He was born in 1882, Trabzon. He memorized the whole Quran when he was child. When he was graduated from high school, he had been also studying in madrasah. And sometimes, he became imam instead of his grandfather. Then he went to Istanbul for university. But because of II.Constitutional, Istanbul became resless. So he went to Manisa and became literature teacher. When he was back to Istanbul, he started to learn Arabic and Fiqh.

     He was assigend to Arabic teacher in Istanbul and thanks to his well-education and good teaching method, he became famous as "Celal Hodja". He became Arabic teacher in too many schools. But after the alphabet revolution he had to be Turkish teacher. Then when he was 65, he retired. After he retired, he became manager in Imam Hatip course. But he didn't find it enough. It had to be school. So he arrenged meeting with so many people and lead to open Imam Hatip Schools.

    He knew Arabic, Persian, French. He had also been good at West culture. He translated so many Islamic articles. He was ambitious, when early years of Republic of Turkey, many of religious men disappeared but Celal Hodja tried to do something about it. He had an plain life. He died in 1961. He donated to Sulaymaniya Mosque all of his library which contain 1000 books.

Ayşegül Demir