M³ The Triumph of Monotheism

            By the time the Arabian Nights are being penned, Rome has already converted to Christianity (and fallen). Christianity spread throughout the rest of Europe and Russia. Only a little behind, Islam had spread throughout northern Africa and western Asia. Aside from India and China, most of what we refer to as the civilized Ancient world had abandoned polytheism in favor of monotheism.

M³ Our Hero Is Better than Your Hero

            We know that Odysseus is a strong leader, a great warrior, and very clever, which are all very admirable traits, especially in Greek culture. However, he’s also arrogant, destructive, intolerant, and did I mention arrogant?

            These traits make it difficult for him to be a hero to Muslim Arabs at the time when Sinbad’s story started circulating. These traits are simply incompatible with the values of the culture. Couple this with the fact that Odysseus is Greek (aka a foreigner) and it’s clear that he’s got to go and make way for Sinbad.

M³ A Hero of Their Own

            So, Sinbad’s 3^rd is a reimagining of book 9 of The Odyssey, but the question remains, why? Why not just rewrite Odysseus as the hero they need him to be? The first part of the answer is easy. They wanted their own hero, someone from their part of the world. Greek heroes are fine and good, but they only speak to Greek culture. Sinbad is a hero of the Arab world, representing that culture. It’s only natural that they would want to tell stories of their heroes instead of relating what the Greeks did.

            This is not a new idea, either. The Romans readily assimilated Greek mythology with their conquest, making Heracles into Hercules and Odysseus into Ulysses, but they also had their own hero Aeneas who also copied and piggy-backed off of The Odyssey (at some point I may even go through the Aeneid).

            Part of the reason for Sinbad is to give the Arab world their own cultural hero in the same vein of Odysseus. Many cultures feature some type of wandering heroes. Sinbad’s 3^rd Voyage copies more closely than others, but it’s still valid to establish Sinbad as the hero of his culture.

            The culture also dictated why it couldn’t be Odysseus, but more on that later.

M³ Sinbad: Odyssey Redux

            With Odysseus’s adventure with Polyphemus out of the way, we’re wide open for something really interesting. We’ll segue into Sinbad the Sailor, who is famous for having his own adventures. We’ll skip his first and second voyages, going straight for the third. Why? Simple, we know this story. If you don’t have your own copy of the 1 Nights, you can read Sinbad’s third here.

            Sinbad’s third adventure finds him restless, as usual, and soon shipwrecked, also as usual, on an island. This island is home to an evil giant that will eat the crew. It is up to Sinbad to come up with a cunning plan to blind the giant using to spears after heating them—

            Wait! Come back! No, really, this is the story, and, yes, I know it’s a direct plagiarism of The Odyssey. If this were modern day and Homer were alive, he would be suing . . . well, we don’t know who wrote Sinbad—they weren’t even part of the original Arabian Nights—but Homer would sue somebody.