Page:History of Mahomet, that grand impostor.pdf/19

 in his hand, brought him back again to Mecca; and all this in the space of one tenth part of a night, as Mahomet himself affirms.

When he came to relate this extraordinary fiction to the people next morning, it was received, as it deserved, with general contempt and derision; and, many of his disciples, as ashamed of him, as an abominable liar, left him on this occasion. Others would have followed their example, had not one of his principal followers put a stop to the defection, by his avouching and professing his belief of the whole story: for which extraordinary service, he acquired the title of Affudic, or the Just. And this fiction is now as firmly believed by the Mahometans as we believe the gospel; only, it seems it was once disputed, whether this was a vision or a real journey; but their doctors have at length, after some deputation, resolved it to be a real journey.

However ridiculous this story might at first appear, Mahomet in the end gained great advantage from it; for after it came once to be believed, all his sayings passed for sacred truths brought down from heaven, and every word that dropped from him, and every action relating to his religion, was carefully observed. These being reduced to writing after his death, make up these volumes of traditions which the Mahometans call the Sonna, and which among them is the same as the Oral Law was among the Jews. And as the Jews had their books in which their Oral Law was recited, explained and digested under several heads and chapters by many different authorities; so are there great numbers of books among the Maho-