Respect Graduate School

The Young Seekers

Course dates: October 18, 2023 – December 6, 2023 / January 17, 2024 – March 6, 2024

Respect Graduate School presents The Young Seekers as a compass to the perplexed minds. Designed specifially for the needs of immigrant Muslim youth, the Young Seekers courses provide answers to the most challenging questions this postmodern era puts to Islam, strategies of self-learning in a time of information bombardment and deep-fake, respect for the 15 hundreds years of Islamic history and a courage to say “I am a proud Muslim!“

Respect Graduate School

The Young Seekers

Course dates:

October 18, 2023 – December 6, 2023 / January 17, 2024 – March 6, 2024

In its 2023-2024 education year enrolment in The Young Seekers program is done for two terms combined. Each term is composed of eight weeks of learning. The Fall Term extends from 18 October to 6 December 2023; the Spring Term will take place between 17 January and 6 March 2024. Below you will find a list of courses that are oferred in each term.

Designed specifically for the needs of the immigrant Muslim youth

Delivered by lecturers with proven teaching abilities

32 hours of course on various aspects of religious experience

Access to selected recordings of the previous year

A final Kahoot Challenge with gifts to first 10 students

Fully online courses supported with Google Classroom, Zoom and Kahoot

Full refund of course fees to students who have attended 28 or more of the 32 courses live and performed over 60% in the final test

Objectives of the Program

Discussing challenges of the post-modern era to the faith and identity of younger generations

Finding answers to existential problems from the treasures of the Quran

Responding to the alternative narratives of non-Islamic ideas and ideologies

Equipping the young participants with abilities to analyze and respond to future challenges

Nurturing a love and passion for truth in the hearts and minds of the new generation

The courses take place on Wednesday evenings, between 7.30pm and 9.30pm EST, with each lectures lasting 50 minutes.

Student Learning Outcomes

Encouraging students to write a summary of the discussion before and/or after each class

Interactive and motivating discussion sections for the students

A positive and constructive attitude to help students to be motivational and have creative engagement with the class

To improve writing skills

Course Schedule 2023-2024

Fall Term (18 October 2023 – 6 December 2023)

COURSE 1: Fruits of Wisdom from the Holy Qur’an

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course is designed to help the students to read the Holy Qur’an and the religious commands into their daily lives; to teach them that Islam is relevant for our post-Modern lives. The curriculum of the course is as below:

Week: The Epoch Chapter (al-‘Asr) and the Attributes of the Worshipper
Week: The Opening Chapter (al-Fatiha) and the States of the Soul
Week: The Night of Decree (al-Qadr) and Wisdom in Allah’s Word
Week: The Secrets of the Throne Verse (Ayah al-Qursi)
Week: The Attributes of the Devoted
Week: Modern Forms of Gossiping
Week: Depressed Muslim: An Oxymoron or Fact of Life?
Week: Latest Traps of the Devil and Ways to Evade Them

INSTRUCTOR: Nuray Tudes

COURSE 2: Eight Islamic Principles that will fix our Religious and Educational Lives

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course is designed to show the students that Islam provides us with guidance to be better human beings and turn this world into a better world. The curriculum is as below:

Week: It is Iman (Belief) that elevates man to the noble status of humanity. Indeed, it is faith that makes man a Sultan. A person who has acquired the true sense of faith can challenge the whole universe.
Week: We have been created with the potential to become vicegerents of God on the Earth.
Week: Human beings are much more than just flesh and bones: Meet our heart and other subtleties.
Week: What we call laws of nature and social sciences are all God’s ways of doing things; when we study sciences, we study Allah’s ways.
Week: Human beings have free will in chosing between different fates.
Week: All human beings are sinners, and the best of the sinners are the frequent repenters.
Week: Every good deed is charity. It is a good deed to meet your brother with a smiling face.
Week: Do not despair of the mercy of Allah.

INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Ruslan Yusupov

Ruslan Yusupov is a cultural anthropologist interested in the lived experience of religion and state power by minoritized Muslim communities in China and beyond. He is currently a Society for the Humanities Fellow at Cornell University.

Spring Term (17 January 2024 – 6 March 2024)

COURSE 1: General Principles of Islam from the perspective of the Risale-i Nur and Hizmet

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course is designed mainly on Ali Unal’s seminal book General Principles in the Risale-i Nur Collection for a True Understanding of Islam and İbrahim Özübüyük’s Adanmışların Vasıfları: Hizmet İnsanının Portresi (The Attributes of the Devoted: A Portrait of the Hizmet Activist). The course concentrates on eight major principles of Islam and their modern interpretation by the Risale-i Nur and the Hizmet literature. The curriculum of the course will have the following:

Week: How to Think and Believe as a Muslim
Week: Reading the Qur’an into our Lives
Week: Knowing the Prophet, His Sunnah and Hadith
Week: How to Embody Our Belief and be Exemplary Muslims
Week: Our Responsibilities for the Society and Islamic Action
Week: Sincerity and Brotherhood
Week: Altruism and Devotion to a Cause
Week: The Dual Duties of Contemplation and Consultation

INSTRUCTOR: Dlovan Kareem

Dlovan Kareem is a graduate of Istanbul Fatih University’s theology faculty. He completed his MA in Religious Studies at what was then the Hartford Seminary — now Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. Kareem has been living in the US since 2017.

COURSE 2: Faith and Reason: How Science and the Qur’an say the same thing

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course designed to discuss the bridge between faith and reason and to show that the perceived gap between the two is not as unbridgable as it seems and if there are contradictions between the two this is due to our misunderstanding of one or both. The curriculum of the course is as below:

Week: Is Religion and Philosophy Contradictory? Can there be a Philosophical Theology?
Week: Is there Sufficient Evidence that God Exists?
Week: What does Science and Religion say about Free-Will?
Week: Determinism, Occasionalism and the Causality: What does the Qur’an say?
Week: Why does Evil Exist in this World if God is All-Compassionate?
Week: Is there a Scientific Proof for the Resurrection and the Hereafter?
Week: Divine Names of Allah: What is the Difference from Polytheism or the Holy Trinity?
Week: Faith and Pluralism in our Post-Modern World

INSTRUCTOR: Dr Albert Frolov

Albert Frolov is a PhD student at Regis College (Toronto School of Theology). His PhD work is in comparative and philosophical theology. He holds a Candidate of Science degree in philosophy from Kazakh National University of al-Farabi (Kazakhstan) and previously taught graduate and undergraduate courses on Islamic and World Philosophy in Suleyman Demirel University in Kazakhstan. Dr Frolov is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies (JIIS), the Respect Graduate School’s academic journal.

Do you have interest for other courses at Respect GS?

Risale-i Nur Academy, Respect Qur’an School, Clinical Pastoral Education and more.

Enroll Now

Registrations for this program will be open throughout the term the program is run. Late registrants accept to pay for the whole course and not to be eligible for the refund. They will be able to watch the missed classes’ recordings though.