Page:History of Mahomet, the great imposter.pdf/13

 This he did, I suppose, in imitation of the Ark, or Holy Chest, among the Jews, in which the authentic copy of their Law was reposited. This chest he left in the keeping of Hopsha, one of his wives; and out of it, after his death, was the Alcoran compiled, in the same manner as Homer's rhapsodies were out of the loose poems of that poet.

Abu Beker, who succeeded the Impostor, first made the collection. For when Mosailema, who in the last year of Mahomet set up for a prophet as well as he, had, in hopes of the same success, in like manner composed an Alcoran, and published it in a book to his followers, Abu Beker thought it necessary to publish Mahomet's also in the same manner, and that not only in opposition to the now Impostor, but also for the better supporting of that which he adhered to; and therefore, having recourse to Haspha's chest, partly out of the papers which he found there, and partly from the memory of those who had learned them by heart, when the Impostor first delivered them unto them, composed the book: for several of those papers being lost, and others so defaced as not to be read, he was forced to take in the assistance of those who pretended to remember what the Impostor had taught them, to make up the whole; and under this pretence, made use of their advice to frame the book, as he thought would best answer his purpose.—When the work was completed, he caused the original to be laid up in the same chest, out of which he had compiled it, which he still continued in thothe [sic] keeping of Hapsha, and then delivered out copies of it among his followers.

But the book had not been long published, when so many various readings were got into the copies, and so many absurdities discovered in the book