According to another local legend, God sent a swarm of mosquitos to torment Nimrod, and a mosquito flew up Nimrod’s nose and started chewing on his brain. Tens of thousands of people come here every year to visit a cave where Abraham may have been born and a fishpond marking the site of the pyre where he was almost burned up by Nimrod, except that God transformed the fire into water and the coals into fish. Urfa is in southeastern Anatolia, about thirty miles north of the Syrian border. Directly outside the window, Vegas-style lights stretching across the main drag spelled, in two-foot-high letters, “ WELCOME TO THE CITY OF PROPHETS.” In my room, a sign indicating the direction of prayer was posted over the nonalcoholic minibar. A door in the lobby led to a men-only steam bath. ![]() My hotel had clearly been designed for pilgrims. ![]() Late one October evening, I flew into Urfa, the city believed by Turkish Muslims to be the Ur of the Chaldeans, the birthplace of the prophet Abraham.
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