I've come across Patricia Crone's work from time to time; and now she's dead.
She died just when we had news that a fragment of a Koran had been discovered at a UK university, apparently written at the time Muhammad was alive. That was interesting as most scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim, and including professor Crone, believe that the earliest Koran's were assembled only some centuries after his death. Indeed, elsewhere, Crone has stated that there is no archaeological evidence of any of the events of the Koran or in the Islamic Trinity.
But Saudi scholars are not convinced that the newly-discovered fragments are indeed from the time of Muhammad. They say that it was common to wipe off previous text from ancient documents, and to write later texts thereon.
She died just when we had news that a fragment of a Koran had been discovered at a UK university, apparently written at the time Muhammad was alive. That was interesting as most scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim, and including professor Crone, believe that the earliest Koran's were assembled only some centuries after his death. Indeed, elsewhere, Crone has stated that there is no archaeological evidence of any of the events of the Koran or in the Islamic Trinity.
But Saudi scholars are not convinced that the newly-discovered fragments are indeed from the time of Muhammad. They say that it was common to wipe off previous text from ancient documents, and to write later texts thereon.
