Few could watch mysterious ‘light incident’ due to COVID-19

SİİRT / Anadolu Agency

Limited guests could watch this year’s “Light incident,” which happens on every equinox for just five minutes after dawn in a historical shrine in the Tillo district of the eastern province of Siirt, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Every year, in the autumnal equinox on Sept. 23 and the vernal equinox on March 21, the sun shines on the graveyard of the shrine with the help of a reflecting system made 256 years ago.

“When the Islamic scholar İsmail Fakirullah died in 1734, one of his followers, İbrahim Hakkı, remarked, ‘What shall I do with a sun that does not shine on my mentor?’ and designed this light-reflecting system in Fakirullah’s shrine that only works twice a year,” said the locals telling the story of the system to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

This autumn, thanks to the system, the sun shined on the graveside of İsmail Fakirullah once again, said Siirt Governor Resul Özdemir, who was one of the guests watching the “light incident.”

İdham Aydın, the mayor of Tillo, also expressed the subliminal message of the incident. “I think İbrahim Hakkı wanted to say, ‘God can light even the darkest point’ to us,” said the mayor.

Every equinox, the sunlight reverberates on the mirror on the tower of the shrine, then goes inside a small window and enlightens only the graveside of Fakirullah’s shrine.