The scientific personality of Mahmud Hamza Efendi one of the Ottoman interpreters and his commentary "Dürrü'l-Esrâr which is written with dotless words

This study investigates the life, personality, scholarly wisdom of Mahmud Hamza Efendi, who was an Ottoman scholar and wisdom of hermeneutics and Hanafı jurist lived in the 19th century, the political and sociological states of his era, his hermeneutic piece, Dürrü'l-esrâr and his hermeneutics method. This study consists of introduction and three more sections. The first section of this study focuses on the life, scholarly wisdom of Mahmud Hamza Efendi and the state of the political, cultural and sociological of his era. By considering conditions of his era and effects of Tanzimat era on the civil life, more emphasis was put on his role on establishing tranquility of the society and education reform. In the second section, his hermeneutics book, Dürrü'l-esrâr was generally eveluated and what makes his book different than other hermeneutics books was investigated. Dürrü'l-esrâr was compared with Sevâtiu'l-ilhâm written with similar fashion and other major pieces of the hermeneutics science such as Zemahşerî, Beyzâvî, Nesefî and Celâleyn. In addition, sciences of the Quran were investigated in the piece, Dürrü'l-esrâr and some of the examples of them were given. In the third section, the use of narrative and wisdom hermeneutics methods in Dürrü'l-esrâr was assessed and examples of the two method were given. Key words: Mahmûd Hamza Efendi, Commentary, Undotted letter, Dürrü'l-esrâr, Narrative, Sagacity