An exegete in the Nishapur circle of tafsīr: Abū al-Hasan al-Wāḥidī

This thesis focuses on the Abū al-Ḥasan al-Wāḥidī (d. 468/1076) within the framework of the Nishapur Circle of Tafsīr and, more generally, the tafsīr literature in the first five centuries after Hijra. The thesis aims, firstly, to reveal the different dimensions of al-Wāḥidī's hermeneutical approach to the tafsīr and his place in the tafsīr literature, and secondly, to trace the historical course of the tafsīr activities in the first five centuries after hijra through al-Wāḥidī. In order to achieve this, the selected samples are analyzed by taking all three of al-Wāḥidī's tafsīr works into consideration and comparing them with some twenty prominent exegetes in the first five centuries. This thesis differs from other tafsīr studies in that it adopts a historical, analytical, and holistic approach to reveal al-Wāḥidī's understanding of tafsīr with its internal integrity, historical and conceptual context. The first part of the thesis focuses on the Nishapur Circle of Tafsīr and its outstanding representative al-Wāḥidī's intellectual biography and exegetical career, while the second part reveals al-Wāḥidī's exegetical approach and his place in the tafsīr genre. The thesis emphasizes the crucial role of the Nishapur Circle of Tafsīr in the development of the classical tafsīr genre. It concludes that the outstanding representative of this circle, al-Wāḥidī, established the relationship between linguistic sciences and tafsīr at the theoretical and practical level and subjected the previous tafsīr tradition to critical reading, thus gaining a distinctive role in the history of tafsīr with an approach that can be called "taḥqīq in tafsīr." In addition, the sample analyses in the thesis have shown that the tafsīr literature of the first five centuries developed dynamically, circularly, and multidimensionally rather than stagnant, linearly, and unidimensionally.