Departures (story)
From Turtledove
Departures is an alternate history short story published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in January, 1989. It was reprinted in Alternate Heroes, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Gregory Benford in 1990 and in the Harry Turtledove collection Departures in 1993. Although it stands on its own, it also provides background to the stories which make up the fix-up novel Agent of Byzantium into which Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire was incorporated.
The Point of Divergence was that Muhammad converted to Christianity and became a monk rather than being the Prophet of Islam. The story deals with an episode in his later life in a monastery in Ir-Ruhaiyeh, Syria.
