Patricia Crone (1945-2015)

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jul 11, 2015 at 17:12

Dr Pipes

The great scholar of early Islam Patricia Crone passed away

What a great loss

I remember reading her great remark in Slaves on Horses that "Religions do not spring fully-fledged from the heads of prophets old civilizations are not conjured away." (page 12) and I had an answer to a question that puzzled me until then and it is: Why was al-Tabari having great difficulty in explaining what the Qur'an is really saying when the author of the Qur'an claims that it is Kitab Mubeen (clear book) written in Arabi Faseeh (eloquent Arabic) and the answer became clear and that his likes were the ones that were shaping Islam based on what he believed what the Qur'an is really saying and not the historical Muhammad

However her best work must be "Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam" where she took the islamic historical tradition to task and she proves again and again that Mecca was not a rich center of trade or even known to the Greek and the Syrians or the Persians prior to the rise of what was to become islam and she leaves the Islamic historical tradition in tatters

She will be very much missed

May she rest in peace

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