RIP Patricia Crone

I have just been informed that Patricia Crone, a pathbreaking scholar of early and medieval Islam and of the Qur'an, has passed away due to cancer.

She did not necessarily always find the right answers, but she was second to none in asking the right questions, and her recent work on the Qur'an's construction of the mušrikūn was watershed in its nature.

In an age of political correctness, Patricia was one of the precious few who weren't afraid to face the hard questions. In initiating the modern debunking of the traditional Islamic narratives of history, she proved one of the most important historians of Islam in the last 50 years.

Farewell, Patricia. We will all be diminished by your absence.

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