of the exegeses is closest to the Qur’an and the Sunnah: al-Zamakhsharī, al-Qurṭubī, al-Baghawī, or someone else?

He replied—may Allah envelop him in His mercy and pleasure:
Praise be to Allah. Of the commentaries presently in people’s hands, the soundest is the Tafsīr of Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī. He cites the statements of the early generations with reliable chains of transmission, contains no innovation, and does not rely on dubious authorities such as Muqātil ibn Bukayr or al-Kalbī.

There are, in addition, numerous commentaries that do not present their material with full isnāds, such as the Tafsīrs of ʿAbd al-Razzāq, ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd, Wakīʿ, Ibn Abī Qutaybah, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh.

As for the three works about which the questioner specifically asked, the one safest from innovation and weak ḥadith is that of al-Baghawī. It is, however, an abridgement of al-Thaʿlabī’s Tafsīr, from which he removed the fabricated narrations, the innovations, and other material besides.

Al-Wāḥidī was a pupil of al-Thaʿlabī and more proficient than him in Arabic. Al-Thaʿlabī himself is free from doctrinal innovation, although he does sometimes record it in deference to others. His Tafsīr, together with al-Wāḥidī’s three works—the Basīṭ, the Wasīṭ, and the Wajīz—contains valuable insights, yet also a great deal of chaff in the form of unsound reports and the like.

As for al-Zamakhsharī, his commentary is filled with innovation and follows Muʿtazilī doctrine: denying the divine attributes and the beatific vision, asserting that the Qur’an is created, rejecting that Allah wills every existent thing or creates the deeds of His servants, and other core Muʿtazilī tenets.