Talk:Patricia Crone

Untitled
Patricia Crone's scholarship has been cited as inherently bigoted and racist in a number of scholarly reviews. (added by 69.183.78.211
 * Please cite sources to support this finding. Without sources, this looks much more like a personal attack in violation of wikipedia policy.  Rklawton 03:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Since this comment has been up here over two years after the request for citations, may we just delete it? 15 April 2008

Wansbrough and "more sweeping"
I have just removed: "She was a student of John Wansbrough at SOAS in London and has been even more sweeping in her dismissal of Muslim tradition, arguing that even the Qur'an was likely to have been collected later than claimed."

I have been lucky enough to have personal correspondence with Patricia Crone and in-so-doing she has told me some problems with our article about her. Is she a biased source? Yes, but it does mean we should strongly source anything that contradicts her. She says that she was not a "pupil" of Wansbrough and even less so was Michael Cook. Could the error be that she took a course or something with him but never studied under him or, isn't his intellectual student? I agree the statement is incredibly vague and tends to imply a direct intellectual link. In any case it's removed until we clarify.

The next issue is that she is "more radical". This is an issue which we can't take at the same face value. She says that she is less radical because she doesn't date the Qur'an to as late of a date as Wansbrough does. He doesn't think the conquests are real--she does. He doesn't think there is a prophet--she does. That is more or less her words and she chalks it up to her being clear and Wansbrough difficult to understand. Honestly I don't know very much of Crone's work and even less of Wansbrough but we don't have any good scholarly sources backing up our previous claims. So, there we go. I will add some other stuff to Talk:Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. gren グレン 15:13, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

More Crone
I have removed:


 * In Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Crone argues that the early Muslim converts turned to Islam because it promised an Arab state based on conquest, rape and pillage.
 * "God could scarcely have been more explicit. He told the Arabs that they had a right to despoil others of their women, children and land, or indeed that they had a duty to do so: holy war consisted in obeying."

Why? Because of my e-mails with Patricia Crone (which, granted are not source material) and because of what the thesis of the book is. This is a peripheral statement made asserting that tribal societies that form states must coalesce around conquest to succede. Because the tribal society is very militant and the concept of holy war brought that unity to the tribal people. She explicitly felt that her words were being used to denigrate Islam which she states was not her intention and she doesn't like how it implies that is why the people converted (especially earlier conversions). It's simply an explanation for why there were conquests taken out of context and far from the main thesis if the book. And, the thesis is basically from what I can tell that we can't just assume that Mecca was on the trade routes just because it's assumed by so many people (on bad sources Crone would claim). We can't quote out of context and call it an explanation of her scholarship. I may attempt to read it and write something more representative about it. We shall see. gren グレン 01:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest such phrases are put in separate part supporting the idea of her bigotry, and other material defending the opposite view (her objectivity). About this very example, Patricia could scarcely have been more explicit, is clearly argues that Islam supported despoilage of women, children and property, IN ADDITION to your preceding point, Mr. gren, as why Islam found compatibility with tribal coalitions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.90.170.138 (talk) 15:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

accurate presentation of sources
One needs to point out that Crone's views expressed in Hagarism are uniquely her views and that her co-author Michael Cook no longer subscribes to the views expressed therein. Moreover, one may point out that most North American and British scholars of Islam do not accept the minority position about the rise of Islam expressed by Crone therein. (Lazeby 07:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC))

User:86.153.128.132 edits
Hi and welcome. You might want to create a username since it is easier to deal with that way. Firstly, Wikipedia needs collaboration and discussion. Here are sine of my problems with your additions.

This is far from a neutral or scholarly source and while such sources can have their place in articles our tone should not reflect that. "In fact to ignore all the evidence, except for that which corresponds to a particular hypotheses, has been seen by some to be evidence of some sort of ulterior motive on the part of Crone" is not acceptable writing for an encyclopedia and likely violates WP:BLP. If a notable source complains of such biases then they can be mentioned but we are not to say she has such biases. Your second paragraph has almost no neutral content but instead accuses her of academic dishonesty but does not do a proper job to cite that her views have been ignored nor do they properly represent her views in a general sense since mostly it is against Hagarism which is not her view in totality. The first paragraph only barely touches on Crone instead looking for the debate as a whole and takes a decidedly traditional Muslim viewpoint. Please read WP:NPOV and discuss any edits before writing adding them again. Thank you. gren グレン 03:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, and some thoughts.
Thank you for pointing me to the guidelines. In fact, I do not feel that the general tone of your article (it is your article right?) is as neutral as you might think. First of all, there are no references to the many significant criticisms of Crone's work, some of them from very notable people, as you know. Secondly, it is in my opinion indicative of exactly what Crone has been accused of to say that because someone may be coming from a normative Islamic viewpoint, their views cannot be linked to. I assure you, academia would be a very dry affair indeed if no one was allowed to express their opinion. (although we wouldn't have had to read nonsense like Hagarism, which would have been nice : ) ) It is obviously patently wrong to imply that you cannot link to sources that actually express a conclusion.

Thirdly, if this, "While it has been recognized that Crone's hypothesis is at variance with the entirety of Muslim-authenticated tradition, this merely raises the question of the status of 'sacred history' and its relationship to events and personalities attested by the standard evidential procedures of historical study" is neutral, I'll eat my hat. Having a general attitude of 'enlightenment' dismissal towards any system of scholarship other than our relativistic European one (that has more or less officially thrown out any religious epistemology) is foolish to say the least. Granted, Wikipedia has adopted this methodology (although 'neutrality' again is a very questionable concept, both because you can imply an argument through choice of sources, and because the whole concept is based on 19th century 'enlightenment' thinking, which is obviously not very neutral) and thus we must follow it as long as we are using their site. But to limit 'objective' research to those who, as you imply, are not traditional Muslims, or who fall into the very narrow parameters of what happens to be in Western academic fashion, is historically, logically, and ethically a very silly thing to be doing and believing.

I don't have time to discuss this to be honest, but I'll leave the article alone from now. However, I strongly suggest you take into consideration my point, although I'm sure you will have many objections to raise. Also, please see 'Discovering the Qur'an' by Neal Robinson, and 'The History of the Qur'anic Text' by M.M. Al-Azami for elucidation of what I have been hinting at. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onto1 (talk • contribs) 23:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. It isn't my article... and I have only done minor fixes never written the majority of it.  I did not read the article--only your additions--and since I felt your additions were not neutral I removed them.  That statement you quoted is definitely not encyclopedic and I have removed it.  I will try to look through more.  I have no problem with criticism from an Islamic perspect and while I don't think neutrality exists it certainly is a general idea we can follow.  Wikipedia is made of all kinds of people and this article was apparently written by one of the many people who like to use Crone to "prove" Muslims wrong.  Something which, incidentally, she does not approve of... nor is it the point of her work.  Although Hagarism seems to have made her the poster child for "academic truth telling" to Muslims that their religion is wrong which ignores her later works.  But, I don't think I really disagree with anything you have said.  You might be happy to know that Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World is a more full-fledged article with criticisms and sources... but I haven't read it in quite a while so I won't vouch for it.   If you have any recommendations on additions feel free to paste them here.  Again, thanks for being part of the process.  By removing your content I unwittingly enforced a POV in the article which I did not mean to.  I will try to clean it up and make it more neutral, now. gren グレン 12:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe it is now neutral. gren グレン 12:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality Tag
I've been through the talk page here and I can't work out why this article still has a neutrality tag on it. Why? Is there still an issue? Nothing in the current article is even mildly contentious and certainly no-one has voiced any reservations recently on this talk page about the current article. Do we still need the neutrality tag? Calypygian (talk) 22:42, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Realshompa (talk) 16:28, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Concur. I'm taking it down.  It was probably there Muslim fundamentalists hate her.Historicist (talk) 20:13, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

See, you guys were going so nice, and then you have to go and say "It was probably there Muslim fundamentalists hate her" which is just, for lack of a better term, and really excuse me for saying so, stupid (besides being grammatically wrong as it is missing a few words to make it a proper sentence). Muslim fundamentalists don't hate her, and if they do, the feelings are certainly mutual and provoked by the company under discussion. No, scholars disagree with her since she makes bold claims with little empirical evidence (picking and choosing is not empiricism) and regular people, Muslim and non-Muslim, find her offensive because she is that. So, don't go blaming Muslim fundamentalists for everything. This is her own doing, and I know her well, and she doesn't even deny it herself. It has something to do with that old talk dear Patricia had a long time ago with Bernard Lewis. --91.112.29.226 (talk) 20:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Slow motion edit war
There appears to be a slow motion edit war over material from www.sultan.org/books/Patricia_crone_english_reply.pdf. Please see WP:BLPSPS, "Never use self-published sources – including but not limited to books". I have removed the material. This source can't be used in this article.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 06:09, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Dear Sean.hoyland, I can assure you that I have tried not to edit war; but only to keep the tone neutral and the sources reasonable. Thanks for your edit. Best wishes, George Custer&#39;s Sabre (talk) 11:08, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Crone's death
Citations to reliable, authoritative, and neutral third-party sources are essential. Wikipedia requires them. Two good sets of Wikipedia guidelines that I have found really useful can be found HERE and HERE. George Custer&#39;s Sabre (talk) 04:34, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Death
Guys can you please stop undoing the edits reflecting her passing? Her employer, Institute for Advanced Study has already confirmed this: https://instagram.com/p/5BIhAyH4gh/ Many of her well-known colleagues have spoken about this on social media. Just search for Patricia Crone on Twitter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.18.168.46 (talk) 05:15, 12 July 2015‎ (UTC)
 * Neither Instagram nor Twitter are reliable sources to allow anyone to declare someone dead on Wikipedia. See WP:BLP, along with the policies George Custer&#39;s Sabre has cited above.  If necessary, we would rather the article remain out of date for a day or two until reliable, published sources carry this information than to rely on unreliable sources such as Twitter or Instagram.   General Ization   Talk   05:20, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

This is more a question than edit regarding; "She died on July 11, 2015, aged 70, from cancer.[7]" I watched a video https://thesacredplant.com/docuseries/episode7/ wherein her sister (Diana Crone Frank) alleges Patricia died cancer free (due to her use of cannabinoids and Avastin) and her death certificate states Patricia died from brain damage due to radiation. The interview with Patricia Crone Frank is from 30:41 to 31:56 and finishes with Diane's assertion that Patricia was cancer free. Not seeing the actual death certificate myself, I cannot verify this. It seems someone could contact the family for verification of cause of death? So, my edit is a suggestion, pending verification from a family source — Preceding unsigned comment added by WildlyWeeding (talk • contribs) 15:58, 9 November 2017 (UTC)