3823. Sinbad

Sinbad the Sailor (also spelled Sindbad; Arabic السندباد البحري as-Sindibād al-Baḥri; Persian سندباد Sandbād) is a fictional sailor from Basrah, living during the Abbasid Caliphate – the hero of a story-cycle of Middle Eastern origin. During his voyages throughout the seas east of Africa and south of Asia, he has fantastic adventures going to magical places, meeting monsters, and encountering supernatural phenomena. Sindbad is a Persian name ("Lord of the Sindh River") hinting at a Persian origin. The oldest texts of the cycle are however in Arabic, and no ancient or medieval Persian version has survived. The story as we have it is specifically set during the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate and particularly highlights the reign of Harun al-Rashid. The name Sindbad indicates the name of the Indus River (Sindhu). The Sindhi Sailors, who became famous due to their skills in navigation, geography and languages may very well have inspired the stories of Sindbad the Sailor. Sindh is actually mentioned in the story of the Third Voyage: ("And thence we fared on to the land of Sind, where also we bought and sold"). A variation of the name, Smbat, can also be found in Armenia, as well as the version Lempad of his father's name Lambad. Incidents in some stories are also clearly influenced by ancient literary sources (including Homer's Odyssey and Vishnu Sarma's Panchatantra), and Arab, Indian and Persian folklore and literature. The collection is tale 120 in Volume 6 of Sir Richard Burton's 1885 translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) (despite criticisms regarding the translation and the commentary of the Burton edition, it remains the most extensive collection of Arabian Nights tales in English and is hence often used for reference purposes). While Burton and other Western translators have grouped the Sinbad stories within the tales of Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights, its origin appears to have been quite independent from that story cycle and modern translations by Arab scholars often do not include the stories of Sinbad or several other of the Arabian Nights that have become familiar to Western audiences. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is a 2003 American animated swashbuckling fantasy aventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation, using traditional 2D animation with some 3D. This is the last DreamWorks animated film to use traditional animation, due to DreamWorks' decision that the American public appeared to be more interested in computer animation. It covers the story of Sinbad (voiced by Brad Pitt), a pirate who travels the sea to recover the lost Book of Peace from Eris (voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer) in order to save his childhood friend, Prince Proteus (voiced by Joseph Fiennes), from accepting Sinbad's death sentence.