Mardin
Mardin is a city and seat of the Artuklu District of Mardin Province in Turkey. It is known for the Artuqid architecture of its old city, and for its strategic location on a rocky hill near the Tigris River.
In February 2000, the Turkish Ministry of Culture placed Mardin and its surrounding cultural landscape on the country’s Tentative List for UNESCO World Heritage nomination.
The city had a population of 129,864 in 2021. The population is a mix of Kurds, Arabs, Mhallami, and Assyrians.
History
Antiquity and etymology
A legal document from the Neo-Assyrian period mentions a road to Mardiānê, showing that the name was already in use at that time. Adad-nirari II campaigned just south of Mardin, and the Arameans offered strong resistance. As Aramean settlement increased in and around the city, the older Akkadian name Mardiānê was dropped and fell out of use, giving rise to the Aramaic name Mardin.The city survived into the Syriac Christian period as the name of Mount Izla on which in the early 4th century stood the monastery of Nisibis, housing seventy monks. In the Roman period, the city itself was known as Marida, from a Syriac word translating to "fortress".
Between and, it was part of Osroene, which was ruled by the Abgarid dynasty.
Medieval history
During the early Muslim conquests, the Byzantine city was captured in 640 by the Muslim commander Iyad ibn Ghanm. In many periods control of the city changed hands frequently between different dynasties. Hamdan ibn Hamdun captured the city in 885 and it remained under intermittent Hamdanid control until the second half of the 10th century, at which point it became contested between the Marwanids and the Uqaylids, with the Marwanids probably holding the upper hand over this area. Marwanid control in the region was ended by the arrival of the Great Seljuks under Malik-Shah I in 1085, which inaugurated an era of Turkish political domination and immigration in the region.From 1103 onwards, Mardin served as the capital of one of the two main branches of the Artuqid dynasty, an Oghuz Turkish family who had earlier fought alongside the Seljuks. Many of Mardin's major historic buildings were constructed under Artuqid control, including several mosques and madrasas, along with other types of Islamic architecture. The lands of the Artukid dynasty fell to the Mongol invasion sometime between 1235 and 1243, but the Artuqids submitted to Mongol khan Hülegü and continued to govern as vassals of the Mongol Empire.
When Timur invaded the region in 1394, the local Artuqid ruler, 'Isā, submitted to Timurid suzerainty, but the region continued to be disputed between different powers. The last Artuqid ruler, al-Salih, finally yielded the city to Qara Yusuf, the leader of Qara Qoyunlu, in 1408–9, and left for Mosul. The city continued to be contested between the Qara Qoyunlu and their rivals, the Timurid-allied Aq Qoyunlu. In 1451 the Qara Qoyunlu besieged the city after it had been captured by the Aq Qoyunlu, but failed to retake the stronghold. Aq Qoyunlu rule thus continued in the city for the rest of the 15th century. Coins were struck here under the rule of Uzun Hasan and his son, Ya'qub. After Ya'qub, Aq Qoyunlu rule began to fragment, but Mardin remained the center of an independent Aq Qoyunlu principality for many years, while the Safavids in the east grew stronger. In 1507, the Safavid ruler Ismail I succeeded in capturing the city and the castle, expelling the local Aq Qoyunlu ruler.
During the medieval period, the town retained significant Syriac and Armenian populations and became the centre for episcopal sees of Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Church of the East, Syriac Catholic, churches, as well as a stronghold of the Syriac Orthodox Church, whose patriarchal see was headquartered in the nearby Saffron Monastery from 1034 to 1924. A Venetian merchant who visited the town in 1507 wrote that there were still more Christian Armenians and Jews in the city than Muslims.
Ottoman Empire
After the Ottoman victory against their bitter rivals, the Safavids, at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, the balance of power in the region changed. The Safavid commander in the region, Ustajlu, was killed in the battle with the Ottomans and was replaced by his brother, Kara Khan. In 1515 Mardin briefly yielded to the Ottomans, but the castle remained under Safavid control and the Ottomans were forced to leave after a few days, leaving Kara Khan to re-occupy it. The following year, the Ottoman commander, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, defeated Kara Khan and Safavid control in the region crumbled. The Ottomans besieged Mardin again, which resisted under the command of Kara Khan's brother, Sulayman Khan. After the Battle of Marj Dabiq in August 1516, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha returned with reinforcements from Syria and finally forced the city's surrender in late 1516 or early 1517. After this, Mardin was administered by a governor directly appointed under the Ottoman Sultan's authority.The city experienced a relatively tranquil period under Ottoman rule, without any significant conflicts or plights. European travelers who visited the city in the late 18th and early 19th centuries gave highly variable estimates of the population, but generally indicate that Muslims were the largest group, with sizeable Armenian and Syriac communities and other minorities, while Arabic and Kurdish were the predominant languages.
The period of peace was finally halted when the Ottoman Empire came into conflict with the Khedivate of Egypt. During this time the city came under the rule of insurgents associated with the Kurdish Milli clan. In 1835, the Milli tribe was subdued by the military troops of the Wāli of Diyarbekir Eyalet, Reşid Mehmed Pasha. During the siege the city's Great Mosque was blown up. Between 1847 and 1865 the city's population suffered from a notable cholera epidemic, with the exact number of fatalities not known. During World War I Mardin was one of the sites of the Syriac and Armenian genocides. On the eve of World War I, Mardin was home to over 12,000 Syriacs and over 7,500 Armenians. During the course of the war, many were sent to the Ras al-'Ayn Camps, though some managed to escape to the Sinjar Mountain with help from local Chechens. Kurds and Arabs of Mardin typically refer to these events as "fırman", while the Syriac Christians call it "Seyfo". After the Armistice of Mudros Mardin was one of the Turkish cities that was not occupied by the troops of the Allied Powers.
Modern history
In 1923, with the founding of the Republic of Turkey, Mardin was made the administrative capital of a province named after it. Many Syriac Christian survivors of the violence, later on, left Mardin for nearby Qamishli in the 1940s after their conscription in the Turkish Army became compulsory. As the Turkish Government subdued the Kurdish Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925, the first and the fourteenth cavalry division were stationed in Mardin.Mardin industrialized significantly during the 1990s, when inhabitants moved in greater numbers to the modern parts of the city that were developing on lower ground at the foot of the old city hill. Through a passed law in 2012 Mardin became a metropolitan municipality, which took office after the Turkish local elections in 2014. The city has a significant Arab population.
Geography
The city is located near the Syrian border and is the center of Mardin province. The old city is built mostly on the southern slope of a long hill topped by a rocky ridge. The slope descends towards the Mesopotamian plain. The top of the ridge is occupied by the city's historic citadel. The newer parts of the city are located on lower ground to the northwest and in the surrounding area and feature modern amenities and institutions. Mardin Airport is located to the southwest, from the old town.Neighbourhoods
The city is divided into the following neighborhoods: 13. Mart, Cumhuriyet, Çabuk, Diyarbakırkapı, Eminettin, Ensar, Gül, Hamzabey, İstasyon, Kayacan, Kotek, Latifiye, Medrese, Necmettin, Nur, Ofis, Saraçoğlu, Savurkapı, Şar, Şehidiye, Teker, Yalım, Ulucami, Yenıkapı and Yenişehir.Climate
Mardin has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate with very hot, dry summers and chilly, wet, and occasionally snowy winters. Mardin is very sunny, with over 3000 hours of sun per year. While temperatures in summer can easily reach, because of its continental nature, wintry weather is still somewhat common between the months of December and March, and it usually snows for a week or two. The highest recorded temperature is on 31 July 2000, and the coldest recorded was on 22 February 1985.Demographics
The English traveler Mark Sykes recorded Mardin as a city inhabited by Arabs, Armenians, and Jacobites in the early 20th century. 12,609 Orthodox Syriacs and 7,692 Armenians lived in the town, all of them Arabic-speaking. During the late Ottoman genocides, most of the Christians were killed, no matter their ethnicity.| Turkish | Arabic | Kurdish | Circassian | Armenian | Unknown or other language |
| 5,820 | 25,698 | 15,640 | 15 | 5 | 309 |
| Muslim | Christian | Jewish | Unknown or other religion |
| 41,675 | 1,617 | 2 | 4,513 |
Today, the city is predominantly Kurdish and Arab, with significant communities of Syriac Christians. Official census data does not record the number and proportion of citizens from different ethnicities and religions, but a 2013 study estimated that around 49% of the population identified as Arab and around 49% identified as Kurdish. The city can be divided into three parts: the Old Mardin which is predominantly populated by Arabs with some Kurdish and Syriac families, the Slums which are mainly inhabited by Kurds who have escaped the Kurdish Turkish conflict in the 1980-1990s, and the New City '' where the wealthiest people live. The civil servants are mostly Turks, which constitute a minority in the city.