Course Date: September 15 - December 15, 2025
Stewards of a New Earth is a twelve-week seminar that explores the visionary concept of an ideal generation as envisioned by Fethullah Gülen. Through in-depth readings, philosophical and theological discussions, and guided lectures, participants will examine the qualities of a generation that seeks to transform the world through perfected faith, love of knowledge, critical thinking, and a balance of heart and mind. Drawing from Gülen’s writings and the thought of major Muslim and Western intellectuals, the course offers a unique roadmap to spiritual and societal renewal.
A specially prepared reader featuring texts by Gülen and other influential thinkers, including first-time English translations.
Weekly deep-dive lectures and philosophical-theological discussions with experts in the field.
Full support via Google Classroom, Discord, and Zoom — with access to all recordings until March 2026.
Interactive quizzes to reinforce understanding and retain key insights from each week.
Optional project-based learning track with AI-assisted tools and additional mentorship.
Earn a Certificate of Participation or a Certificate of Accomplishment for deeper engagement and project completion.
Join live or watch on your own schedule — ideal for students in different time zones.
Compare Islamic perspectives with Biblical and philosophical views of the ideal human society.
Stewards of a New Earth is a seminar on the attributes of the awaited ideal generation based largely on the writings and sermons of Fethullah Gulen. The theme of an ideal generation, a utopian human collectivity that will built the Paradise on Earth is oft-repeated in the writings of philosophers, utopians, idealist writers and reformers. These stewards are not only longed for, but are described with their characteristic attributes. “Attributes of the Inheritors of the Earth” can be found in the Bible, in the Holy Qur’an, in the writings of Plato, Alfarabi, Thomas More, Thomas Campanella, Francis Bacon and Aldous Huxley.
The theme appears in Fethullah Gulen’s sermons and writings under various titles like “Golden Generation,” “Heroes of Thought and Action,” “Architects of the Soul” and finally the “Inheritors of the Earth”. Gulen is both an accumulator of others’ wisdom, and an innovative thinker. Far from an utopia, for him, the Stewards of a New Earth is a plausible project, which necessitates knowledge, readiness to change one’s self and determination to change the world. “Stewards of a New Earth” is Gulen’s roadmap to the Paradise on Earth.
The Stewards are described by the attributes that generation of hope should attain. Among these we find perfected faith, love and universal metaphysics, love of knowledge, eloquence, critical thinking, freedom of thought, consultancy and collective thinking, mathematical thinking, aesthetics, intertwinement of thought and action and finally the unity of the heart and the mind.
This seminar unites textual and historical analysis as its method of teaching. Participants will both read Gulen’s texts in depth and also learn the historical backgrounds of Gulen’s thinking. Some of the texts of Fethullah Gulen, Necip Fazil, Peyami Safa and Nurettin Topcu, modern Muslim intellectuals that left a mark on Gulen’s thinking on the “awaited generation” will be translated to English for the first time for this seminar.
This seminar is composed of two hours of lecturing and two hours of discussion each week. Students are expected to make the readings distributed for the week and come to the discussion hours ready with ideas.
The Stewards of a New Earth lectures and discussions take place on Friday and Saturday evenings between 8:30pm-10:30pm EST (New York time). The weekly breakdown of all the sessions is as follows. Participant who opt to make a project with Naciye Maldar and her Kanz Curriculum Project and receive Certificate of Accomplishment will need to spare another two hours of their week for project meetings.
Monday, September 15, 2025 - 8:30pm EST - Meet and Greet and Orientation: This is a session of introduction of the students and the lecturers of the course. The students are given information on how to use the Zoom, Google Classroom, the Discord Group and the Kahoot for a better understanding of the course material.
Friday, September 19, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: Introduction to the Concept of the Stewards of a New Earth and the crown attribute “rigthousness” as the characteristic of the Stewards mentioned in the Qur’an, al-Anbiya 21:105. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, September 20, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: The idea of Human Perfection and the Ideal Society in Philosophical Treatises. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, September 20, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: The idea of Awaited Saviour Generation in World Religions. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
The place of the attributes of the Stewards of a New Earth in Fethullah Gulen’s thinking. Stewardship in the sources of Islam and other Abrahamic religions and in the works of philosophical utopian and modern reformist intellectuals.
Friday, September 26, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: The Sacred, Philosophical and Cultural Sources of the Concept of Stewarship of a New Earth. The development of the idea of a list of attributes for the Stewards of a New Earth in Gulen’s teaching. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, September 27, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Utopia writing in Western Philosophy and a comparative analysis of Atlantis of Plate and New Atlantis of Francis Bacon. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, September 27, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: Al-Farabi’s Virtuous City and its (lack of) impact on Muslim thinking on ideal sosieties. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
Perfection faith and the attributes of a perfect believer. The role faith plays in establishment of bonds between the believer and the rests of the existence; faith as a source of courage and sense of safety; the fact that faith leads both to the exercise of free will and trust in God.
Friday, October 3, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: The perfect faith as an attribute of the Stewards of a New Earth and how perfect faith feeds into the other attributes of the Stewards. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, October 4, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Epistemology of Faith: Does belief have a place in philosophy? How does belief play a role in our cognitive processes? Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, October 4, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: Fideism and Homo Fidelis – The natural need to believe in theological schools. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
Love as a source of power; Divine love and love for the existence; the link between love, mercy and compassion; love of knowledge; love in sufi traditions and universal metaphysics.
Friday, October 10, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: Love as an attibute of the Stewards and their task to reach a universal metaphysics based on love. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, October 11, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Love in Philosophy and Ibn Sina’s Metaphysics of Love. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, October 11, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: Love in Sufi traditions and Balancing of love with Qur’an and Sunnah. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
Attainment of knowledge and sciences; importance of purification of reason, logic and consciousness; Islamization of Sciences; Islamic Renaiscance; Eloquence in speech and other forms of communication.
Friday, October 17, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: The stewards’ duty to trigger the Islamic Renaiscance through attainment of knowledge and sciences and the importance of eloquence in speech in disseminating the findings of science to the general public. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, October 18, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Curiosity as a virtue in philosophical traditions. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, October 18, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: What does it mean to make science from within a religious tradition? Can science be Islamic? Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
During the week of October 20, the day that Fethullah Gülen Hocaefendi walked to the horizon of his soul, all classes at the Center for Risale & Hizmet Studies will be suspended. During this week, registered students and volunteers are encouraged to organize and participate in programs to preserve the scholarly and spiritual legacy of Gulen.
Importance of critical thinking for the Stewards of a New Earth; their continuing questioning of their ideas on universe, man and life; high moral qualities and legitimacy of the means.
Friday, October 31, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: Self criticism, critical thinking and establishment of a new Islamic paradigm about our cosmological views. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, November 1, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Moral philosophy and ethics: an introduction to main themes. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, November 1, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: Book of Universe in different religious traditions and unification of sacred and profane knowledge in Islam. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
Metacoloniality and distortions of thought in the Muslim World; liberation of the Islamic mind from its shackles; freedom of thought.
Friday, November 7, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: Shackles of the Muslim mind according to Fethullah Gulen and breaking through these shackles: A comparison with literature on Metacoloniality and Orientalism. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, November 8, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Is free-thinking possible? Can Enlightenment be another form of enslavement? Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, November 8, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: Al-Ghazzali’s Al-Munkiz Min al-Dalal and Descartes’ Discourse on the Method: A comparison. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
The Consultative Assembly and the ideal of consultation in Islam; collective thinking; mechanisms of collective knowledge production; forms of consultation in the Qur’an and principles of Shura.
Friday, November 14, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: The need for consultative assembly for breaking through the shackles of the mind; the genious in collective thinking; Can we really think collectively? Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, November 15, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Can a collective consciousness possess agency? Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, November 15, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: Idea of a Collective Commentary Writing and Collective Jurisprudence: Examples from Muslim History. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
Mathematical thinking; perfect proof method; the idea of abstraction in art and the idea of knowledge delivery through art.
Friday, November 21, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: Why does Gulen think that mathematical thinking is an attribute of the Stewards? The link between mathematical thinking and Islamic Renaiscance; abstract thinking as the gateway of mathematical thinking and of Islamic aesthetics. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, November 22, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Pythagorean Cosmology and the Secret Meanings of Numbers in Philosophical-Hermetic Traditions. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, November 22, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: The Hurufis, Abjad and Jifr (gematria) in Muslim Tradition and its Jewish and Christian Counterparts. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
The mutual feedback mechanisms between thought and action; Kant’s idea of practical mind; acting as a form of thinking and thinking as a form of internal action; the Stewards of a New Earth as activists.
Friday, November 28, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: Action as a positive force in Gulen’s thinking; Nurettin Topcu and Necip Fazil Kisakurek’s understandings of action and thought; the link between belief and practical aspects of faith. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, November 29, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Maurice Blondel’s philosophy of action and its followers in Turkey. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, November 29, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: The link between practice and theory, prayer and belief in major theological schools. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
The Stewards as people of balance --- balance between the heart and the mind, balance between the earth and the hereafter, between East and West, science and religion, the apparent and inner dimensions of being; Why does Gulen. Opt marriage instead of harmony of the heart and mind; holistic view of human in religions and philosophies.
Friday, December 5, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: The Steward as the holistic man; the limits of the thinking mind; thinking out of the boundaries of the mind; qalb (heart) as the cognitive faculty of the spirit. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, December 6, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Intuition and inspiration as a source of knowledge: Understanding Henry Bergson’s upheaval against modern scienticism. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, December 6, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: Sufi and non-Muslim mystic understanding of the heart. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
The Idea of National Spirit; our conceptions of culture and civilization; the centrality of the concept of “our own”. Minor attributes of the Stewards: Eloquence in language; confirmation; prudence and vigilance.
Friday, December 12, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Lecture: How should we look at Gulen’s oft-repeated references to “our own nation, our own culture, our own civilization”? Introduction to the minor attibutes of the Stewards: Eloquence; Fact-Checking and Debuking; Prudence and Vigilance. Lecturer: Kerim Balci
Saturday, December 13, 2025 - 8:30pm EST – Philosophical Discussion: Giambattista Vico’s Criticism of Descartes and Cardinal Virtue of Prudence in Philosophy. Discussant: Dr. Safiye Yiğit
Saturday, December 13, 2025 - 9:30pm EST – Theological Discussion: Prudence (tamkin) as a final station in Sufi paths of perfection. Discussant: Dr. Albert Frolov
Between December 15-17, a 100-question Kahoot test will be made available.
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Stewards of a New Earth
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