George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)
Mohammed loses his uncle Abu Taleb, and his wife.
In the same year Abu Taleb died, at the age of above fourscore; and it is the general opinion that he died an infidel, tho’ others say that when he was at the point of death he embraced Mohammedism, and produce some passages out of his poetical compositions, to confirm their assertion. About a month, or as some write, three days after the death of this great benefactor and patron, Mohammed had the additional mortification to lose his wife Khadîjah, who had so generously made his fortune. For which reason this year is called the year of mourning 1.
The Koreish grow more troublesome.
On the death of these two persons the Koreish began to be more troublesome than ever to their prophet, and especially some who had formerly been his intimate friends, insomuch that he found himself obliged to seek for shelter elsewhere, and first pitched upon Tâyef, about sixty miles east from Mecca, for the place of his retreat. Thither therefore he went, accompanied by his servant Zeid, and applied himself to two of the chief of the tribe of Thakîf who were the inhabitants of that place; but they received him very coldly. However he staied there a month; and some of the more considerate and better sort of men, treated him with a little respect: but the slaves and inferior people at length rose against him, and bringing him to the wall of the city, obliged him to depart, and return to Mecca; where he put himself under the protection of al Motáam Ebn Adi 2.
Six inhabitants of Medina converted.
This repulse greatly discouraged his followers: however Mohammed was not wanting to himself, but boldly continued to preach to the public assemblies at the pilgrimage, and gained several proselytes, and among them fix of the inhabitants of Yathreb of the Jewish tribe of Khazraj, who on their return home failed not to speak much in commendation of their new religion, and exhorted their fellow-citizens to embrace the same.
Mohammed seigns to have made a journey to heaven.
In the twelfth year of his mission it was that Mohammed gave out that he had made his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and thence to heaven 3, so much spoken of by all that write of him. Dr. Prideaux 4 thinks he invented it either to answer the expectations of those who demanded some miracle as a proof of his mission; or else, by pretending to have conversed with God, to establish the authority of whatever he should think fit to leave behind by way of oral tradition, and make his sayings to serve the same purpose as the
1 Abulfed. p. 28. Ebn Shohnah.
2 Ebn Shohnah.
3 See the notes on the 17th chap. of the Korân.
4 Life of Mahomet, p. 41, 51, &c.
