The First Flying Man

The story

Once upon a time, there was a man called Ahmet Çelebi who lives in İstanbul during the reign of sultans. The nickname of this man, who dreamt a lot and who was interested in science, was ‘Hezarfen’ which meant ‘really wise’. 
The biggest dream of Hezarfen was to fly. He usually watched the birds and thought that whether humanbeing could fly. He said ‘Birds have wings and people have wisdom. If wisdom wants, it can cope with a couple of wings. If a person wants, he can fly like a bird’. 
Having started with his working, Hezarfen examined, searched and drew drafts. One day, when he was sitting near Galata Tower he told his friend Halil, who was a boatman, that he was going to jump out of the Tower. This bush telegraph made everybody really curious but they didn’t care a lot because they thought that only a mad man could think to fly like a bird. 
This news spread all over the country so quickly that it reached to Sultan Murat who was a serious and an angry man and who forbade the usage of tobacco and alcohol for the sake of his society. He got really angry with this news and he thought that only a sultan could fly and nobody was superior to him. He commanded to his grand vizier to sentence Hezarfen to the dungeons. His grand vizier told the Sultan that people couldn’t fly and Hezarfen would jump out of the Tower and die. Sultan didn’t have to worry about him. 
The day finally arrived. There were celebrations everywhere-it was like a carnival. The whole people and the Sultan were eager to see Hezarfen’s flying. They were really impatient. Jumping out of the Tower and floating over the sea, Hezarfen landed on the square of Üsküdar. The Sultan, who watched him anxiously, sent his men to take Hezarfen to the palace. The Sultan gave Hezarfen a pocket of gold and exiled him to Algeria in order him to continue doing his scientific researches.