The speakers include Everett Rowson (NYU), Sarah Stroumsa (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Michael Cook (Princeton University), Hassan Ansari (IAS, Princeton), Kevin van Bladel (Ohio State University), and Dan Sheffield (Princeton University).

1. One-day
colloquium
in honor of
Patricia Crone
February 25, 2015
Institute for Advanced Study
School of Historical Studies
Princeton, NJ

2. Session One Islamic Studies
Dilworth Room
9:00 am Greetings and Introduction
Sabine Schmidtke (Institute for Advanced Study)
9:30 am — 10:00 am
Everett Rowson (New York University)
“Patricia Crone’s contribution to the field of Islamic
Studies”
10:00 am — 11:00 am
Michael Cook (Princeton University)
“Muhammad’s deputies in Medina”
11:00 am— 11:10 am BREAK
11:10 am — 12:10 pm
Sarah Stroumsa (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
“An Exercise in Methodological Skepticism: The Case
of ‘The Cordovan Voluntary Martyrs’”
12:10 pm — 2:00 pm LUNCH
A display of Professor Crone’s publications will be on
view in the Dilworth Room during the morning. Also
available will be “Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts:
Essays in Honor of Professor Patricia Crone,” Leiden:
Brill, 2015. Discount publication order forms will be
available.
Program

3. Session Two Iranian Studies
West Lecture Hall
2:00 pm — 2:30 pm
Hassan Ansari (Institute for Advanced Study)
“Patricia Crone’s Contribution to Pre-Modern Iranian
Studies: Politics, Society and Religion”
2:30 pm — 3:30 pm
Kevin van Bladel (Ohio State University)
“Persian Origins in Arab Colonies of Marw and
Transoxania”
3:30 pm — 3:40 pm BREAK
3:40 pm — 4:40 pm
Daniel J. Sheffield (Princeton University)
“Nativism and Prophethood in Early Modern Iran: Āẕar
Kayvān and the Quest for Universal Religion”
4:40 pm— 5:00 pm Concluding Remarks
For those interested, at 5:00 pm there will be a pre-
screening of Diana Crone Frank’s documentary “For the
Life of Me: Between Science and the Law,” depicting
Professor Crone’s battle with cancer.
Program

4. Recent Awards — University of Cambridge,
Honorary Member of Gonville and Caius
College 2013–; Leiden University, Honorary
Doctorate 2013; The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Honorary Doctorate 2014; Giorgio
Levi Della Vida Medal for Excellence in
Islamic Studies 2013; Middle East Studies
Association, Albert Hourani Book Award
2013; Houshang Pourshariati Iranian Studies
Book Award 2013; Central Eurasian Studies Society Book Award 2013; American
Historical Society, James Henry Breasted Prize 2013.
Recent Publication - The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolts and
Local Zoroastrianism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
“I have learned from her that rethinking all of one’s assumptions is
tremendously exciting.” Michael Cooperson
“I admire your insatiable curiosity, tenacity, patience, and penetrating insights,
and I am grateful for your love.” Carol Bakhos
“Patricia’s original contributions to the study of the formative periods of Islam,
with its complex issues, have been truly outstanding; not only has she
discovered new primary sources, but she has also offered new interpretations of
the know sources.” Farhad Daftary
“The contributions that Patricia Crone has made to the study of early Islamic
history can hardly be overstated. … Patricia stands fully in the finest Orientalist
tradition of philological exactitude and sheer, exhaustive learning. … She has
taken Islam, in other words, out of the peninsula and into the wider world of
Late Antiquity, where it has remained ever since.” Petra Sijpesteijn
“Patricia Crone has made contributions rarely encompassed by one individual
scholar in a multitude of fields spanning geographic, temporal and linguistic
landscapes. … Instead of isolating herself in the scholarly refuge of the Institute
for Advanced Study and producing even more groundbreaking scholarship,
Patricia chose to share her precious time and valuable resources with serious
scholars and students without expecting much in return.” Samer Traboulsi

5. Michael Cook (Princeton University)
"Muhammad's deputies in Medina"
Our sources tell us that each time Muhammad
went out on campaign he appointed a deputy to
take his place in Medina, and they give us the
names of these deputies. To what degree can we
use this information for the purposes of historical
reconstruction? And to the extent that we can,
what do we learn from the data about the way
Muhammad ran his state?
Sarah Stroumsa (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
"An Exercise in Methodological Skepticism: The Case of
'The Cordovan Voluntary Martyrs'"
“The Cordovan Voluntary Martyrs” is the name
given in modern scholarship to a peculiar
phenomenon in mid-ninth century Cordova: a
wave of incidents in which Christians seeking
martyrdom provoked the Muslim authorities and
were consequently executed. Several historical
and sociological explanations have been given to
this unique phenomenon, which lasted for only a
decade, but its historicity has not been
questioned. Paraphrasing Patricia Crone (Meccan
Trade, 203) we can say that, if we want to learn
something new about these Cordovan Martyrs,
we must first unlearn some things. By examining
Abstracts

6. the sources for this story, and analyzing the
background to their composition, the present
paper offers to unlearn some things about the
Cordovan martyrs.
Kevin van Bladel (Ohio State University)
"Persian Origins in Arab Colonies of Marw and
Transoxania"
This presentation summarizes the argument of a
book, nearing completion, on the genesis of New
Persian. It corrects the current standard theory on
the origins of New Persian by paying close
attention to sources in Arabic and to the history of
the population that first spoke it.
Daniel J. Sheffield (Princeton University)
"Nativism and Prophethood in Early Modern Iran: Āẕar
Kayvān and the Quest for Universal Religion"
This talk examines Early Modern developments of
the Iranian religious beliefs and practices that
Patricia Crone had identified in her provocative
and monumental work, The Nativist Prophets of
Early Islamic Iran. I argue that a particular kind of
religious cosmopolitanism arose in connection with
Abstracts

7. astrological ideas about the coming of the Islamic
millennium, the end of an Islamic dispensation, and
the beginning of a new Persian age (dawr-i ʻajam).
These ideas were promulgated by a man who
called himself Āẕar Kayvān (1533-1618 CE). In this
presentation, I examine Kayvān and his followers'
notions of millennialism and cosmology, their
theurgical practices, and their code of conduct. I
argue that Āẕar Kayvān’s principle of ṣulḥ bā hama
"Civility with All" notably influenced the formation
of the Mughal Emperor Akbar's dīn-i ilāhī “The
Divine Religion”, a movement that is often painted
in popular literature as an early modern forerunner
of Indian secularism.
Abstracts

8. Institute for Advanced Study
School of Historical Studies
Einstein Drive
Princeton, NJ 08540
www.hs.ias.edu