Patricia Crone teaches Islamic history at Cambridge University in England, and has written a series of very controversial books and articles about early Islamic history. This book is as controversial as the others, taking direct aim at the theories and ideas of Montgomery Watt, among others. One interesting way to discover exactly what is controversial and what is not in this book or any other is to look up a scholarly book-review of the book in question. You can do this in the Library, through MAGIC, by logging into the ACAD system which will open up a directory of articles, book reviews, etc. of all works in English published in more than 1500 journals in this country and England. You would search in that system under author, then Crone,Patricia, for this work. You can do the same for any other of the books for this course.