Sinbad the Sailor

Sinbad and crew on their fifth voyage

Sinbad the Sailor (/ˈsɪnbæd/; Arabic: السندباد البحري‎, romanized: as-Sindibādu al-Baḥriyy; or Sindbad) is the hero in a story-cycle of Middle Eastern origin.

In the course of seven voyages throughout the seas east of Africa and south of Asia, he has fantastic adventures in magical realms, encountering monsters and witnessing supernatural phenomena.

History and Origin

The tales of Sinbad are a relatively late addition to the One Thousand and One Nights – they do not feature in the earliest 14th-century manuscript, and they appear as an independent cycle in 17th- and 18th-century collections. Traceable influences include the Homeric epics (long familiar in the Arabic-speaking world, having been translated into that language as early as the 8th century A.D., at the court of the Caliph al-Mahdi), Pseudo-Callisthenes's "Life of Alexander" from the late 3rd/early 4th century A.D. via the 9th century "Book of Animals" of al-Jahiz, and, even earlier, in the ancient Egyptian "Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor". Arab exploration to the Andaman Islands in the Indian ocean may have inspired some narratives. According to Britannica,

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The savages in canoes who torture Sindbad and his shipmates on the seventh voyage may have been from the Andaman Islands.

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Mythological Creatures Encountered

• Aspidochelone
• Giant Snake
• Roc
• Cyclops
• Cannibals