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)

oral law of the Jews. But I do not find that Mohammed himself ever expected so great a regard should be paid to his sayings, as his followers have since done; and seeing he all along disclaimed any power of performing miracles, it seems rather to have been a fetch of policy to raise his reputation, by pretending to have actually conversed with God in heaven, as Moses had heretofore done in the mount, and to have received several institutions immediately from him, whereas before he contented himself with persuading them that he had all by the ministry of Gabriel.

However this story seemed so absurd and incredible, that several of his followers left him upon it, and it had probably ruined the whole design, had not Abu Becr vouched for his veracity, and declared that if Mohammed affirmed it to be true, he verily believed the whole. Which happy incident not only retrieved the prophet’s credit, but increased it to such a degree, that he was secure of being able to make his disciples swallow whatever he pleased to impose on them for the future. And I am apt to think this fiction, notwithstanding its extravagance, was one of the most artful contrivances Mohammed ever put in practise, and what chiefly contributed to the raising of his reputation to that great height to which it afterwards arrived.

Twelve men of Medina take an oath to Mohammed.
In this year, called by the Mohammedans the accepted year, twelve men of Yathreb or Medina, of whom ten were of the tribe of Khazraj, and the other two of that of Aws, came to Mecca, and took take an an oath of fidelity to Mohammed at al Akaba, a hill on the north of oath to that city. This oath was called the womens oath; not that any women were present at this time, but because a man was not thereby obliged to take up arms in defence of Mohammed or his religion; it being the same oath that was afterwards exacted of the women, the form of which we have in the Korân ¹, and is to this effect; viz. That they should renounce all idolatry; that they should not steal, nor commit fornication, nor kill their children (as the pagan Arabs used to do when they apprehended they should not be able to maintain them ²) nor forge calumnies; and that they should obey the prophet in all things that were reasonable. When they had solemnly engaged to do all this, Mohammed sent one of his disciples, named Masáb Ebn Omair home with them, to instruct them more fully in the grounds and ceremonies of his new religion.