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]

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]

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.

• Tafsir al-Basit
• Tafsir al-Wajiz
• List of tafsir works
• List of Sunni books