Mudarris Othman Najati of Eskisehir and His Method of Exegesis in Tafsir al-Najat in Ottoman Turkish

This study examines the life and the method of exegesis in Tafsir al-Najat of Othman Najati (d. 1293/1876) who lived in 19th century and worked in several positions as mudarris, mufti and mullah. Tafsir al-Najat is an exegesis written in Ottoman Turkish that includes the interpretation of surahs between Naba and Nas. Othman Najati wrote his exegesis as a result of his education and instruction with his masters, thus applied riwayah and dirayah (narrative and rational) methods in his exegesis that stands out by its Ishari (mythical) aspect and wrote his work with a simple language which people from every level could understand. Study consists of four chapters. The first chapter includes the life and the works of the author Othman Najati and comprises of two sub titles. In the first sub title, name, family, education, jobs, scientific personality, masters and death of Othman Najati are examined. In the second sub title, we briefly introduced Othman Najati's works. In the second chapter, Tafsir al-Najat was analyzed from the aspect of riwaya method and also in terms of method of glossator in interpreting the Quran with the Quran, the Quran with the hadith, with the sayings of the sahaba and tabi'un and asbab an-nuzul with examples. In the third chapter, we focused on the fiqh, Ishari and linguistic aspects of the work within the frame of the dirayah under sub titles. In the fourth chapter, Ishari aspect of Tafsir al-Najat was examined under three sub titles. In the first sub title, Ishari interpretation was analyzed with examples, while in the second sub title, his analyzing the verses with sufist terms was mentioned. In the third sub title, Othman Najati's opinions on sufist terms was explained under separate titles. In the conclusion, we evaluated the information that is obtained as a result of this study on Othman Najati's glossator character, sufist personality, his status in the society and his exegesis method.