkish border town . The Daily Star . 20 July 2015 . 21 July 2015 . 22 July 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150722212342/http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Jul-20/307427-explosion-hits-southeastern-turkish-town-of-suruc-near-syria-border-some-dead-and-wounded-security.ashx . dead .
  13. News: 2018-06-14 . Turkey election: Four dead in clash as pre-poll tension rises . en-GB . BBC News . 2023-03-06.
  14. What happened in Suruç? http://english.ajansfirat.com/anf-news-features/what-happened-in-suruc-2/
  15. News: Turkey election: Four dead in clash as pre-poll tension rises. BBC News. 15 June 2018.
  16. Web site: Şanlıurfa Suruç Seçim Sonuçları – Suruç Yerel Seçim Sonuçları. Şafak. Yeni. 2019-07-11. Yeni Şafak. tr-TR. 2019-11-07.
  17. Web site: Suruç Kaymakamlığı. www.suruc.gov.tr. 2019-11-07.
  18. Web site: 4 HDP mayors in southeastern Turkey dismissed on terror charges. DailySabah. 16 November 2019. 16 November 2019.
  19. https://www.e-icisleri.gov.tr/Anasayfa/MulkiIdariBolumleri.aspx Mahalle
  20. Book: Çelebi . Evliya . Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi: III . 153–154 . 3 January 2023.
  21. Web site: Kaza of Urfa / ܐܘܪܗܝ - Urhoy / Ուռհա - Urha / Ἔδεσσα - Edessa . 2023-09-16 . Virtual Genocide Memorial . en-US.
  22. http://www.voskrese.info/spl/Xjas-serugh.html St. Jacobus of Sarug, Bishop of Batnæ
  23. Book: NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works . 1968 . CCEL . 978-1-61025-069-6 .
  24. Web site: Titular See of Batnæ, Turkey (Syriac Rite). GCatholic. 2019-11-07.

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