Prof Hillenbrand reflects on Prof Watt’s role in the development of Islamic Studies in Edinburgh during his time in the Department until his retirement in 1979, and his later writings, both published and unpublished, before developing an overall assessment of his scholarly achievements, not just about early Islam but including his more popular writings on a range of topics about Islam, both medieval and modern, and those interfaith issues which preoccupied him both personally and academically.

Carole Hillenbrand is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in the University of Edinburgh, where she taught for many years. Educated in the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh, she was awarded the King Faisal Prize for Islamic Studies, for her book The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives in 2005, and has served as Islamic Advisory Editor for Edinburgh University Press since 1999. She was awarded an OBE for her services to Higher Education in 2009.