Sinbad the Sailor

by Phil Masters

  ‘Whatever I can do to repay your generosity, I will do,’ I replied.

  ‘I am an old man,’ he said, ‘a widower with no sons. But I do have a beautiful daughter, who will inherit my fortune on my death. Would you marry her and take over my business? I feel that you would make a fitting heir.’

  Once again, I was struck dumb by his generosity, but when I recovered myself, I told him that I would obey his wishes. And so he summoned a notary, and I was married to his daughter that day. She proved beautiful indeed, and I became the old merchant’s business partner. A little later, he died a peaceful death, and I took his place.

  As I learned more about the city, I discovered that the native men had a very strange secret. Once every month, their whole appearance changed, and they grew wings and flew off into the upper air, leaving their women and children behind. I thought this marvellous and curious, and so on that day when the men’s appearances began to change, I approached one of them with whom I had become friendly, and begged him to carry me with him. At first he was unwilling, but I pressed him for the favour, and eventually he assented. I did not tell anyone in my household, for fear of worrying them, but went with the man, holding firmly to his body as he grasped my clothes, grew wings, and took flight. We rose higher and higher until we approached the very vault of heaven, where I heard the angels themselves singing. ‘Glory and praise be to Allah!’ I cried out.

  At that very moment, a burst of fire erupted from heaven above, almost consuming all of us. With a scream of rage, the winged men plummeted downwards. The one who was carrying me swooped down to a high mountaintop, cast me off with a dark curse, and flew away.

  Alone in this high wilderness, I despaired of finding a way home, and cursed my own folly in yet again seeking out adventures. After a few moments, however, I saw two figures approaching, young men of uncanny comeliness, each carrying a staff of red gold. I approached and saluted them, and they replied courteously.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  ‘We are servants of Almighty Allah,’ they replied, and then one of them handed me another golden staff and indicated a path along a mountain ridge, saying that it led downwards. Then they walked away, and quickly vanished from sight.

  I set out that way, wondering who they were, when suddenly a great serpent reared up from beside the ridge, and I saw that it was devouring a man, whom it had swallowed up to his navel. ‘Help me!’ he cried ‘Whoever saves me, Allah shall save him!’

  I stepped forward and struck the serpent on the head with my staff, at which it hissed, spat the man out, and slithered away. The man stood up and thanked me, saying that he would be my companion on the mountain. But then I saw a group of men approaching, and when I looked around, I could not see the man whom I had just saved. The group proved to be the men of the city, among them my supposed friend.

  ‘Why did you abandon me?’ I asked as politely as I could. ‘That was unworthy.’

  ‘You almost killed all of us,’ he replied. ‘You mentioned the name of Him who you worship. It is not safe to do so among us.’

  I apologized, saying that I did not know this, and promised not to repeat my error. And so, grudgingly, he grasped me and picked me up again.

  My wife was overjoyed to see me, for I had been gone for some time. I told her of my adventure, and she sighed.

  ‘You have now seen the true nature of these people,’ she said. ‘I did not think that you would believe me if I told you myself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘They are brothers to devils,’ she said. ‘They cannot even speak the name of Allah. It is unsafe for a Muslim to associate with them.’

  ‘But your father was a good Muslim, and so are you,’ I said.

  ‘My parents were foreigners in this land,’ she explained. ‘They settled here, but they never followed the ways of this city. Even so, it is not a good place to be. My advice would be to depart this land.’

  I saw the wisdom of these words, and decided to return to Baghdad. We sold all we could of my business and property, then found a ship in the harbour that was sailing westwards, took passage, and went aboard with all that we could carry. After a voyage of many days and nights, we reached Basrah, and I took passage up river for the last time.

  In the City of Peace, I placed my goods in storage and returned to my family home, where I greeted my kinsmen and introduced them to my wife. And then I gave thanks that my destiny was to come home safely once again, and settled down, truly resolved to keep my vow to travel no more.

  And then, Sinbad the Sailor was done telling tales. Sinbad the Porter again asked forgiveness for the words he had spoken seven days before, but Sinbad the Sailor told him that he was already forgiven, and gave him a last gift of a hundred dinars.

  But even after that, Sinbad the Porter and Sinbad the Sailor became good friends. They met frequently in good fellowship, for neither wished ever to leave the City of Peace, save in stories. And so that was where both remained, all the days of their lives.

  AN ALTERNATIVE SEVENTH VOYAGE

  There is more than one early manuscript version of the Sinbad stories, and in some of these, the story of Sinbad’s last voyage is significantly different. In fact, this version of the cycle (as found, for example, in Sir Richard Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights), is where the island which Sinbad visits on his sixth voyage is specifically identified as ‘Serendib’ (or ‘Sarandib’), an old name for what is today called Sri Lanka (previously Ceylon); in other versions, Sinbad never finds out its name. Likewise, this version is the source of the list of specific gifts which the king of Serendib sends to Haroun al-Rashid. This is significant because of what follows.

  The Elephants’ Graveyard. The alternative version of Sinbad’s seventh voyage involves a vast stroke of luck and some very forgiving elephants.

  After returning from that voyage, Sinbad firmly resolves to give up travelling, but Haroun, after receiving those gifts, decides to send a letter and gifts of his own in return, and orders Sinbad to take them. Sinbad protests that he has sworn never to go to sea again; Haroun sympathizes, but Sinbad is the best person for the job, and a caliph’s orders are not to be ignored.

  So Sinbad sails to Serendib, delivers the gifts (including, according to various translations, a superb horse with a bejewelled saddle, silken garments, an agate vase, and furnishings including a table which belonged to King Solomon), and sets sail homewards. However, on the way, he is captured by pirates and sold into slavery.

  His master gives him the task of killing elephants for their ivory, by hiding in a tree with a bow and arrows. This works well for a couple of months, but then the elephants evidently realize what is going on and identify the tree in which Sinbad is hiding, and one of them uproots it. Fortunately, though, instead of killing Sinbad, it picks him up and takes him deep into the forest, to a hill covered in the bones of elephants which went there to die (an example of the legendary ‘elephants’ graveyard’). This of course can provide a vast supply of ivory; apparently, the elephants understand that this will save them from being hunted.

  As the previous method was in fact (unknown to Sinbad) costing the lives of numerous slaves every year, Sinbad’s master frees him in gratitude for his good fortune, and sends him home with a gift of valuable ivory. Sinbad travels back to Baghdad by way of India, and reports to the caliph.

  THE ARABIAN NIGHTS WORLD

  Like most legends, the Sinbad stories say at least as much about the time and place where they were told as about the places they describe. However, there was genuine continuity between the two; culturally, those stories may be a product of the later medieval Islamic world, but that world remembered earlier ages, spoke the same language, followed the same religion, and looked back to those earlier times with nostalgia and respect.

  The Nights and the Sinbad cycle may have originated in Persia or even India, but the tales took something like their modern form in the coffee-houses and bazaars of the Arab world. The Nights p
robably arrived through Iraq in the 8th–10th centuries; the oldest surviving versions (without the Sinbad stories) come from medieval Syria, but the city most often associated with the telling of these tales is perhaps Cairo, in Egypt. Copies of the collection were circulating there by the 11th or 12th century, and European scholars acquired Arabic manuscripts and print editions there in the 18th and 19th centuries. So these are medieval stories seen through an Ottoman-period filter and probably influenced by European attempts to pin down shifting, unstable sources.

  Haroun al-Rashid and the Abbasid Period

  The Nights stories are set in many times and places, often just in a vague fantasy realm, but many of them, including the Sinbad stories, are supposedly set in the time of the Abbasid Caliph Haroun al-Rashid. The reason for this tradition is that Haroun’s reign (786–809 AD) was seen as a time of greatness, when wonderful things were happening in the Muslim world, particularly among the Arabs.

  The Caliphate

  To start with, the Abbasid dynasty claimed the title of caliph. This means more than ‘emperor’; a caliph claims to be the ‘Successor to the Prophet Mohammed’, a religious as well as a secular leader. It is generally implied that the caliph should have authority over most or all of the Muslim world, although this wasn’t always the case in practice, especially when there were multiple claimants.

  The Caliph Haroun al-Rashid, legendary ruler of Baghdad and most of the rest of the Muslim world in Sinbad’s supposed time. Haroun is mentioned in the story of Sinbad’s sixth voyage, and makes a brief appearance in the alternative version of his seventh. (Bridgeman Art Library)

  After Mohammed died in 632 AD, there was disagreement over who should lead his followers, with the title of caliph being created for this leader. Although there was always dispute about the rules for selecting the caliph, most early claimants were related to the prophet by blood in some way. After four caliphs selected from among Mohammed’s close followers and family, the title fell to the Umayyad family, distant cousins of the prophet, who ruled for nearly a century until deposed (at least in the Middle East) by the Abbasids in 750 AD.

  The Abbasid Rise and Haroun

  The Abbasid family, descendants of one of Mohammed’s uncles, built an efficient administration, a luxurious court, and the city of Baghdad. However, they were unable to control the vast conquests accumulated in the early years of Islamic expansion, and handed whole provinces off to semi-independent governors, even permitting some distant provinces to break away entirely.

  Haroun was one of the greatest Abbasids, and Arabs have long tended to mythologize him. He fought successful wars against the Byzantines, made alliance with China, and may have exchanged ambassadors with Europe’s Charlemagne. His vizier for much of his reign was Yahya, a member of the Persian family of Barmakids; Yahya’s son Ja’far seems to have been Haroun’s personal friend. However, in 803 Haroun fell out spectacularly with the Barmakids, and had Ja’far executed and the rest of the family arrested. Ja’far too appears in some Arabian Nights tales, usually as Haroun’s loyal right-hand man, while modern Hollywood ‘Arabian fantasy’ movies usually seem to feature a duplicitous vizier or evil wizard named ‘Jafar’.

  Decline

  After Haroun, Abbasid power went into decline; there were revolts during his reign and a war between his sons after his death. By the 11th century, the Abbasids were unable to stop the Seljuq Turks from taking over the Abbasid heartlands in Iraq, although the dynasty later managed something of a comeback and survived in Baghdad until 1258. In that year, the Abbasid Caliph al-Musta’sim was killed by the Mongols, and the ‘Islamic Golden Age’ came to an end.

  Later rulers also claimed the title of caliph; the last major claimants were the Ottoman Turks, who lasted until the beginning of the 20th century. But the Abbasids were widely respected in retrospect, and Haroun became an important historical figure.

  Medieval Baghdad

  Haroun’s capital, Baghdad, was founded on the River Tigris in 762 AD as the Abbasid capital, moving the centre of power away from the previous capital of Damascus and closer to the homelands of their Persian civil service (Baghdad is just 19 miles from the old Persian capital of Ctesiphon). The city had access to good water supplies as well as trade routes, and was carefully planned by the Caliph Mansur, grandfather of Haroun.

  The core of the city was designed on a circular plan about a mile in diameter, enclosing parks and gardens as well as residential, government, and commercial buildings, with the city mosque at the centre. However, the bazaars were deliberately placed outside the walls of the Round City; Mansur didn’t want spies or assassins sneaking in among crowds of shoppers.

  Haroun also made the city a centre of learning. Baghdad became a fabulously wealthy and impressive city during his reign, known officially as ‘the City of Peace’ or ‘the Abode of Peace’, and poetically as ‘the Bride of the World’.

  Medieval Baghdad, at least as imagined by many lovers of the Arabian Nights.

  Basrah

  Basrah is essentially the primary sea port for Iraq (although it doesn’t have deep enough water for large modern ships), and hence for Baghdad. Founded in the early days of Islamic power, it lies 280 miles as the crow flies down-river from the capital, where the Tigris and the Euphrates join to form the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which then flows down to the sea. Like Baghdad, it gained a reputation as an intellectual centre under the Abbasids, but most of all, it has always been a port.

  Seafarers on the Indian Ocean

  Sailors had been operating in the Indian Ocean region since long before recorded history. The ancient Egyptians sent fleets down the Red Sea, and there is evidence of sea trade between Bronze Age Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Early sailors would have hugged the coasts, but it is thought that Greek sailors in the Hellenistic period worked out how to use the summer monsoon winds to sail direct from Arabia and the Horn of Africa to India, returning with the winter monsoon. By the time of the Roman Empire, traders were travelling from Roman-controlled territory to Ceylon, the Ganges Delta, the Malay Peninsula, and even China.

  Political instability sometimes disrupted such trade, but the rise of Islam at the western end of the trade routes and the T’ang dynasty in China brought centuries of stability, and Persian and then Arab sailors not only reached China, but settled there. There was, apparently, a healthy Muslim community near the city of Guangzhou (Canton) by the 8th century, though unfortunately its members were not above dubious behaviour, looting warehouses during a period of political chaos in 758 AD and being banned from the city for some years as a result. But they were allowed back in eventually, and Guangzhou was known in Arabia as an important if distant trade city. Sinbad’s seventh tale, in which he visits the ‘City of China’, is blown to the ‘furthest ocean of the world’, and ends up in a remote city whose citizens follow strange and uncanny customs, but which still has Muslim residents, recalls this era of difficult but enduring trade between Iraq and coastal China.

  But China was a long way away, and many of the stops on the way – India, Sri Lanka, Malaya – offered profits in their own right. Equally, Arab traders ventured down the east coast of Africa as far as Madagascar. The China trade probably went into decline after 878 AD, when Chinese rebels massacred the foreign merchant community in Guangzhou; both the T’ang dynasty and the Abbasids were fading by then. Still, Indian Ocean trade continued for centuries. However, it was never entirely safe; even in the early 20th century, it is said, one in ten voyages across the Indian Ocean did not reach its destination. And Sinbad’s stories reflect more than relatively routine journeys from Arabia to India; they look like fantasy versions of expeditions to Sumatra or China, one-off ventures to make a captain’s reputation and a merchant’s fortune.

  In any case, by the 14th century, the Chinese end of the route seems to have been controlled by Chinese ships. Then, in 1498, the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama arrived in East Africa and hired an Arab navigator to get him to India. From then on, the big, sophisti
cated new European ships arrived in the region in ever-growing numbers, and long-range Arab navigation went into long-term decline.

  But it never entirely vanished, even if Arab sailors largely reverted to being coast-hugging local traders. Trade fleets were sailing out of Arabia more or less in living memory, and Arab dhows still operate in the region, although motors largely replaced sails in the second half of the 20th century.

  Ships and Sailors

  The dhow is certainly the type of ship traditionally associated with Arab sailing and the Sinbad stories. Despite the widespread introduction of engines, it is usually defined as a wooden sailing vessel with one or two masts; the size can vary a fair amount, and there is a large range of sub-types.

  A modern Arab sailor aboard a dhow. The vessels on which Sinbad travelled would have been similar – but without the metal fixtures or the modern cargo. (© Marion Kaplan / Alamy)

  Although it is thought of as an Arab vessel, the dhow may have partly evolved in India, and a lot of Arab dhows were certainly built there, or constructed of Indian wood, usually teak or coconut; Arabia is notoriously short of trees. Wood used in shipbuilding in Oman could come from the Malabar coast, nearly 1,300 miles away. Coconut trees were also important because these ships were built without nails; the planks were sewn together with coconut-fibre cords. Iron nails only came into use in the 15th century. Sewn ships may not be as robust in general, but they may have been more flexible and able to withstand being run ashore, and they were almost certainly significantly cheaper to build.