Manastirli İsmail Hakki Efendi and his epistle, Fuṣūl al-Taysīr fī Uṣūl al-Tafsīr: The text and its analysis

Manastirli Ismail Hakki Efendi, who lived in the last period of the Ottoman State, was one of the scholars who were qualified to talk authoritatively about the Islamic sciences. His lecture notes on uṣūl al-Tafsīr (the methods of Tafsīr), known as Fuṣūl al-Taysīr fī Uṣūl al-Tafsīr, will be our subject of study. Since this epistle has not been scholarly studied yet, our main goal is to transliterate it from Ottoman Turkish to modern Turkish, and to review the author's opinions on the Qur'ānic sciences within the context of the epistle. Although Manastirli studied at the madrasas whose curricula were still focused on classically oriented education, he educated students and taught at modern schools of the time such as Dār al-funūn-i Şahane. Thus, he specialized in teaching classical sciences by combining with modern methods. We will also aim to determine the author's style by examining the Fuṣūl he used in the lectures of uṣūl al-Tafsīr. Thesis consists of introduction and four chapters. The first chapter deals with Manastirli Ismail Hakki's life, education, scholarly works, and death. The second chapter focuses on the textual structure and content of Fuṣūl al-Taysīr fī Uṣūl al-Tafsīr while analyzing and examining it. The third chapter attempts to examine the author's views on the Qur'ānic studies within the context of the Fuṣūl and makes some comparisons to Ṣuyūṭī's Itqān, one of the main sources of Manastirli. In the fourth chapter, the Fuṣūl will be transliterated to modern Turkish.