"The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short story by American writer

Alfred Bester Alfred Bester (December 18, 1913 – September 30, 1987) was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books. He is best remembered for his science fiction, inclu ...

. It was first published in ''

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher a ...

'' in October 1958. It has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and German, and has been reprinted nine times, most recently in ''

Virtual Unrealities ''Virtual Unrealities'' is a collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Alfred Bester with an introduction by Robert Silverberg. Contents

* "Disappearing Act" * "Oddy and Id" * "Star Light, Star Bright (short story), Star ...

'' (1997).

Synopsis

When

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly amb ...

Henry Hassel discovers his wife in the midst of committing adultery, he decides that simple murder would be intellectually unsatisfying; he therefore builds a

time machine Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...

with the intention of killing his wife's grandparents in their youth, so that she will never have existed. When he returns to the present, however, nothing has changed. In a desperate attempt to alter history, Hassel begins killing historical figures of greater and greater significance (eventually including

Mohammed Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monoth ...

, thus the story's title), only to learn that the nature of time is very different from what he had thought.

Critical reception

"Mohammed" was shortlisted for the 1959

Hugo Award for Best Short Story The Hugo Award for Best Short Story is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The short story award is available for works of fiction of ...

, and ''

The New York Review of Science Fiction ''The New York Review of Science Fiction'' is a monthly literary magazine of science fiction that was established in 1988. It includes works of science fiction criticism, essays, and in-depth critical reviews of new works of fiction and scholarship ...

'' describes it as a "final development" to the theme of time travel in Bester's work.

Connie Willis Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis (born December 31, 1945), commonly known as Connie Willis, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major SF awards than ...

described it as "very funny" and one of her favorite time-travel stories (while misattributing it to Harry Harrison), and

Jo Walton Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh and Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel ''Among Others'', which won the Hugo Award, Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and ''Tooth and Claw (novel), Tooth ...

categorized it as "excellent" and "thought provoking", and specified that it is "(v)ery clever, very funny, and quite chilling when you think about it."Five Short Stories with Useless Time Travel
by

, at

TOR.com ''Tor.com'' is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction. From 20 ...

, posted July 05, 2010, retrieved February 7, 2011

References

External links

*
"The Men Who Murdered Mohammed"
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Men Who Murdered Mohammed, The Science fiction short stories Short stories by Alfred Bester Short fiction about time travel 1958 short stories Works originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Cultural depictions of Muhammad