Page:History of Mahomet, that grand impostor.pdf/21

 and cut him off; but he having received timely intelligence of it, fled from thence with all his disciples; and notwithstanding several parties were sent out to pursue and apprehend him, he escaped them by hiding himself some considerable time in a cave, and at last got safe to Medina, where he was received by his friends with loud acclamations of joy. He lodged for some time at first in the house of one of the chief of his proselytes in that place; but he built himself a house very soon after, where he usually resided as long as he lived, and erected a mosque adjoining to it for the public exercise of his religion.

Mahomet, having now fixed himself at Medina, gave his daughter Fatima in marriage to his cousin Ali, the son of his deceased uncle. She being the only child then living of six, which he had by his first wife; and indeed the only one that survived him, notwithstanding the many wives that he took; and from her alone all those derive their pedegree, which pretend are of the family of Mahomet. Her father used to reckon her among the most perfect of women, and of which sort he held that there were never more than four from the beginning of the world; and those, says Mahomet, were Asiah, the wife of Pharaoh, the Virgin Mary, Cadigna his own wife, and his daughter Fatima.

The impostor being now master of a very considerable town, and having got together a body of troops, made no scruple to pull off the mask, and instead of using arguments any longer to bring the people over to his opinion, he now made it death for