John Wansbrough contributed to various aspects of the history and culture of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, but he was most important in stimulating new approaches to the study of early Islam. Starting from the view that Islam's own accounts of its origins are religiously inspired interpretations of history rather than true records of events, Wansbrough developed new and influential theories about the ways in which the emergence of Islam should be understood and studied.

He was best known for his work on the Koran. In his QURANIC STUDIES, using his profound knowledge of classical and modern literary and historical theory, he applied to the holy book of Islam ideas and approaches which scholars had developed in the study of the Bible and early Christianity. His literary analysis of the Koran and the commentaries on it led him to views very different from those held by traditional Muslims and by the majority of non-Muslin academics.

''...[Wansbrough] questioned the accepted view that the Koran consists of passages associated with (or, in the traditional understanding, divine revelations made to) Muhammad in Mecca and Medina in the early decades of the seventh century, that it had been committed to writing by about 650, and that it was the most important element in Islam from the time of Muhammad onwards.

''These and the other standard ways of approaching the Koran, he argues, resulted from too willing an acceptance of Islam's own tradition--primarily the body of traditional Muslim commentary on the Koran.

''...Starting from the basis that there is very little Islamic literature securely datable to before about 800, Wansbrough saw Islam as evolving gradually from sectarian forms of Judaism over a period of 150 years or so following the Arab conquests in the middle of the seventh century.

''He understood the history of that formative period, including the image of Muhammad and accounts of the formation of the Koran, as a back projection of views that were formed as the culture and religion of Islam emerged in an atmosphere of intense polemic between different groups of monotheists....

''His views and approaches remain controversial, both in academic circles and, for more obvious reasons, among Muslim who know of them. But they were not expressed out of any hostility to Islam. On the contrary, Wansbrough insisted that, together with Judaism and Christianity, Islam is a valid expression of the monotheistic tradition of religion and that it must be treated with the same scholarly seriousness as its sisters. --THE TIMES (London)