"Turkey is a country rich with legends of saints and heroes. One of my favorite stories is the origin of the shadow puppets Hacivat and Karagöz.
These figures, famous throughout the country, represent the common man, with all his fallibilities, in a comical yet educational way. However, many people do not know that they were real people with an interesting history.
When Bursa was still the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Orhan Gazi (1323-59) decided to have a new mosque built. Traditionally, before a mosque is erected a hamam (bathhouse) is built first so the workers can bathe every day before beginning work. However, for some reason the hamam was omitted from the plans of this new mosque. This worried local Sufi Sheikh Kusteri, who did not want to directly confront the Sultan to tell him of the oversight. Instead, the sheikh sent two of his pupils, Hacivat and Karagöz, to the construction site with orders to disrupt the work. He promised them that by following his orders their names would live forever. The two men began going to the site every day and entertained the other workers with jokes and pranks. As a result, work fell far behind schedule. The sultan heard of the delays and came to find out what was causing the problem. When he saw the two workers playing around rather than working he became enraged and had them executed immediately. But the other workers missed the entertaining pair so much that work still did not progress as planned.
Several nights after the execution of Hacivat and Karagöz, Sheikh Kusteri was invited to dinner with the sultan, who was unaware of the connection between the pranksters and the sheikh. After dinner, the sheikh asked if he could give a little puppet show to entertain the sultan. He then pulled out two puppets made from camel skin in the likeness of the two jokesters. Using the puppets, he proceeded to tell the entire story. The sultan was embarrassed and ashamed of his oversight and overreaction and ordered that the hamam be built before any other work took place. Moreover, the sheikh was indeed right that the names of Hacivat and Karagöz would live on".

Today`s Zaman, KATHY HAMILTON, 26.02.2007