Tafsir al-Wasit
Al-Tafsir al-Wasit (Arabic: لتفسير الواسط, lit. 'The Middle Commentary') is one of the earliest classical Sunni Qur'anic interpretational works (tafsir) composed by the 11th century Islamic scholar, al-Wahidi.[1]
This book is categorised as Musnad al-Tafsir (tradition-based interpretation). The reason is because he utilizes Hadith and statements from the early generation of Muslims for commentary.[2]
Methodology
[edit]This work, which al-Wahidi brought back into the fold of the classical technique and its catholic hermeneutical approach to the Qur'an, which his master al-Tha'labi had perfected, was conceived somewhere during the draughting of Tafsir al-Basit. This work is centred on the content that al-Basit rejected. At the end of al-Basit, al-Wahidi refers the reader to another Qur'an commentary that contains material that is not included in the current work. Therefore, al-Wahidi must have started working on al-Wasit before finishing al-Basit, gathering material that was excluded from al-Basit because it was considered non-philological.[2]
Al-Wasit is thus a compilation of reconciliation. The title itself can be read as a pun, both as the "middle" and the "go-between." Yet one can argue that the reconciliation is half-hearted, or at least a botched attempt to correct a previous position; al-Wahidi simply relegated Musnad hadith material to this work, and thus made clear what he had left out of al-Basit. His refusal to follow the encyclopedic approach is itself a statement; his separation of different ways of doing tafsir in different works undermined the encyclopedic solution that the Sunni tradition particularly the practice of his teacher al-Tha'labi devised to save the coherency of the meaning of the Quran.[2]
Legacy
[edit]Throughout the Middle Ages, al-Wasit enjoyed widespread popularity and acceptance by Islamic scholarship.[2] Abridgements have been made including by Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi who authored Tafsir al-Nisaburi.
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^ Andrew Rippin, Jawid Ahmad Mojadded, Jawid Mojaddedi, Norman Calder (March 2004). Classical Islam - A Sourcebook of Religious Literature. Taylor & Francis. p. 73. ISBN 9781134551705.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ a b c d Walid Saleh (April–June 2006). "The Last of the Nishapuri School of Tafsīr: Al-Wāḥidī (d. 468/1076) and His Significance in the History of Qur'anic Exegesis". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 126 (4). American Oriental Society: 223–243. JSTOR 20064479 – via JSTOR.