Eolam
29-10-2005, 23:55
The parallels are indeed compelling:
It has been suggested by some historians and mentioned in a recent National Geographic article on Zheng He that Sindbad the Sailor (also spelled "Sinbad", from Arabic السندباد—As-Sindibad) and the collection of travel-romances which make up the Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor found in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) were influenced heavily by the culmulative tales of many seafarers that had followed, traded and worked in various support ships as part of the armada of Chinese Ming Imperial Treasure Fleets. This belief is supported in part by the similarities in Sindbad's name and the various iterations of Zheng He in Arabic and Mandarin (Traditional: 鄭和; Simplified: 郑和; pinyin: Zhèng Hé; Wade-Giles: Cheng Ho; Birth name: 马三宝; pinyin: Mă Sānbăo; Arabic name: Hajji Mahmud Shams) along with the similarities in the number (seven) and general locations of voyages between Sindbad and Zheng He.
Biographic information (several accounts, it should be noted, go so far as to accord the Esteemed Admiral not only 'glaring eyes and teeth as white and well-shaped as shells,' but also a waist five feet in circumference, 'and a voice as loud as a huge bell'):
Zheng He was a Muslim eunuch who served as a close confidant of the Yongle Emperor of China (reigned 1403–1424), the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Originally named Ma Sanbao (馬 三保), he came from Yunnan Province. He belonged to the Semur or Semu caste who practiced Islam. He was the sixth generation descendant of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a famous Yuan governor of the Yunnan Province from Bukhara in modern day Uzbekistan. His family name "Ma" came from Shams al-Din's fifth son Masuh. Both his father Mir Tekin and grandfather Charameddin had travelled on pilgrimage to Mecca, and no doubt he heard them recounting tales of travels to far away lands. After the Ming army conquered Yunnan, he was taken captive, and castrated, thus becoming a eunuch. The name Zheng He was given by the emperor. He studied at Nanjing Taixue (The Imperial Central College). His missions showed impressive demonstrations of organizational capability and technological might, but did not lead to significant trade, since Zheng He was an admiral and an official, not a merchant. There were also rumors that he was at least seven feet tall.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He
It has been suggested by some historians and mentioned in a recent National Geographic article on Zheng He that Sindbad the Sailor (also spelled "Sinbad", from Arabic السندباد—As-Sindibad) and the collection of travel-romances which make up the Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor found in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) were influenced heavily by the culmulative tales of many seafarers that had followed, traded and worked in various support ships as part of the armada of Chinese Ming Imperial Treasure Fleets. This belief is supported in part by the similarities in Sindbad's name and the various iterations of Zheng He in Arabic and Mandarin (Traditional: 鄭和; Simplified: 郑和; pinyin: Zhèng Hé; Wade-Giles: Cheng Ho; Birth name: 马三宝; pinyin: Mă Sānbăo; Arabic name: Hajji Mahmud Shams) along with the similarities in the number (seven) and general locations of voyages between Sindbad and Zheng He.
Biographic information (several accounts, it should be noted, go so far as to accord the Esteemed Admiral not only 'glaring eyes and teeth as white and well-shaped as shells,' but also a waist five feet in circumference, 'and a voice as loud as a huge bell'):
Zheng He was a Muslim eunuch who served as a close confidant of the Yongle Emperor of China (reigned 1403–1424), the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Originally named Ma Sanbao (馬 三保), he came from Yunnan Province. He belonged to the Semur or Semu caste who practiced Islam. He was the sixth generation descendant of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a famous Yuan governor of the Yunnan Province from Bukhara in modern day Uzbekistan. His family name "Ma" came from Shams al-Din's fifth son Masuh. Both his father Mir Tekin and grandfather Charameddin had travelled on pilgrimage to Mecca, and no doubt he heard them recounting tales of travels to far away lands. After the Ming army conquered Yunnan, he was taken captive, and castrated, thus becoming a eunuch. The name Zheng He was given by the emperor. He studied at Nanjing Taixue (The Imperial Central College). His missions showed impressive demonstrations of organizational capability and technological might, but did not lead to significant trade, since Zheng He was an admiral and an official, not a merchant. There were also rumors that he was at least seven feet tall.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He