An investigation about tafseer methodology in the book Kur’an-？ Kerim ve Tefsiri

Prof. Dr. ？smail Cerraho？lu, who is one of the well-known scholars of Qur’anic interpretation in theology faculties in Turkey, had a considerable impact on tafseer researches. It is of great importantance to examine his tafseer methodology, given the fact that he pionered writing boks on history and methodology of tafseer which are still used as textbooks in theology faculties in Turkey. In the mean time, he supervised many undergraduate students who are recently well-known scholars in the field. Cerraho？lu together with professor Talat Ko？yi？it planned in 1983 to author a book titled as Translation and Commentary of the Qur’an which would consist of 6 volumes. However, they were only-able to complete and publish the first volume and the rest of volumes could not be brought to public attetion. This tafseer is an original work in terms of language, methodology, resources and interpretations. The verses in the tafseer are neither overwhelmed by narrations nor by unnecessary explanations. A clear language with a scholarly approach were used in such a way that everyone could understand. Besied, a critial approach was adopted in this book rather than mentioning widespread information and ideas in previous boks. Also, narratives related to israliyat were not accepted. Apart from this the commentaries which are out f context were reinterpreted as well as indicating some translation mistakes and showing alternatives to them. As result, an original tafseer book had emerged. In our study, we aim to investigate the methodology of Qur’anic interpretation for Cerraho？lu and identify the distinctive aspects of his approach. Our study covers the first volume of his tafseer which is the only published volüme. Although the research was co-authored by Cerrahoglu and Kocyigit, we only referred to Cerrahoglu as our main topic in this article