He was rushed to hospital for treatment of his wounds. “He is stable, surgeries ongoing,” a spokesperson from Nasheed's ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said on Friday.
The archipelago has been known in the past for political unrest as well as Islamist militant violence.
In 2015, former president Abdulla Yameen escaped unharmed after an explosion on his speedboat, while a 2007 blast blamed on Islamist militants targeted foreign tourists and injured 12 people.
President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, a close ally of Nasheed, said Thursday's blast was an attack on Maldives' “democracy and economy.”
The government is seeking technical support from foreign partners in the case and a team from the Australian Federal Police is expected to join the investigation on Saturday, Solih said in a statement late on Thursday.
Nasheed is the island's first democratically elected president and has frequently warned of extremist groups penetrating in the Islamic nation.