Department of Qur’anic Exegesis aims at elucidating the meanings of the Qur’anic verses. Its main research areas include the stylistic features of the Qur’an, the major themes of the Qur’an, the history of the textualization of the Qur’an, variant readings of the Qur’an, the history of Qur’anic exegesis, the Qur’anic sciences (‘ulum al-Qur’an), contemporary approaches to the Qur’an, the translation of the Qur’anic text into other languages, the relevance of the Semitic languages in the study of the Qur’an, and Qur’anic studies in the West. In this context, Qur’anic exegesis examines the revelation from an interdisciplinary perspective, making use of Islamic disciplines like Hadith, History of Islam and the Life of the Prophet Muhammad as well as modern sciences such as Hermeneutics, Semantics, Anthropology, Archeology, and Semiotics. Muhammed Tayyib Okiç, the founder of the Department, and İsmail Cerrahoğlu, the first professor of tafsir in Turkey, together laid the foundation of tafsir as an independent academic discipline in Turkey. Among the other distinguished scholars in the history of the Department are Hasan Hüsnü Erdem, Ahmet Hamdi Savlı, Demirhan Ünlü, Osman Keskioğlu, Lütfi Doğan, Orhan Karmış, Mevlüt Güngör, Şevki Saka, Mehmet Paçacı, and Ömer Özsoy.
