A very nice obituary of Prof. Patricia Crone, who died on 11 July, ran today in the New York Times. Readers of this site might know her from her wonderful book The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran, which does much to elucidate the Mesopotamian environment that produced Gnostic, Manichaean, Mandaean, and, eventually, Islamic sources alike.

(via PaleoJudaica)