Revisionist School of Islamic Studies and Patricia Crone

Abstract

Throughout the centuries, scholars around the world were interested in studying Islam. Its rapid growth from its emergence was always remained a question mark for the Western studies.  In 1970, a new movement “The Revisionist School of Islamic Studies” emerged to study Islamic narrations. Their main hypotheses was to researched and reconstruct the traditional Islamic accounts on the basis of the alternate sources i.e., non-Arabic literature of that time and the relevant archaeological evidences. They state that religion “Islam” started upbringing as a monotheistic movement in Arabian Peninsula near to Byzantine and Persian Empires and later-on adopt the name of Islam. They used “source-critical” and “historical-critical” approaches to study the sources of Islam and present the accounts contradictory to the Islamic original sources about the rise of Islam and the Arab conquests. They do not accept the words of Qu’rān, Ḥadīth and Sira of the Holy Prophet Muḥammad (ﷺ) because they claim that these all were written 150 to 200 years after the death of the Prophet of Islam. This school which was originated by John Wansbrough was further established by his disciples, such as, Norman Calder, G. R. Hawting, Andrew Rippin, Patricia Crone, and Michael Cook, as well as Yehuda D. Nevo, Günter Lüling, and Christoph Luxenberg. Among them Patricia Crone was a prominent figure. The current study has done to see Patricia Cron’s work on the Islamic Origin and her place in academia and how it effects on the work of the contemporary scholars in the West?