His father, Hoca Numan Efendi, who is also a scholar of Islam, was from the Yazır village of Gölhisar district of Burdur province, then in the Ottoman Empire, and now in Turkey.

Hoca Numan Efendi, the father of Muhammed Hamdi, went to the Elmalı district of Antalya for education when he was a child and settled there.

Yazır's mother Fatma Hanım was the daughter of Esad Efendi, who was a scholar of Islam living in Elmalı.

After completing primary and secondary education in Elmalı, to study Islamic sciences, in 1885, Yazır went to Istanbul which was the capital city of the Ottoman Empire at the time.

When he was working in service of Sheikh ul-Islam, Committee of Union and Progress prepared a coup against the Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

Moreover, he served as Foundations (Vakıflar) Minister in the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI's Damat Ferid Pasha Cabinet.

When Mustafa Kemal's government abolished the medreses and replaced them with special Imam Hatip Schools, he started working for writing the first modern Turkish translation of the Quran, under Atatürk's orders.