Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam [Hardcover]

Patricia Crone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 20, 2004

"Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam is an extremely controversial but effectively argued and extensively documented work. The author presents a radical challenge to a number of standard assertions about the socio-economic milieu in which Islam arose." -R. Stephen Humphreys, University of Wisconsin, Madison Patricia Crone reassesses one of the most widely accepted dogmas in contemporary accounts of the beginnings of Islam, the supposition that Mecca was a trading center thriving on the export of aromatic spices to the Mediterranean. Pointing out that the conventional opinion is based on classical accounts of the trade between south Arabia and the Mediterranean some 600 years earlier than the age of Muhammad, Dr. Crone argues that the land route described in these records was short-lived and that the Muslim sources make no mention of such goods. In addition to changing our view of the role of trade, the author reexamines the evidence for the religious status of pre-Islamic Mecca and seeks to elucidate the nature of the sources on which we should reconstruct our picture of the birth of the new religion in Arabia. Patricia Crone is professor of Islamic history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Her books include Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh 2004) and Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Premodern World (second edition, Oxford 2003).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC (July 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593331029
• ISBN-13: 978-1593331023
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,697,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Technical and sometimes difficult, but clearly written, November 5, 2001

By 

Ken Braithwaite (inkster, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Hardcover)

One of the premier historians of the rise of Islam examines the evidence for the traditional Muslim story of trade in Mecca, and finds it -- at least -- wanting. A solid refutation of part of the standard Islamic story.

Written with vigor and some tart comments on some sloppy historians (Lammens for one.)

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant look at pre-Islamic history, September 6, 2008

By 

C. Carey (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Hardcover)

Patricia Crone's work is scholarly, well documented, and truly thought provoking. As any scholar worthy of the title would do, she questions the prior dogmatic assertions Muslims use today regarding Mecca as a haven for commercial trade, from which Islam was born. Rather, she searches the historical literature and lets the evidence lead where it may.

Beware of reviewers here who, rather than dispute the evidence presented, instead launch into personal character assassination of Crone, otherwise known as an ad hominem argument. Such desperate measures only demonstrate the inability to argue against the facts as they have been presented.

2 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Racist, well refuted rubbish, August 3, 2008

By 

R. Kysia (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Hardcover)

Patricia Crone's "scholarship" is widely refuted by scholars of Middle Eastern studies today. It is certainly no great work of history as the prior reviewer suggests. Rather she is a racist with a clear orietnalist agenda.