Saturday, October 26, 2024

The God Culture: 100 Lies About the Philippines: Lie #28: Sinbad the Sailor Sailed to the Philippines

Welcome back to 100 Lies The God Culture teaches about the Philippines. Today's lie concerns Timothy Jay Schwab's claim that Sinbad the Sailor sailed to the Philippines.

In his video series Did the Ancient Greeks Sail Around Africa Tim relates the story of how Sinbad sailed to the Philippines and found sandalwood.

Did The Ancient Greeks Sail Around Africa? To Ophir, Philippines? Solomon's Gold Series 16B

43:58 But one last one and this is from Persia. It's not actually circumnavigating Africa but more the continuation of the journey to Ophir and Tarshish  This is the famous story of Sinbad the Sailor from Arabian Nights. He left Persia and set sail for the Indies. We all know where that is. That's Malaysia Indonesia and the Philippines. It includes the Philippines in their perspective and even if you go and look it up it will tell you today that the Philippines is part of the Indies, the East Indies, the islands in the East but this is really going to be a wow when you see it. Again, this is about 800 BC and he'll sail from the Persian Gulf, yes, not from even the Red Sea, and no he doesn't circumnavigate in Africa but he goes to this land and we'll see. They write, "We continued at sea for some time," they were lost in the Indies somewhere but where were they? Well, the answer becomes very obvious here. "Touched several islands and at last landed at that of Salabat where Sandalwood is obtained." 

Oh, wait a minute I think I just heard bell sound for our Filipino viewers? Yeah, you read that right, Salabat. That is a Tagalog word for their famous ginger tea Salabat. Wow! Now we know why most Filipinos drink it though not because it's good although it is. No, no, no. They drink it because it's widely believed to improve a person's singing voice. Ah, indeed. Just teasing but anyway. "And this is where Sandalwood is obtained." Oh that's also just so happens to be the Philippine national tree the narra which is red or yellow Sandalwood. Wow! Oh, Sinbad the famous sailor was in the Philippines, likely. Who would have known?

In this video segment Tim says it is "likely" that Sinbad the Sailor sailed to the Philippines but in a comment he claims it is definite history. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE3jc4oLbXw&lc=UgxrEqBIZtP1KfJfQ5d4AaABAg.9xDfHSfLuP89xEpdZkWKz_

You make an unsupported assumption you cannot. The East Indies in name never required them to be vassal states of a nation of India. They were the islands East of it. History has no such requirement. Even the Persian sailor Sinbad in about 700 AD, records the Philippines as part of the East Indies as did many. Again, not as a vassal state of India.

Is Timothy Jay Schwab out of his mind? Does he not know that Sinbad the Sailor is a fictional character from the 1001 Arabian Nights? 

Sinbad the Sailor is a fictional mariner and the hero of a story-cycle. He is described as hailing from Baghdad during the early Abbasid Caliphate (8th and 9th centuries A.D.). In the course of seven voyages throughout the seas east of Africa and south of Asia, he has fantastic adventures in magical realms, encountering monsters and witnessing supernatural phenomena.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinbad_the_Sailor

Sinbad does not exist! And yet Tim refers to his story for support that the Greeks were circumnavigating Africa to the Philippines for a thousand years from the time of King Solomon to the time of Jesus Christ. It's complete and utter nonsense. 

Not only is Sinbad the Sailor fictitious but Tim is lying about where Sinbad sailed. In the first part of the clip where Tim says Sinbad sailed to the Indies he is citing from Sinbad's first voyage. 

The part about landing on Salabat where sandalwood can be found is from Sinbad's third voyage. 

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081836466&seq=138&q1=Salabat

Why cobble these two very different voyages together? What is the point of lying about the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor? 

Tim makes a big to-do about the island of Salabat noting it is a Tagalog word for ginger tea and sandalwood is the national tree of the Philippines. But the story mentions an island named Salabat not a tea. In a different translation it is Salahat. Sandalwood is not exclusive to the Philippines but is also found in India and in other islands in Southeast Asia such as Sumba and Timor.

The sandalwood is indigenous to the tropical belt of peninsular India, the Malay Archipelago and northern Australia. The main distribution is in the drier tropical regions of India and the Indonesian islands of Timor and Sumba

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandalwood

In fact, one editor of this story notes that Salabat is possibly Timor.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t2988ds9j&seq=52&q1=salabat

But where exactly is Salabat or Salahat? Ultimately it is irrelevant because the entire story is fictitious. 

Now, lest Tim cavil and say that Sinbad the Sailor is based on a real person that does not matter. Tim did not cite that real person who's name is Soleiman Siraf. He even wrote a book about his travels titled "An Account of India and China."

https://archive.org/details/ancientaccountso00sira/page/n3/mode/2up

But Tim did not cite this book in this video nor does he mention it elsewhere. The fact is he claims the fictional Sinbad sailed to the Philippines as a matter of historical record. It's not true in the slightest. It is simply one more lie about the Philippines from Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture. 

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