This curious time-travel novella is a gracefully told lesson about accepting fate-or, as better suits this medieval Arabian setting, the will of Allah. A Baghdad merchant discovers an alchemical device that can send a traveler back in time 20 years. Despite the alchemist's warning that "what is made cannot be unmade, " and three illustrative tales about others' attempts to alter the past, the merchant is determined to return to an earlier time to save his long-dead wife.
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