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Sinbad the Sailor inspires today’s Geo Quiz. The stories of Sinbad show up in the book “One Thousand and One Nights” or “Arabian Nights.”

The tales are set in the Middle East and South Asia. From his home in Baghdad, Sinbad recounts his 7 fantastic voyages on the high seas.

The question is…which sea? Or ocean?

It’s said that Sinbad the Sailor draws on ancient epics, Homer’s Odyssey for example…. As well as Arab and Persian folklore. But the stories also depict real experiences of early sailors on one particular ocean.

This ocean is the third largest. Its closest neighbor is the Atlantic …

So which ocean did Sinbad sail?

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He shows up in the classic Arabian Nights or One Thousand And One Nights. It’s said that Sinbad’s stories draw on real accounts of early sailors on the Indian Ocean….so the Indian Ocean is our answer.

Here’s a quick sample from Sinbad’s First Voyage:

“After about seven days sailing we saw a small sunny island . We dropped anchor and I made my way alone in a wooden tub of a small boat to the island to collect herbs. As I was unsuspectingly plucking the best ones, the captain suddenly shouted to me from deck as loudly as he could: “Sindbad, your life is in danger! Return to the ship as fast as you can! This is not an island, but a colossal fish!” At that very moment the monster sprang up out of the water. It thundered and hissed; the waves crashed – I was thrown up together with the wooden tub and sent flying into the billows.”

Sinbad is just one of a cast of characters…Aladdin, Ali Baba and the forty thieves, to name a few.
Their collected stories make Arabian Nights one of the all time favorite collections of folk tales. But a new edition just published in Egypt has rankled a conservative group called “Lawyers without shackles”.

They’re calling for Arabian Nights to be banned. They say the book is obscene and amounts to a “call to vice and sin.” Nonsense! says Egyptian author Alla Al Aswany.

“The Arabian Nights is one of the classics. There are some erotic scenes with some description of the human body. It’s been tolerated for centuries. Now they have discovered this is impolite book after about 10 centuries, it’s a bit late!”

The Egyptian Writers’ Union says the lawyers group is behaving “like the Taliban”. The debate doesn’t seem to be hurting sales. In fact, the latest print edition in Egypt quickly sold out…

So for now, Sinbad continues to tell his tales.