"The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" (original Spanish title: "El acercamiento a Almotásim") is a fantasy short story written in 1935 by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. In his autobiographical essay, Borges wrote about "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim", "it now seems to me to foreshadow and even to set the pattern for those tales that were somehow awaiting me, and upon which my reputation as a storyteller was to be based."
Background
thumb|right|220px|Borges in 1976
Written in 1935, "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" was first published as an essay in Borges's 1936 philosophical essay collection A History of Eternity (Historia de la eternidad). It was labeled a short story when it was reprinted in 1942 in Borges's first short fiction collection, The Garden of Forking Paths (El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan), which became a subsection of Ficciones when that was published in 1944. (Si murgh means "thirty birds".) At times he demonstrates great knowledge of detailed information, but at other times he cannot grasp the most basic concepts. His narrative is uncertain and inconstant. His confusion serves to emphasize the incomprehension of the main character of the fictitious book as he goes on his pilgrimage.