Episode 4 · Adventure, Sea, Survival, Folklore
Sinbad
And the Mysterious Island
The story
A sandstorm takes Sinbad's ship at sea. The crew wakes on an island that is not an island — and at the heart of it, a compass that should not be touched.
Sinbad and his four companions — Samia, Khalil, Marwan, and Yusuf — sail into a sandstorm that has no business being on the open ocean. They wake on a shore unmarked on any chart, with no memory of how they came to land.
A giant guards the beach. While Khalil, Marwan, and Yusuf hold the shore, Sinbad and Samia push inland — first encountering the great Roc bird circling above, then through a forest of avatar-trees that seem to watch them, and finally into the ruins of a Monkey Palace at the centre of it all.
Inside is a compass — beautiful, ancient, and humming. When Sinbad presses his thumb to its centre, the island wakes up. It was never an island. The compass was the heart of the great whale that had been sleeping beneath them all along.
Key moments
- A sandstorm at sea — sand where there should only be water
- Waking on the impossible island with no memory of landfall
- The giant on the shore
- Sinbad and Samia meet the Roc bird overhead
- Pushing inland through the avatar forest
- The compass at the heart of the Monkey Palace
- Sinbad presses the compass — the island opens its eye, and the whale begins to rise
Characters
- Sinbad · Young sea captain
- Samia · Sinbad's right hand
- Khalil · Crew of Sinbad's ship
- Marwan · Crew of Sinbad's ship
- Yusuf · Crew of Sinbad's ship
- Ship Captain · Captain of the vessel that carries Sinbad's crew
- The Giant · Guardian of the shore
- The Roc · The great bird of the island
The tale behind the episode
Sinbad the Sailor's seven voyages are among the oldest adventure stories in Arabic, set in the age of the Abbasid sea trade from Basra to India and beyond. The 1001 series draws on their most famous images: the island that is really a whale, the giant, the Roc, the Valley of Diamonds, and the magnetic mountain that pulls the nails from ships.
Read more: The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor and The Roc.
