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his age he withdrew himself from his former conversation, and affecting an Eremetical life, used every morning to withdraw himself into a solitary cave near Mecca, called the cave of Hara, and continued there all day, exercising himself as he pretended, in prayers, fastings, and holy meditations: and there, it is supposed, he first had his consults with those accomplices by whose help he made his Alcoran.
On his return home at night, he used to tell his wife Cadigha of visions which he had scen, and strange voices which he heard in his retirement; for he aimed first of all to draw her into the imposture, knowing that thereby he should secure his own faculty to his design without which it would bo dangerous for him to venture on it, and also gain in her an able partizan for him among the women. But she rejecting these stories as vain fancies of his own disturbed imagination, or else delusions of the devil; at length he opened himself further unto her, and feigned a converse with tho angel Gabriel, which she was also as backward to believe, till after repeated stories to her of his revelations from the said angel, she consulted with a fugitive monk, then in her house, who being in the plot, helped to confirm her in the belief of what Mahomet had communicated unto her, whereby being totally persuaded that Mahomet was really called to that prophetic office which he pretended to, from thenceforth gave up her faith totally to him, and becamo his first proselyte in this imposture.
After he had carried this point, having now by two years constantly practicing a retired and austere life, gained, as he thought, a sufficient reputation of sanctity for his design; in the 40th year of his
