I made this article so long because "there is no POV but ad-Din; the story is presented by Jalal". ;) Actually its third person narration from Jalal ad-Din POV but I couldn't resist the jape. Also, the note at the end occurs at the beginning of the story and indicates the POD.
I should add that I got the collection "Departures" out of the library on Saturday and this was the first story I happened to read. I will be doing articles from this and the Two Georges for the next little while I think. ML4E 02:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I've been shirking some on "Counting Up, Counting Down". Not my favorite HT collection.
Quickly, do you think the Caliph of this story would still be this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mahdi? TR 22:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
And while we're at it, would the Pope still be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Stephen_III? TR 22:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The wiki article says Al-Mahdi ruled from 775 to 785 while the story takes place in 769 so its unlikely he was the Caliph. His father Al-Mansur reigned from 754 until 775. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mansur). However, page 82 of the paperback says the Caliph was named Abd ar-Rahman. The wiki has a prince of this name being groomed by his grandfather, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, to become Caliph but a revolt in 749 overthrew him making ad-Din an exile in Iberia. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_ar-Rahman_I) This revolt installed As-Saffah as Caliph and was succeeded by his brother Al-Mansur in 754 when As-Saffah died of smallpox. I Have just skimmed portions of the wiki articles so I don't know what lead to the 749 revolt but given Turtledove's PhD is about the Byzantine Empire, he should have a good idea about this time period and is likely to have reasons for the change.
With respect to the Pope, the name Constantine is given. Given the wiki article on Steven III, it looks like the anti-pope won the dispute in this altered time line. Without knowing the details, it seems to me that the early fall of Constantinople could reasonably lead to such a change.
Both names were throw-away lines so I didn't intend to include them in turtlewiki articles. Should I? ML4E 00:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Eh, might as well. Just say "Dude was Pope. He sent people to the Bulgars." Call him a minor character and move on (unless he's historical). We've put enough few throw-away-line characters to fill a category.
As for the Caliph, I was thinking in BC terms for some stupid reason when I looked that up. My bad. TR 00:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)