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Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam
"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).
312 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1986
About the author
Patricia Crone
27 books87 followersPatricia Crone was Professor Emerita in the School of Historical Studies, where she served as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor from 1997 until her retirement in 2014. Crone’s insightful work, compellingly conveyed in her adventurous and unconventional style, shed important new light on the critical importance of the Near East—in particular on the cultural, religious and intellectual history of Islam—in historical studies. Her influence is strongly felt at the Institute, where, along with Oleg Grabar (1929–2011), Crone helped to establish the Institute as a recognized center for the pursuit of the study of Islamic culture and history.
https://www.ias.edu/scholars/patricia...
https://www.ias.edu/scholars/patricia...
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 4, 2014
Patricia sets the pace of the book, right from the very start with a simple logical assumption.
What commodities enabled the inhabitants of so unpromising a site (Mecca) to engage in commerce in such a large scale?
Bred in Muslim tradition the question was like a lightening strike for me. Could the Muslim story be all an elaborate propaganda, or is it exactly as described by the mainly Muslim historians over the centuries? I shall never know for sure, but this study has helped keep the logical part of my brain buzzing with excitement, for I believe that debunking established myths is an important process in the quest for knowledge.
The book presents a detailed context for the ancient times, most of which was lost on me. The rational made sense though and without any challenge will continue to make sense. It is high time that the Islamic world start producing historians which are able to present Islamic history without any fear of prosecution.
What commodities enabled the inhabitants of so unpromising a site (Mecca) to engage in commerce in such a large scale?
Bred in Muslim tradition the question was like a lightening strike for me. Could the Muslim story be all an elaborate propaganda, or is it exactly as described by the mainly Muslim historians over the centuries? I shall never know for sure, but this study has helped keep the logical part of my brain buzzing with excitement, for I believe that debunking established myths is an important process in the quest for knowledge.
The book presents a detailed context for the ancient times, most of which was lost on me. The rational made sense though and without any challenge will continue to make sense. It is high time that the Islamic world start producing historians which are able to present Islamic history without any fear of prosecution.
June 8, 2020
"From the 7th through the 9th century CE, the Arabs maintained flourishing trade centers, Mecca being the chief among them."
I just did a very quick google search on the rise of Islam and this is a quote from one of the first pages I viewed. This is a myth. It is not true and there is no factual basis or historical evidence to even remotely support this claim. Unfortunately, it has been repeated often by such a wide base of historians, sociologists, and religious scholars. Similar to the myth of the Andalusian paradise, each has assumed that somebody else has done the research.
Patricia Crone has done the research and Meccan Trade is the result. In her first two chapters, she looks first at the known historical facts of the classical spice trade and then lays down a typical understanding of the supposed Meccan trade before and up to the time of Muhammad.
In the next four chapters, Crone demonstrates how the Meccans could not have possibly been involved in the trading of any spices. She looks at other things they could not have traded (gold, silver, gems, slaves, animals, etc), what they did actually trade (furs and low-quality clothes), and where they could have traded them (other small insignificant nearby cities. She then looks at whether or not Mecca could have been a trading center based on religious pilgrimage (no).
Finally, Crone examines the historical reliability of the sources for early Islam (they're not). Then in her last chapter, she asks the obvious question, "If Islam did not rise and spread because of trade, how did it?" Honestly, this chapter should be a book unto itself and though I understand the need for the question to at least be addressed here, I felt that it was by far her weakest chapter. Where the rest of the book was well thought out and strongly based in fact, this concluding chapter was more of a speculative epilogue.
In all, this is not a book I would recommend to a casual reader. While I think everyone who has interactions with anyone who is Muslim should be aware of the contents of this book, the reading itself would be considered by most to be incredibly dry and tedious. I know Jay Smith has incorporated parts of it in his teachings on the history of Islam and would recommend you check out some of his Youtube videos instead.
I just did a very quick google search on the rise of Islam and this is a quote from one of the first pages I viewed. This is a myth. It is not true and there is no factual basis or historical evidence to even remotely support this claim. Unfortunately, it has been repeated often by such a wide base of historians, sociologists, and religious scholars. Similar to the myth of the Andalusian paradise, each has assumed that somebody else has done the research.
Patricia Crone has done the research and Meccan Trade is the result. In her first two chapters, she looks first at the known historical facts of the classical spice trade and then lays down a typical understanding of the supposed Meccan trade before and up to the time of Muhammad.
In the next four chapters, Crone demonstrates how the Meccans could not have possibly been involved in the trading of any spices. She looks at other things they could not have traded (gold, silver, gems, slaves, animals, etc), what they did actually trade (furs and low-quality clothes), and where they could have traded them (other small insignificant nearby cities. She then looks at whether or not Mecca could have been a trading center based on religious pilgrimage (no).
Finally, Crone examines the historical reliability of the sources for early Islam (they're not). Then in her last chapter, she asks the obvious question, "If Islam did not rise and spread because of trade, how did it?" Honestly, this chapter should be a book unto itself and though I understand the need for the question to at least be addressed here, I felt that it was by far her weakest chapter. Where the rest of the book was well thought out and strongly based in fact, this concluding chapter was more of a speculative epilogue.
In all, this is not a book I would recommend to a casual reader. While I think everyone who has interactions with anyone who is Muslim should be aware of the contents of this book, the reading itself would be considered by most to be incredibly dry and tedious. I know Jay Smith has incorporated parts of it in his teachings on the history of Islam and would recommend you check out some of his Youtube videos instead.
October 28, 2017
Patricia Crone proves without doubt two important points. Islam began in northwest Arabia, therefore not in Mecca. The traditional account of trade and wealth in the Mecca of southern Arabia is false: it was too expensive to transport cheap goods like leather and coarse woollen clothes 800 miles by camel to Syria, when Syrians could get cheaper, higher quality goods locally. How could Mecca support 2-3000 camels without local pasture land and make a profit from trade from cheap, unspecialised goods? How could traders manage the logistics of a 2 month round journey on camels? Why didn't they simply ship it up the Red Sea from Aden and bypass Mecca entirely? Why would Mecca be on a trade route when it had nothing to offer passing trade? She also makes a great job at examining the sources of the Islamic tradition; it is clear that much of it is unhistorical and the work of storytellers. The allusiveness of the Qur'an seems to have led to much of the exegetical storytelling output. The later findings by Dan Gibson confirms many of her conclusions. I read it in just 2 days, which shows what a great read it is, at least I found it fascinating.
September 6, 2016
I enjoyed reading this book! even though Crone adopted lots of fallacies, and she didn't give the references to back some sensitive claims (if you ever noticed) which made her miss the objectivity of research, I read a critical translation of her work and what I found out is that she was so subjective and turns out to make a hypothesis then consider it as a fact thereinafter, she's brilliant at making the reader confused, she is so smart ;)
May 19, 2024
As an older piece of scholarship, this book holds up well, as is well-recognized today. It convincingly shows that the highly mercantile depiction of Mecca as presented by Islamic sources must be wrong. The latter half of the book becomes more shaky, especially the section on pre-Islamic pilgrimage, as modern scholarship is starting to agree with Islamic sources that to an extent—pilgrimage to the Kaaba was yearly. As one would assume, Crone’s conclusions also work with the idea of a northwestern Arabian origin of the Quran and that Islam originated as a Jewish sect, ideas which seem fairly dated today although they still are thought provoking. I would recommend for its fascinating commentary on the workings of trade in the region, which are discussed in not just Mecca but also India, Syria, Byzantium and Ethiopia.
June 21, 2018
I don't believe in any religion so I'm impartial to this. I read this book out of pure curiosity with no agenda and I was ready to take some of the author's arguments. The author makes some very weak arguments and supports them with even weaker evidence. Also, most of the text in the book is contained in footnotes rather than the body of the text, which is VERY distracting. Finally, the book is EXTREMELY repetitive. You can read the whole book cover to cover, or you can read the first page and the last page and you'll gain the exact same amount from this book. The author thinks that repeating the same argument 100 times in 100 different ways makes it a strong argument, but no, her arguments are still weak and unsupported not to mention illogical.
February 26, 2024
This is the work of Patricia crone and I do not concur with her statement.Rather what she has done was nothing but rejections of works of muslim historians,and Quran and Islamic tradition.According to her second hand non muslims sources are more authentic than Islamic sources which is itself biased.His students Robert Hoyland, in his islam as seen by others has shown That even non muslim sources agree with Islamic account.Also Rob j sergeant,already refuted this work and also saudi archaeologist had discovered two inscriptions near mecca and Medina which shows that mecca was trading post for caravans carrying frankincense.And also Mecca was trading post under roman rule as Macroba,and also Mecca was part of caravan route under Nabatean trade route.
January 26, 2018
An eye-opening account of what we do and do not know about Arabia trade and Mecca during the time of Muhammad and the centuries following him. Her thesis is basically that Mecca could not have been the central trading hub as later Muslims claimed as it could not have been economically viable given how much cheaper it would be for the trading ships to sail up to the Sinai area rather than to take goods on camelback from Mecca up to the Jordan/Israel area. This combined with the fact that there are no mentions of Mecca on any map until the 9th century definitely give credence to her thesis.
While this book gets bashed sometimes for departing from the consensus amongst historians, but the question is not whether it departs from this consensus but whether its claims can be supported from evidence.
Would highly recommend also reading R. B. Sergeant's response to it in an article titled 'Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam: Misconceptions and Flawed Polemics', as well as Crone's response to Sergeant, 'Serjeant and Meccan Trade'.
While this book gets bashed sometimes for departing from the consensus amongst historians, but the question is not whether it departs from this consensus but whether its claims can be supported from evidence.
Would highly recommend also reading R. B. Sergeant's response to it in an article titled 'Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam: Misconceptions and Flawed Polemics', as well as Crone's response to Sergeant, 'Serjeant and Meccan Trade'.
June 2, 2016
Crone's argument boils down to:
1) Meccan trade was at most a local business by 600 AD, rather than supplying goods to empires. Furthermore the goods traded were probably leather and cheap items rather than light, expensive luxury items (spices, incense, or perfume) that would have made overland transportation worth the cost. Rather, maritime trade made more sense in terms of cost.
2) Mecca was unlikely the site of pre-Islamic pilgrimage fairs.
3) In any case it's unlikely that the Quraysh would have gotten rich off of either trade or pilgrimage.
4) "Meccan trade might throw light on mechanics behind the spread of Islam, but cannot explain why Islam appeared in Arabia, or why it had such a massive political effect".
Thorough scholarly work, but perhaps not entirely necessary for a hobbyist to wade through the meticulous textual evidence on what items were mentioned to be transported where.
1) Meccan trade was at most a local business by 600 AD, rather than supplying goods to empires. Furthermore the goods traded were probably leather and cheap items rather than light, expensive luxury items (spices, incense, or perfume) that would have made overland transportation worth the cost. Rather, maritime trade made more sense in terms of cost.
2) Mecca was unlikely the site of pre-Islamic pilgrimage fairs.
3) In any case it's unlikely that the Quraysh would have gotten rich off of either trade or pilgrimage.
4) "Meccan trade might throw light on mechanics behind the spread of Islam, but cannot explain why Islam appeared in Arabia, or why it had such a massive political effect".
Thorough scholarly work, but perhaps not entirely necessary for a hobbyist to wade through the meticulous textual evidence on what items were mentioned to be transported where.
August 15, 2014
I know almost nothing of Muslim historiography, and in this sense the book was enlightening (if overly pre-occupied with random spice lists). The general approach to Religious phenomena wasn't as helpful as i would have expected; it seems principally an attempt to introduce the hermeneutic of suspicion and historical-critical readings into the use of Muslim source material to question whether or not Mecca really occupied a central node in a vast trading empire. Worth reading, but I doubt I'll read it again.
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January 27, 2016Excellent Book
Well researched and well thought out. Raises a lot of questions and pokes even more holes in traditional understandings of the beginning of Islam. Only problem with the digital version is many formatting and spell problems. Still an outstanding study, well worth the time spent studying.
Well researched and well thought out. Raises a lot of questions and pokes even more holes in traditional understandings of the beginning of Islam. Only problem with the digital version is many formatting and spell problems. Still an outstanding study, well worth the time spent studying.
January 30, 2013
An excellent read that challenges the historicity of the Arab trade and also the location and importance of Mecca. Certainly a book that forces the reader to look outside of the orthodox established origin narrative.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews