The Third Voyage of Sinbad, by Charles Robinson (1870 – 1937)

[Webshaykh’s Note: This last semester I taught an Honors Seminar on the Arabian Nights. The last assignment asked students to write the 8th voyage of Sindbad, drawing on what happened in earlier voyages. I will post several of these here for your enjoyment. This is the fifth one I am publishing by Becky Cuthbertson The fourth is by Mahmoud Abdelaziz. The third is by Peter Otis. The second is by Marissa Priest. For the first by Taryn Teurfs, click here.]

The Eighth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor
by Becky Cuthbertson

For many years after his seventh journey, my father Sindbad the Sailor stayed at home, resuming his former lifestyle. He was joyous at my birth and that of my sister’s. We lead a life of indulgence and happiness; we had all the luck in the world. Many years later, my father sat at home with his wife, my mother, by the fire; they watched my sister and I play. He thought that it was a shame that my sister and I would never meet our grandfather; my parents fled my grandfather’s great city where men turn into birds and my father swore never to sail again. Smiling at my mother, he announced that we were journeying to see our grandfather; we were sailing next week.

My mother looked at him curiously, “Husband, have you not sworn to never sail the seas again?”

He smiled broadly, “Yes my dear but I shall press my luck one more time; I am not sailing for excitement or adventure but to visit family. Allah should not begrudge me that.”

So the following week we set off, sailing to find the city of my grandfather. A few days out to sea, a storm hit. The ship was rolling, rain down pouring, and wind gusts pitched the ship from side to side, almost capsizing us several times. All of us prayed to the Almighty God to protect us, save us, and deliver us from harm while the crew worked to stabilize the ship. Lightening began to strike off in the distance, but at every crash, a bolt loomed nearer and nearer. The captain bolted down below and brought up with him chalk. Murmuring to himself, he began to draw patterns all along the rails.

“Captain,” my father called, “why are you drawing with chalk all over the ship?” Continue reading The 8th Voyage of Sindbad: #5 →

Sinbad the Sailor by Nadir Quinto (1918-1994), an Italian artist, born in Milan

The Eighth Voyage of Sindbad
bu Mahmoud Abdelaziz

[Webshaykh’s Note: This last semester I taught an Honors Seminar on the Arabian Nights. The last assignment asked students to write the 8th voyage of Sindbad, drawing on what happened in earlier voyages. I will post several of these here for your enjoyment. This is the fourth one I am publishing by Mahmoud Abdelaziz. The third is by Peter Otis. The second is by Marissa Priest. For the first by Taryn Teurfs, click here.]

{Sindbad the Porter said to Sindbad the Sailor, “For God’s sake, pardon me the wrong I did you,” and they continued to enjoy their fellowship and friendship, in all cheer and joy, until there came to them death, the destroyer of delights, sunderer of companies, wrecker of palaces, and builder of tombs (The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad)}.

Angels with black faces descended from the heavens carrying rough haircloth and sat around Sindbad the Sailor in throngs stretching as far as the eye can see. Sindbad’s entire body was paralyzed with fear, including his vocal cords, which he could not get to vibrate in the least in order to make even the slightest utterance. Then the Angel of Death came and sat at his head and said, “Foul soul, come out to the wrath and anger of Allah!” Then his soul divided up in his body and it was dragged out like a skewer is pulled out of wet wool. Sindbad screeched in torment from the excruciating pain of his soul’s inertial desire to remain in his body clinging to this world. Then the Angel took hold of it. When he had grasped it, the other angels did not leave it in his hand even for the twinkling of an eye. They took it and wrapped it in the rough haircloth and a stench came out of it like the worst stench of a corpse on the face of the earth.

Then they took it up and whenever they took it past a company of angels, they asked, “Who is this foul soul?” and the angels with the soul replied, “Sindbad the Sailor, son of Sindbad the revered Imam of Baghdad, father of Sindbad the acclaimed doctor of all the orient—” But before Sindbad’s soul could feel even a modicum of pride, the angels continued, using the worst names by which people used to call him in this world—“slave to his own desires, worshipper of the dunya, the self-indulgent Sindbad the Sailor who had forsaken his family to pursue his own selfish interests.” Upon hearing his own atrocities and misdeeds, Sindbad’s soul began weeping with guilt and regret. The angels brought him to the lowest heaven and asked for the gate to be opened for him. It did not open. As verse forty of chapter seven of the Holy Qur’an, the Divine Guidance for mankind, reads:

To those who reject Our signs and treat them with arrogance,
No opening will there be of the gates of heaven,
Nor will they enter the garden,
Until the camel can pass through the eye of the needle:
Such is Our reward for those in sin.

Continue reading The 8th Voyage of Sindbad: #4 →