Ahlat
| Ahlat | ||||
|
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| Basic data | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Province (il) : | Bitlis | |||
| Coordinates : | 38 ° 45 ′ N , 42 ° 30 ′ E | |||
| Residents : | 25,385 (2018) | |||
| Telephone code : | (+90) 434 | |||
| Postal code : | 13 400 | |||
| License plate : | 13 | |||
| Structure and administration (as of 2019) | ||||
| Structure : | 10 malls | |||
| Mayor : | Abdulalim Mümtaz Çoban ( AKP ) | |||
| Website: | ||||
| Ahlat district | ||||
| Residents : | 40,806 (2018) | |||
| Surface: | 1,153 km² | |||
| Population density : | 35 inhabitants per km² | |||
| Kaymakam : | Mustafa Akgül | |||
| Website (Kaymakam): | ||||
Ahlat is the capital of the district of the same name in the north of the Turkish province of Bitlis and is located on the western bank of Lake Van . The city lies on the road between the Süphan Dağı and the Nemrut on European route 99 and is home to around 62 percent of the district's population. In addition to today's Ahlat, there is a medieval Ahlat that has been in ruins since the 16th century.
Surname
Today's name appears in many variations. The Urartians called the city Halads , the Medes and Persians Ahlat , the Turks Hilat , the Armenians Şaleat , the Kurds Xelat , the Assyrians Kelath , the Byzantines Chliat and the Arabs Achlat . The Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi once called Ahlat the pearl in Anatolia . The original meaning of the word ahlat is not known. But there is a popular legend about how the name originated: After an attack by the Medes , the city fell and its king Lat was seriously injured. When his daughter saw him, she cried out in horror, "Ah! Lat, Ah! Lat". These screams penetrated as far as the Medes, who from then on called the city Ahlat.
district
The third largest district of the Bitlis province borders internally in the northeast with the Adilcevaz district and in the south with the Güroymak and Tatvan districts. Cross-provincial borders can be found in the north (the Malazgirt and Bulanık districts of the Muş province ) and in the west ( Korkut district of the same province). Lake Nazik Gölü (approx. 45 square kilometers) in the north-west of the district is close to the border with the province of Muş in the north.
The district already existed when Turkey was founded in 1923 and, in addition to the district town, consists of the small town ( Belediye ) Ovakışla (4,174 inhabitants) and 26 villages ( Köy ) with an average population of 433 inhabitants. Three of these villages have more than a thousand inhabitants: Güzelsu (1,896), Taşharman (1,031) and Yeniköprü (1,004 pop .).
history
Ahlat was part of the Armenian kingdom for a while. After the Muslim Arabs invaded Eastern Anatolia in the 7th century, Ahlat was ruled for the next four centuries by treaty of Arab governors and autonomous Armenian princes. In 983 Ahlat was conquered by the Kurdish Marwanids . After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, in which the Seljuks defeated the Byzantines , Sultan Alp Arslan took Ahlat. The Seljuks was followed in 1100 by the dynasty of the Shah-Armens that in 1207 by the Ayyubid I. al-Adil was defeated. The Ayyubid Ahlat has been attacked twice by the Georgians . In 1230, after six months of siege, the city fell to the Khorezm Shah Jalal ad-Din , who was defeated shortly afterwards by a coalition of Ayyubids and Rum Seljuks .
At the end of the 13th century, Ahlat became part of the Mongolian Ilchanate . In 1246 the city was largely destroyed in a severe earthquake. Ahlat was conquered by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I. In 1548 the Iranian Shah Tahmasp I conquered the city and devastated it. He lost Ahlat to Selim's successor, Suleyman I , who built a citadel outside the city on the lake shore. A new city was built around the citadel, which was completed in 1554/55. Until 1847, when the Ottoman Empire eliminated all independent princes, Ahlat was under the rule of Kurdish vassals. During the First World War the city was fought over between Ottomans and Russians; it has belonged to Turkey since 1923.
Culture and buildings
Ahlat can be roughly divided into three parts. First there is the medieval city with a citadel, which was destroyed by the Safavid Tahmasp I in 1548 , the Ottoman fortress on the lake shore and the large cemetery south of the old city.
The medieval citadel, also known as Eski Ahlat or Harab Şehir (Crumbled City), was located on a small plain now known as Tahtı Suleyman. Only a few remains of the wall can be seen from here. The medieval city lay south and east of the citadel. The Ottoman Ahlat had a large rectangular fortress as its core. The fortress was about 200 by 400 meters and had thick walls and three gates. The inner courtyard of the fortress was divided into three quarters, with a citadel from the 16th century with the Ottoman garrison in the southern quarter. An inscription on the citadel indicates that Sultan Suleyman I was the builder. The remaining quarters were inhabited by the citizens. There were two mosques in the Ottoman Ahlat, the Iskender Pasha Mosque which was built between 1564 and 1570 and the Qazi Mahmud Mosque from 1584.
Ahlat is best known for its cemeteries. There are six large and other small cemeteries with graves from the 13th to the 16th century spread across the city. These cover a long period from the time of the Seljuks and the Ilkhan to the various Turkmen local dynasties and the Ottomans. The graves can be divided into three categories: tombstones / grave steles, grave towers and tumulus-like graves (Turkish: Akıtlar). Most of the tombstones date from the Seljuk period and some are three meters high and decorated with floral and geometric shapes. Among the tombstones there is also one in the shape of a ram from 1401, which is now in the courtyard of a middle school. The tombstones in the Ottoman cemetery by the fortress are imitations of the other stones. The grave towers ( Gonbad ) are mostly two-story and have cylindrical walls and conical roofs. The oldest preserved Gonbad belongs to Sheikh Necmeddin from 1222–23 (619 AH ). This gonbad differs from the other, later gonbads, with a pyramidal roof and a rectangular shape. The city's cemeteries are on Turkey's list of proposals for inclusion in UNESCO World Heritage (Ref. 1401 ).
literature
- Franz Taeschner : A kh lāṭ , in: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Türkiye Nüfusu İl ilçe Mahalle Köy Nüfusları , accessed on May 25, 2019
Web links
- The history of the city ( Memento of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Turkish)
- Ahlat . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica (English, including references)
- Ahlat Mezar Abideleri in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Turkish)
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