CONTINUED SOUTHERN TURKEY

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To the western Turks, like my students, it is a city of ill repute, the wild lands of Kurdish insurgency. To resident Kurds, it's Urfa, a teeming locale near the Syrian Desert. To Muslims, it's a place of pilgrimage, the birthplace of Abraham and the home of Job, Joseph, and other prophets. To archeologists, it's one of the primary archeological sites of Mesopotamia, boasting 11,000 years of inhabited history. To Roman scholars, it's Edessa, named by Alexander the Great. To the infrequent Western tourists, it's a historical and cultural wonderland, whose inaccessibility is rivaled only by its exotic grandeur.

A literal and figurative melting pot, the multiethnic city's temperatures will rise to 120 degrees in summer. Sanliurfa is a city of tradition, a fact made eminently clear to us by the blood that covered the sidewalk the next morning.

Kurban Bayram, or "sacrifice holiday," commemorates how Isaac was nearly sacrificed by Abraham through the widespread slaughter of sheep, goats and cows, the skins and meat of which are donated to the poor. In Istanbul, the slaughtering is done largely by professionals behind closed doors; in Urfa, it's done on the street by any man who has livestock and a knife. Wandering the streets of Sanliurfa during Kurban Bayram was like stepping into a Biblical epic, complete with sanguineous set design by Mel Gibson.

We began our day by walking from Hotel Ugur to Mevlid Halil mosque, the reputed birthplace of the prophet Abraham and a major stop for Turkish and Kurdish hajjis. A 15-minute walk brought us to a golden Syrian-style medrese, which bordered a large pool brimming with impossibly fat fish. This was the pool of Abraham, transformed by God from a burning field after King Nemrut set fire to it in an attempt to kill his idol-smashing child nemesis. Nemrut's citadel, later reconstructed by the Romans, loomed on a hill in the background.

Beside the waters, happy hajjis wandered, adorned in colorful robes, glittery headscarves—on women and men—and traditional tattoos and jewelry. Despite the religious significance of the setting, the atmosphere resembled a Muslim Six Flags. Gleeful children fed the sacred carp with sacred fish food, families munched on "icli kofte," or fried mutton balls, and went on boat rides; residents greeted us with smiles and broken English as they wished us, "Happy Bayram," and told us where we could get a goat.

Turkey is a uniformly friendly country, but there is something special about Urfa, where Westerners are rare and residents, particularly Kurds, are eager to practice their traditional hospitality.

In Turkey, you are always someone's "special friend," often with a special discount price. In Urfa, it was easier to believe. Even in the holiest places, non-Muslims are welcome.

At Mevlid Halil mosque, I entered the cave of Abraham with other female tourists who smiled and attempted to tell me the Koranic story once we emerged from the cave—only women are allowed in the cave, in contrast to every other Muslim restriction I saw regarding gender. These were pious and tolerant Muslims, whose shared beliefs overrode the divisions between Kurds, Arabs, Turks, and even Americans.

After wandering the pool, we climbed to the citadel, which was marked by Corinthian columns and a broad view of the sun-baked homes of Urfa. Tourists clamored over the rocks, many stopping to pose for pictures with my husband, whose L.L. Bean jacket and red beard seemed like the height of exoticism. We were the latest in a long line of foreigners to visit Urfa, including Hittites, Assyrians, Byzantines, Persians, and Romans, and therefore, viewed with interest, but not surprise—it was obvious to Urfa's proud residents why we had visited their city.

We spent that afternoon at Eyup Peygamber, which allegedly contains the cave where Job endured his torments. Accessible by a $0.30 USD minibus ride in which we saw the poverty of Urfa dissolve into absolute privation, Eyup Peygamber featured an underground rock cave and the well where Job fruitlessly searched for a cure.

Koranic and Biblical relics are displayed in Turkey like tangible proof. At Istanbul's Topkapi Palace you can peruse Muhammed's teeth, Joseph's turban and John the Baptist's arm. Was Job's cave really located near a parking lot on the outskirts of Urfa? You'd be a fool—or an infidel—to doubt it.

Southeastern Turkey's religious sites reminded me of its food. Starting at Adana, in the central Mediterranean area, we encountered a series of kebabs bearing the names of their localities, such as Adana kebab, Urfa kebab, Mardin kebab, and Antep kebab. They were all spicy, delicious and essentially identical—don't tell that to the locals—much like the region's preponderance of prophets in residence. Yet, even the most skeptical visitor cannot help but be moved by the locals' insistence of the historical veracity of these sites and the faith and love the sites invoke in their followers.

The next morning, my husband and I took a 45-minute minibus ride to Harran, an ancient city where residents used to live in houses shaped like giant beehives.

Today, they keep livestock there—although, during Kurban Bayram, the livestock do not last long—and live in trailer-like modern homes. The sparsely populated farm town sprawls to the Syrian border, and my husband and I eagerly accepted the offer of Basar, a savvy local Arab, to show us around for $5 USD.

Harran's documented history extends as far back as 2000 B.C. Locals claim Abraham met his wife Sarah here, and the town boasts the first Islamic university in the world, which is now reduced to a field of rubble inhabited by wild goats. As we passed an ancient castle on the way to the site, we became aware we were being followed by a long line of children.

"Where are you from?" a little girl asked me in Turkish. I replied that I was American.

"Ohhh," she said.

"Bomba!" she added.

It became a chorus from all of the children: "Bomba, bomba, bomba!"

Throughout our long stay in Turkey, I had experienced no anti-Americanism, beyond the "Bush-bad, America-good" variety. With the border of Iraq so close, I froze. Was warfare now so intertwined with the American identity?

Basar laughed. "Bomba is an Arab word for candy," he explained. "Like bon-bon. You are an American. Of course, you have money and candy."

He was correct on the latter point, at least; I handed some chocolates to the girls, who turned out to be Basar's nieces. Later, we drank tea at his home, where 15 people lived with a cow that had avoided the Kurban Bayram fate by virtue of her pregnancy. Everyone was so friendly, it became almost possible to overlook the giant posters of Hafez Assad (president of Syria from 1971 to 2000) that served as the home's primary decor.

During my year in Turkey, Americans always asked what Turks thought of Islamic fundamentalism and Iraq. They never realized that the nation's primary topics of conversation were soccer and "Turkiye Popstar." The same is true even in impoverished Mesopotamia, where thousands of years of ethnic rancor are visible only as pieces of history. It is difficult to imagine that, for its residents, warfare looms not just in bordering nations but also in Turkey's own ethnic conflicts.

This is the paradox of Urfa, an outrageously beautiful city marked by extreme poverty, where the local delicacy is raw meat and the Koran looms large and literal. Its people remain friendly and down-to-earth as if to offset the religious monumentality of their surroundings. Even during Kurban Bayram, it was not uncommon to be greeted with a jovial, "Happy holiday!" by a man stabbing a quivering goat. Residents of Urfa seem to drift between ancient and modern eras with a disarming nonchalance, and it is impossible for a visitor not to do so as well.

A week later, I was back in the classroom, much to the amazement of my students who remained skeptical of my tales of beautiful scenery and friendly Kurds.

"You were lucky, Sarah," Gokce said reprovingly.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess I was."

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