This Kurdish gentleman was sitting quietly in a corner of Diyarbakir’s “Great Mosque” or Ulu Camii.

The mosque is said to resemble the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus but the comparison is a bit unfair.  While the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque consists of a football-field of glistening white marble, its cousin in Diyarbakir is constructed from the same grim black basalt stone as the city walls.  The architects appear to have done their best by alternating the black stone with yellow limestone but it’s hard to completely shake the look of a blackened workhouse.  All the same, there are some lovely Seljuk carvings and the old Roman columns blend in nicely.

On the day I visited the sun was making a welcome appearence after several days of gray skies.  The little boys in their blue pageboy uniforms wanted their photos taken before heading inside for their daily prayers. Old men in hats, jackets and baggy trousers sat all around the perimeter chatting with their friends, nodding off or losing themselves in thought.