Suruç

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Suruç is a rural district of Şanlıurfa Province of Turkey, on a plain near the Syrian border 46km south-west of the city of Şanlıurfa.

The name Suruç may come from Serug the great grandfather of the prophet Abraham. Alternatively the name Suruç is be the Arabic word for horse-breeder as this is a traditional horse-breeding area.

In antiquity the Sumerians built a settlement in the area when they moved here to Mesopotamia from Central Asia. The city was a centre of silk-making. They were succeeded by a number of other Mesopotamian civilisations.

In 35AD the Roman Emperor Constantine brought the town under the control of the city of Edessa (modern day Şanlıurfa). It was surrendered to the Abbasid Arabs in 639. It was later controlled by Crusaders (in 1090), and Moslems again (in 1127). The city was then destroyed in the Mongol invasions and in 1517 the area was brought into the Ottoman Empire by Selim I.

Suruç was occupied in 1918 by British and in 1919 by French troops, but was freed by a local resistance struggle.

Today Suruç is an agricultural district famous for pomegranates.