Mahomet quotes

   Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled: Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and whenthehill stoodstill hewasneverawhit abashed, but said,'If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.'

- Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
  Essays, no.12,'Of Boldness'.

The Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of theThames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctityand truth of the revelation of Mahomet.

- Edward Gibbon
^88  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch.52.