Wāḥidī Nīsābūrī

'Alī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī al-Naysābūrī, who was better known as Al-Wāḥidī (; 1003–1076), was a prominent grammarian and philologist of the Classical Arabic and a Quran scholar who wrote several classical exegetical works. He is considered one of the leading Quranic exegete and literary critics of the medieval Islamic world. He composed three different-length commentaries: Tafsir al-Wajiz, a short exegesis intended for a wider audience, Tafsir al-Wasit, a medium-length exegesis, and Tafsir al-Basit, an extensive exegesis replete with grammatical and doctrinal justifications. All of these commentaries have endured because of their widespread popularity. But the most significant of the three is Tafsir al-Basīt, considered to be al-Wāhidī's magnum opus. His book Asbab al-Nuzul, which discusses the "occasions of revelation" of the Quran, has been the main source of his reputation up to this point. This book compiles all the customs that specify the revelation date or subject matter of a verse, and it was arguably the first to do so.

==Life== Historians are unsure as to when he was born, but they presume he may have been born around 1003 (393 in the Muslim calendar) in Nishapur during the Seljuk period.