Hello and welcome to the Hindu news analysis by Shankar IS Academy. The news articles along with the page numbers are displayed here for your convenience. The PDF link of the handwritten notes and timestamping of the discussed news articles are given in the description box and also in the comment section. Let's begin with the first news article analysis. This news article is with reference to RBI Bulletin for the month of July 2020. So in this context, we are going to discuss key important terms such as repo rate, long-term repo operations, then targeted long-term repo operations and also open market operations. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. Now, what do you mean by repo rate? When you say repo, know that it is a money market instrument which enables collateralized short-term borrowing and lending. So this instrument enables short-term borrowing through the sale of securities from the side of borrower and it also enables short-term lending by buying of securities from the side of lender. So here the securities serve as the collateral and repo rate is nothing but the annualized interest rate for the funds transferred to the borrower by the lender and the borrower will pay interest at this rate to the lender for the amount borrowed. Now, with reference to Reserve Bank of India, repo rate is the rate at which commercial banks borrow short-term money from Reserve Bank of India. And this rate is called as a policy repo rate and know that when you say short-term, it refers to the fact that the original maturity is less than one year. Therefore, the amount or money should be repaid in less than one year. Now, let us see about long-term repo operations. This is a tool under which banks can get low-cost credit or funds from the Central Bank for a period of one to three years and the rate of interest will be the prevailing repo rate but not higher than the repo rate. So, to receive such funds, the banks will provide government securities with matching tenures, higher tenures as collateral to the Reserve Bank of India. So, the benefit of this tool is that banks will be able to receive liquidity for money needs of the tenure of one to three years at policy repo rate. So, this will be translated into lower interest rates for the customers receiving credit from the banks. Now, when it comes to targeted long-term repo operations, either operations are similar to long-term repo operations but there is one significant major difference. That is, under targeted long-term repo operations, banks will have to invest the amount borrowed from RBI in fresh acquisition of specified securities from primary or secondary markets. Here, RBI will specify that a portion of funds borrowed from RBI shall be deployed in securities issued by specific targeted players. For example, it may say that banks have to deploy about 50% of funds borrowed from RBI in securities issued by microfinance institutions or by the non-banking financial companies. Here, RBI may also give a timeline for the deployment in these specified securities. With this information, let's see about what do you mean by open market operations. Know that open market operations are market operations connected by the Reserve Bank of India where two important things may happen. One is the selling of government securities to the market. Then the other is purchasing of government securities or GSECs from the market. Here, the object is to adjust the rupee liquidity conditions in the market on a durable basis. So, when RBI feels that there is excess liquidity in the market, it resorts to sale of securities thereby sucking out the rupee liquidity. Similarly, when the liquidity conditions are tight, Reserve Bank of India may buy securities from the market. Thereby, it releases liquidity into the market. So, in the context of this news article, we have discussed about repo rate, LTRO, targeted LTRO and also open market operations. Now, let's move on to the next news article analysis. This editorial is about fundamental flaws in the governance and also importance of local governance. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. Now, in the current scenario of COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to manage various subsystems like healthcare, logistics, finance, administration and so forth and so on. This has revealed the flaws in the governance systems at all levels, that is from global to national levels, then national to state levels, then state to local levels. Further, it also revealed that solutions for one of these subsystems also affect other subsystems. For example, lockdowns were implemented to facilitate the managing of health crisis, but at the same time, managing economic activities has become difficult leading to economic distress. Now, we will try to understand these interconnected flaws. The first and foremost flaw is not realizing that subsystems are interconnected with each other. Therefore, their problems that is environmental, economical and social issues are also interconnected. So, if you take the global challenges listed in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations, you can see the interconnectedness. For example, as under goal number one, to eradicate poverty, we need to achieve other goals of zero hunger, good health, empowering women, reduced inequality and so forth and so on. Then the next flaw is result of first flaw, which is if subsystems are treated as separate, then the solution offered is also separate for that particular subsystem. So, this makes the global experts and agencies dealing with that subsystem to be focused only on their own problems. Therefore, they fail to realize that a good solution to one problem can create more problems for other problems. Now, the third flaw arises when they want to solve the second flaw. For example, experts in different disciplines combine their perspectives and solutions at the global level. But they forget that problems in subsystems are specific to each country and the specificity further increases depending on each state and locality. So, this leads to a solution which often does not suit people's specific problems. Therefore, the solution offered should be fit for every level depending on realities on the ground situations. So, this demands the solutions to be local. So, for this, people at local levels must be active contributors of knowledge for creation of solutions. And also, they should be active participants in these solutions. So, in other words, governance of the people must not only for the people but also by the people. In this context, Arthur notes that Gandhiji and his economic advisors and also several other experts in Nobel laureates have advocated the local solutions. They provided scientific explanations suggesting that local system solutions as a result of local governance are best possible options. So, this indicates the importance of local bodies responsible for local governance such as panchaites and municipalities. But in this editorial, the author additionally focuses on other institutions who are key functionaries in local governance such as district collectors. Now, we'll see one more flaw in these subsystems. That is, the district collectors administer their role as a deliverer of good government and they just became the deliverer of government's generosity, deliverer of government's donations in the name of schemes without much active role in these schemes. Then the next problem is that there are many schemes initiated by central government and also state governments appropriately. And this leads to overlapping or lack of expected benefits by these government schemes for the targeted people. So, this happens because of lack of people at local levels as active contributors. But those who knew this were able to realize that the role of government is to enable governance by people's active participation and not just delivering governance. So, based on this importance of local governance, author points to the recent evidences of the Kerala state and also global examples like Vietnam and Taiwan. Therefore, the evidences have created a hypothesis or assumption that those states and countries in which local governance was stronger have done much better than others in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. So, as a conclusion based on further research, author aims to bring a change in the dominant theory in practice of good government which is government of the people by the government for the people. He wants to change it to government of the people for the people by the people. So, this indicates the principle of democracy has defined by Abraham Lincoln. And for this to happen, government has to support and enable people to govern themselves and empower local governments and institutions engaged in local governance. So, in the context of this editorial, we have discussed in detail about fundamental flaws in the governance and also importance of local governance in dealing with COVID-19 pandemic. With this, we have come to the end of analysis of this editorial. Let's move on to the next news article. This article is about the Supreme Court judgment on Sri Padmanabha Swami Temple in the state of Kerala. The judgment said that the erstwhile Trivancore royal family is the she-bate or custodian of the properties belonging to Sri Padmanabha. The judgment also directed to set up an administrative committee with the Thiruvananthapuram district judge as its chairperson. So, in this context, let us discuss in detail about the temple of Sri Padmanabha Swami which is located at Trivancore, locally known as Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. Now, to start with, that is the present day Thiruvananthapuram was previously known as Anantasayanam. It was named after Lord Vishnu and the meaning of Thiruvananthapuram in Malayalam translates to the city of Lord Ananta, the deity of Padmanabha Swami Temple. And we know that there are many lessons associated with the origin of this temple and one of the stories is that of a woman who found a baby boy in the Ananta Kauru which is a jungle area. She fed the crying baby and left him under the shade of a tree and when she returned, she found a five-headed cobra protecting the baby from the sun and the baby believed to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. So, when the then Maharaja learnt about this incident, he ordered a temple to be erected at that spot. Further, there is another lesson found in the world palm leaf records of the temple and also in the famous Gran, titled as Anantasayanam Mahatmaya, the Gran mentions that the temple was consecrated by a Thuli Brahmin, Divakara Mani. And it was believed that on the 950th year of Kali Yuga, a reinstallation of the ideal was done. Now, what makes the Padmanabha Swami Temple unique is its temple architecture. Know that it is the only major temple structure in the state of Kerala that represents an amalgamation of the Dravidian style of architecture and the indigenous features of the architecture of Kerala state. It is one of the most famous Vaishnava stains of South India. If the Gopram or gateway of this temple is very similar to the temples of Dravidian style, which is mostly found in the state of Tamil Nadu. So, we can say that no other major temples in the state of Kerala has a Gopram of such an elaborate nature. Furthermore, it is only one of the few temples where Lord Vishnu is represented in the Anantasayanam poshya. It is the eternal yogic sleep on the serpent adi session and Brahma, the creator, is seated on a lotus that stems from the navel of Lord Vishnu. Here, Sri Padmanabha Swami is concerned the principal deity of royal family of Travancore. The temple has references in epics and puranas. For example, Srimad Bhagavata says that Balarama visited this temple and bathed in Padma Teetham and also made several offerings to the deity of this temple. Also, Nammalvar has composed 10 hymns in prize of Lord Padmanabha. Know that he was a 9th century poet and one among the total Vaishnava signs of the all-var tradition. So, in this context, some well-known scholars, writers and also some historians have expressed the view that this temple was established on the first day of Kali Yuga. Now, when it comes to Travancore royal family, King Martha and Verma, who succeeded to the royal throne in the year 1729, also added few structures to this temple. Further, in the year 1749, he dedicated his kingdom to Sri Padmanabha and assumed the title of Padmanabha Dasa, which means servant of the Lord Padmanabha Swami. With this, we have come to the end of analysis of this news article. Now, let us move on to the next news article analysis. Now, let us take up this question, which is based on retail inflation in India. We have framed this question because we have a relevant news article in today's newspaper. The news article says that the index for retail inflation increased it to 6.09% in the month of June 2020, mainly because of higher prices of food items. The article also says that food inflation in the month of June 2020 accelerated to 7.87%. So, in this context, we are going to discuss about consumer price index, which is a measure of change in retail prices of goods and services, consumed by defined population group in a given area with reference to a base year. Know that the National Statistical Office, that is NSO, under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, is releasing CPI on a monthly basis with a base year of 2012. So, in this context, know that there are few important CPIs for different sections of population. These are CPI for industrial workers, CPI for agriculture labor, and CPI for rural labor. These indices are compiled and released by the Labor Bureau in the Ministry of Labor and Employment. So, apart from these indices, NSO also releases CPI for entire urban population, known as CPI urban, then CPI for the entire rural population, known as CPI rural, and NSO also releases CPI combined. Know that Reserve Bank of India is using CPI combined as the inflation measure for setting inflation targets and also ensuring price stability in the country. Now, when it comes to calculating or estimating consumer price index, the goods and services are classified into six broad categories. These are food and beverages, pan, tobacco, and intoxicants, clothing and footwear, housing, fuel and light, and miscellaneous. Know that miscellaneous include health, education, transport, recreation, etc. So, all these food and beverages have the highest weightage in the estimation of consumer price index. So, in this context, try to know that National Statistical Office also releases consumer food price index, that is CFPI for all India rural, urban, and combined. Its base year is also 2012, and this index measures the change in retail price of only food products with reference to the base year 2012. Now, with this information, let's take up the given question. Here, two statements are given with reference to retail inflation in India. Consumer price index is a measure of change in retail prices of goods and services consumed by defined population group in a given area with reference to 2012 as base year. Then, second statement says CPI for industrial workers, CPI for agricultural labour, and CPI for rural labour are compiled and released by the National Statistical Office. So, from our discussion, we have seen that first statement is correct whereas second statement is incorrect. Because CPI for industrial workers, CPI for agricultural labour, then CPI for rural labour are compiled and released by the Labour Bureau in the Ministry of Labour and Employment. And we know that CPI, urban, CPI rural, and CPI combined are released by the National Statistical Organization under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. So, in this context, try to know that the index of industrial production is also released by NSO whereas index of eight core industries is released by the Office of the Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. With this information, let's move on to the next news article analysis. Let's take up this question, INS Vikramaditya often in news is. We have framed this question because we have a relevant news article in today's newspaper. The news is that the Navy is expected to get HAL-built twin engine carrier aircraft by 2032 and it will be a replacement for the Russian MiG-29K carrier jets. So, in this context, try to know that Navy is currently operating Russian origin aircraft carrier known as INS Vikramaditya. A Navy is also expecting to have the first indigenously built aircraft carrier known as INS Vikrant by 2022. With this information, let's take up the given question. INS Vikramaditya often in news is. The correct answer for this question is Option A Russian origin aircraft carrier. So, in the context of this question, try to know that India's first indigenously built aircraft carrier is INS Vikrant. Then India's indigenously built strategic nuclear submarine is INS Arihant. Then India's indigenously built light combat aircraft is Thesis. With this information, let's move on to the next news article analysis. This news article is with reference to India losing Iran to China. We know that India and Iran were having a very good relations until May 2019 and in the month of May 2019, US pressurized India that it will attract the sanctions if India purchases oil from Iran. Earlier in the month of November 2018, India received a six-month waiver from US government to purchase oil from Iran. But the waiver was not renewed in the month of May 2019. So, as a result of this to avoid sanctions from US, India could not purchase oil from Iran. So, in this context, try to know that Iran is important for India to access Afghanistan and Central Asia without depending on Pakistan. This is because at present, the access to Afghanistan along the Indian border is blocked by illegal occupation of Pakistan. So, in this context, Irkhan International Limited, which is an Indian public sector undertaking, signed a memorandum of understanding with Iranian railways. This is to construct the Chabaha-Jahedan Railway. This project was conceived as a part of transit transportation under the trilateral agreement between India, Iran and Afghanistan. So, you can see in this picture that if India constructs this route, India can easily access Afghanistan and then Central Asia. But what happened now? We know that because of strained US-Iran relations, US pressurized almost all countries and private agencies from involving in developmental activities in Iran. Though India was asked not to purchase oil from Iran, India was not stopped from other activities in Iran that will lead to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. So, in this manner, India was symbolically allowed to develop Chabaha port and the railways. But actually, working in Iran is very difficult for Indian agencies because of US sanctions. Therefore, there was delay in funding and starting the railway project. Also, know that over a period of time, Iran needed a stronger ally that will counter American sanctions. So, in this context, two important developments have to be noted. One is that Iran has announced that it does not need Indian assistance in the railway project and the other one is a 25-year strategic partnership involving about $400 billion US dollars is being finalized between Iran and China. So, this puts India strategically in a much disadvantaged position. So, maybe in the future, we may even have to depend on Pakistan to get goods from Afghanistan. And this has assumed significance because one of the news articles in today's newspaper states that Pakistan will allow goods from Afghanistan to India because of its agreement with Afghanistan. And this agreement is to take effect from tomorrow. With this information, let's take up this question which was asked in UPSC-Pilliams examination. What is the importance of developing Chabaha port by India? The correct answer for this question is option C. India will not depend on Pakistan for access to Afghanistan and Central Asia. So, in this context, let's take up one more relevant practice question. Consider the following pairs, Chabaha port, Wadar port, Bandariya Jask port. They are asking that which are the following pairs or pairs or incorrectly matched. So, from this map, you can say that Chabaha port, Bandariya Jask are located in Iran, whereas Gwadar port is located in Pakistan. So, the correct answer for this question is option B. Three only. Now, let's take up practice question session. The temple architecture is an amalgamation of the Dravidian style of architecture and the indigenous features of the architecture of Kerala. It is one of the most famous Vaishnava stains of South India. Its Gopuram is very similar to the temples of Dravidian style. It is one of the few temples where Lord Vishnu is represented in the Anantasayanam poshya. So, we are talking about. The correct answer for this question is option C. Sri Padmanabha Swami Temple. So, this temple is located at Trivancore in the state of Kerala. In this context, try to know that Vithila temple is located at Hampi in the state of Karnataka. Know that Vithila is another name for Lord Vishnu and this temple was originally built in the 15th century AD. Now, when it comes to Guruvaya temple, this temple is located at Thrisur in the state of Kerala. Know that this temple is dedicated to Lord Guruvayurapan where Lord Vishnu is worshipped as Krishna. In the similar context, know that Sabarimala Sri Dharmasastha temple is dedicated to Lord Ayyappa and this temple is located inside the Periyar Tiger reserve in the state of Kerala. Now, let us take up this question which was asked in 2013 UPS Cipulums exam. In the context of Indian economy, open market operations refers to. From our analysis, we have seen that open market operations refers to purchase and sale of government securities by the Reserve Bank of India. Therefore, the correct answer is option C. Now, let us take up this question. Which are the following is correct with reference to targeted long-term repo operations. Injecting liquidity by RBA through purchase of securities with maturity less than one year, simultaneous selling of short-term securities and buying of long-term securities by RBA, banks under the scheme must deploy the borrowed funds in specified securities generally within a stipulated time frame. From our analysis, we have seen the difference between LTRO and targeted long-term repo operations. Know that LTRO is a tool under which banks can get low-cost creditor funds from the RBA for a tenure of one year to three years and the rate of interest will be prevailing repo rate but not higher than the prevailing repo rate. So, in case of targeted long-term repo operations, the operations are similar to LTRO but there is one major difference that is under targeted LTRO, the banks have to invest the amount borrowed in a fresh acquisition of specified securities from primary or secondary market. So, the correct answer for this question is option C. Banks under the scheme must deploy the borrowed funds in specified securities generally within a stipulated time frame. So, in this context know that option B refills operation twist of RBA which includes simultaneous selling of short-term securities and buying of long-term securities by Reserve Bank of India. Now, let us take up one practice mains question. This question was asked in UPSC mains 2016 examination under GS2 paper. Effectiveness of a government system at various levels and people's participation in the governance system are interdependent. Discuss the relationship in the context of India. This is a 10 marks question and you have to write within the word limit of 150 words. We request aspirants to post your written answers in the comment section. Your posted answers will be evaluated and suitable feedback will be given within the reasonable time frame. With this, we have come to the end of today's news analysis. If you like the video, please do like, share, comment and subscribe Shankar Ayes Academy YouTube channel for more updates on UPSC exam. Thank you.


Hey everyone, ShaveBear1000 here. Today I'm on an old camera and that's why I got this on because the mic, the mic in the camera doesn't seem to be working, my boom mic didn't sound right. So I'm using it for this mic here. So stick around and I'll tell you why. Okay, so one of my longtime viewers Kenny kind of had a request or a suggestion. He'd like he wanted to want me to break out one of my old cameras so I said sure I will do it. This is the oldest one I've got other than I think it's a 1974 but I'm not going to use that when it does work but then I got to send the film in and have it developed and then they send it back and then I would have to get a projector and project it on the wall or screen. I think we may even have a screen but I don't have a projector and then I would have to film that never dub that. So it's very expensive to send that film in and have it developed. That's why I have not done it yet because there is some film in there that I did a couple minute recordings on. So that's why I didn't use that. So this is the oldest one I got here. I'll show you what I got going on here. This is one of those big ones that you would put up on your shoulder. This is what I got going on here. This is the camera here I'm using. See, that camera right there. What is that thing? That's an old, that's a Panasonic and it is a 1989. It's still working. I gotta run into my computer so that way I can just record directly with it. I could put a tape in and record but for some reason the mic don't work. So I'll have to change that or something. Other than that, this camera here works fine. So excuse me. So anyway, I thought I would just talk about some upcoming videos. As you guys hear about Trevor Jacob. Yeah, they did take these license away as part of the license away for a year but the FAA cannot impose any punishment on him. All they can do is find you and take your license away. The NTSB put it over to the FAA. NTSB could have done something legally but I don't know. I don't understand why. How he's getting away with this. I don't understand.    But yeah, he did a video and it wasn't an apology video or anything. He was just laughing through the whole thing.  Just making fun of it. I'm thinking but I can't understand how someone can do that and not getting any kind of trouble. I mean, can't the FBI do something? Can't the local authorities do something?  Yeah, he actually laughed and you know, he don't need our views and well, if you're here it's because you're in Trig.  I just charged them. I don't know what's going on with these things. So anyway, sorry about the cut there but you're in Trig. No, I'm here to report you and I'll report every video he puts up. I think we all need to report as you know, but that's an upcoming video and also, you know, I'm going to do some more work on the John Deere soon, the Corvette. We're going to do some more work on it but I got to get started on the Toyota because the Tacoma, you know, that plug, I tried to get the plug out and it just, it broke off. So I got to pull the head off of it and check the valves, you know, 16 valves, there's four valves in each cylinder. So I got to do that. But so anyway, just so I wanted to get this out for him and I got another pair, a couple of paranormal things coming up, quick videos, things like that. So I don't know if we'll do a Walk Wednesday. Today's Tuesday. I don't know if I'm going to do a Walk Wednesday tomorrow or not but we'll see. I'd like to do one. I also got, I still got some more of the noodles I want to do. I kind of slowed down on them because I don't want to, I didn't want to get through them too quick. So I still got a couple of those to do this. So that's cool. So stay tuned for that. But the main reason for this video was to use one of my old cameras, like I said, it's a 1989 Panasonic. One of those ones you put on your shoulder and I don't know what it's, let me get my glasses on here and we'll see what it, it is an AFX8. It's what it is. It's got the flying erase head. So yeah, it is a Panasonic 1989. Something else.  So anyway guys, my chair moved on me. I just kind of wanted to give you that information. I think that's, that's what it is. But yeah, it is. It's definitely a 1989. It's printed around on the bottom. So anyway, there you go Kenny. I hope you're having a good one. Stay safe my friend. As with the rest of you guys. Appreciate you guys watching and we'll see you in the next one. Everyone be cool and we'll see you soon.  Shabir with myth man legend gone for now. Bye bye guys.


So, thank you for inviting me. I'm going to talk about reconstructing derivational morphology. So yesterday we've had a number of talks about phonological reconstruction, and then in the end it was sort of pointed out that we also need to have methods for morphological reconstruction and we maybe don't feel quite as confident about morphological reconstruction as we feel about phonological reconstruction. So this talk sort of goes in that direction and tries to figure out what kind of methods or what kind of methodology we need or we should use to do derivational morphology in reconstruction. So when we do reconstruct derivational morphology there are some problems that we're immediately confronted with that we need to worry about. We need to think about the properties of verbal derivational morphemes that we want to reconstruct or we need to worry about which ones we can reconstruct, which ones we should reconstruct and those may differ from the ones that are regularly reconstructed. So we need to decide which properties of the historically attested derivational morphology that we see belong to the reconstructed proto-language and which properties are independent innovations. And then we need to decide on how to formalize the properties of these morphemes and I think that's where there's the most insecurity because we're not always sure whether we want to do that and how we want to do that and I think that's actually an important step that we need to take in order to help us generalize and also compare diachronic developments within and across languages. So this is going to help us to explain how morphosyntactic properties of derivational morphology changes. Okay, so to give you a concrete example from the Indo-European so this is from the lexicon of the Indo-European verbs, the LID. And this is the entry for the Indo-European Gwen to HIT and now we are confronted with a frequent puzzle that we have when we use the LID mainly how many primary verbal stems to be reconstructed for this route. So here the LID editors in this blue box tell us that probably the European had three primary or inherited verbal stems. The oldest one is an old asymptomatic present that we have attested in HIT page and in the Iranian so this is actually attested in some languages and then we have a duplicated present and a scale present and this is attested in HIT and in the Iranian respectively. And then in this orange box we have a number of verbs in different languages so meaning with that old Irish and so on with this square bracket here and this is how the editors tell us that these are innovations so the stem from morphology in these verbs is not directly inherited, it's not the same as these verbs, it's an innovation. So this actually raises a number of questions so why do we have three primary present stems and usually people say oh they have different functions originally or maybe they're different diachronic layers and then the reflexes of some of the stems vary as we've seen so we have as reflexes of this oldest stem we actually have thematic stems or yeah or presents in the Indo-European languages. So the question here is how do we decide whether any stem an equivalent stem that we see in the Indo-European other languages is inherited or a brand specific innovation. So what makes the editors of LIE decide that this thing is an innovation but these two that are also only attested in one branch are inherited. So this is a common problem and of course LIE is a great resource and the editors usually do tell us why they decided one way or the other in their footnotes and so on but this is just a problem that you have for basically every entry in LIE this is a very common problem. So the question is is this just a problem that weird in the Europeanists have but I think this is a much more common problem that you have immediately when you reconstruct the relational morphology in any family. So just illustrating to try to find examples from other families in old Chinese backstand saga talk about all these reconstructed verbal morphemes and then they say about this end prefix this typically derived state of intransitive verbs often from transitive verbs. And then one of the examples they give to me looks like a straightforward causative alternation where you have a transitive causative and then you derive the intransitive anti-causative to detransitive. And that's all nice and well and then they talk about the S prefix and they say this increases valence in a verb and then one of their examples also looks like a causative alternation verb but in this case the anti-causative variant is basic and the causative variant is the derived one. So there are two ways of treating causative alternation verbs and now we could ask which ones are or maybe there are more ways so I'll just pick this example so now we could ask which ones are primary causatives which ones are primary anti-causatives how can we tell and which type of verbs can be selected by these prefixes and can they be combined and so on. So I think this is a more general problem or another very frequent problem is a situation that we see here in proto-algonquian in the verbal system we have this formative morphine that's lost with question marks here in the independent inflection where it's not quite clear what it's doing there it seems to be some sort of verbal stem-forming suffix maybe but proto-algonquian also had a nominalizer that looked very single and that you could use to form excretions from verbal roots or stems and these are both reconstructed for proto-algonquian so it looks like some sort of reanalysis happened and a nominalizer became part of the verbal stem-forming suffixes so this is also something that we see happening very often and the question is how did this happen why did this happen and how did the properties of this thing change from forming nouns to forming verbs so these are the general questions that we're going to be confronted with when we do a reconstruction of verbal derivational morphology so the goal today is to discuss some theoretical background and methods that I think might be useful in reconstructing derivational morphology especially with respect to understanding the diacrony of derivational morphings in the verbal system and we're going to look at three case studies from Indo-European hopefully we get to look at all three and then conclude and try to point out some generalizations that follow from this okay, so for the background I tried to keep this very short but I think there are some concepts that are useful and that I can take for granted some of them are framework specific the uniformitarian principle we all know and love the Borochomsky conjecture a non-lexicalist approach to derivational morphology and then what exactly we mean by selection and what exactly we mean by reanalysis and some of these are probably familiar to you but just to make sure so the uniformitarian principle you probably all know and use in some version that's similar to this quote by Hoppe here so the general processes and principles which can be noticed in observable history are applicable in all stages of language history and I think we all subscribe to that because otherwise there wouldn't be much point in doing reconstruction what another way of formulating this in generative approaches to linguistic theory is that this uniform behavior of human language follows from the fact that there is an innate human capacity for language or for acquiring a language that's also called universal grammar sometimes also a shared genetic endowment that makes it possible for humans to acquire language but also limits possible synchronic languages that can be acquired in possible diachronic development so in a way this sort of makes uniformitarians a little bit more restricted and this is sometimes called syntax or core computational component as in this quote by Mark Hale here who says the computational component of the syntactic module of human grammar is universal and invariant variation is limited to the lexicon and what has traditionally been considered syntactic change is to be taken instead as representing a change in lexical features in particular those lexical features that are syntactic relevance so he talks about syntactic change but all of this is also applicable to the kind of morphological changes that we're going to look at for specific reasons so this is known as the Boroyachomsky conjecture all parameters of variation are attributable to the features of particular items or functional heads in the lexicon and then Hale says if we can reconstruct the morphosyntactic features of lexical items and functional heads and we assume the syntactic computational system is universal and invariant we can reconstruct specific sentences for a proto-language and again this is relevant for us because we're going to assume a non-lexicalist position at least for the purposes of this talk where word formation is not distinct from syntax from phrase formation you don't have to do this outside of this talk I just decided a while ago that there are good arguments against lexicalist approaches so we're going to use this non-lexicalist approach and this is what it looks like so in this approach we're going to treat derivational or stem-forming morphology as functional heads or syntactic terminals which have particular morphosyntactic features so this is a simple example from the end of 2015 a structure for the English word cats after insertion so we have a core a root with the core lexicals meaning a categorizing head these are the functional heads that we're interested in so a categorizer that says this is a noun that can have particular features and that has a particular realization in this case it's zero because English doesn't do much in terms of nominal stem formation and then a separate head that tells us that it's plural so corresponding to derivational and inflectional morphology more or less in the traditional terminology so these heads and their features are stored in the mental lexicon of speakers and they vary from language to language which isn't shocking because we know that the plural in English looks different from the nominal plural in Swahili or Old-Head German but this is essentially the Boria-Chomsky conjecture if there is variation it's in these functional heads and of course also in these roots so we're going to use this we're going to treat verbal stem from morphology exactly the same way so parallel to little n we're going to have a little b here and this little b can have different features different morphosyntactic features or values it can be causative or incoative or express a state or an activity there are different ways of formalizing this this is basically terminology following work by Heidi Harley and others and these categorizes select lexical roots or other categories with particular features that have to be compatible and again this is this is just formalizing empirical observations because we know not every verb can behave as a causative alternation verb not every English verb can undergo the causative alternation and not every verb acts as an unaccusative or expresses a state so this is just a formalization of these observations and the selection of properties and features of these categorizes can change over time and this is relevant for us this happens through reanalysis defined here as a surface stream in a particular grammar G2 receives a different underlying interpretation representation than in the input grammar G1 during language acquisition this is an acquisition based approach to reanalysis for our purposes it's just important that this is not structural simplification because we're going to see cases where we don't actually lose structure we gain structure or we just have the same amount of functional heads so that's why like George Walkton's definition of reanalysis or description of reanalysis as a process whereby the here are assigned the parts to the input that does not match the structure assigned by the speaker so a reanalysis is a mechanism and it's not causal so it doesn't cause syntactic change it is syntactic change it's a very nice way of putting this and the same holds for morphological change because we've just said we're going to have a non-lexicalist position so these observations also apply to morphological reanalysis in our approach okay and I think that's all we need to turn to our first case study that's put in the European NP and fortunately Hannes already talked about this yesterday so I can go over this fairly quickly and go to the analysis but just as a reminder this is the suffix in Proto-Indo-European that looks like a symphonic active participle suffix in most of the older Indo-European languages and in the Iranian, Greek, Italian, Germanic Tuqueria and so on and in these languages what's important is whether or not you have a formally active finite paradigm if you have a formally active finite paradigm you can make an active non-participle so valency isn't important we saw a transitive an irritative and an unattuitive valency isn't important what matters is the presence of a finite active paradigm and here are also examples to show you that this is really syntactically active so we have participles with accusative internal arguments and subject agreement and so on so this is usually described as subject oriented and then we already saw that the heated and participle forms adjectival passives or looks like an adjectival passive it does not care about voice morphology so it can be found to morphologically active or non-active finite verbs but it does care about valency so here we have some un-participles to formally active verbs and here we have some un-participles to formally non-active or middle verbs and they are they behave syntactically the same way so they look like passive participles but so theme oriented is maybe a little more accurate so what's important is that you have an internal argument or theme and if this were an in-european language this would mean ceasing, giving and going and not cease, given and gone so theme orientedness instead of subject orientedness and this can also so this really behaves synchronically like a passive participle it occurs in periferastic passive with demoted agents and it's generally described it does passive or is theme oriented participle ok so the problem that we already saw yesterday is that the heated reflexes of nt are passive or maybe more accurately described as theme oriented or in some state and the same thing is syntactically active in Tokarian and Indo-Iranian and Greek and so on so this tree again shows you the function of nt correlated with the commonly assumed split of dates so here Tokarian still looks like the second to branch off so this should probably be a little lower in the tree but the important thing is that everything after Anatolian has something that looks like active nt right so the question is what should we reconstruct and this actually leads us back to Eugen's question from yesterday so how do we know which one is older should we reconstruct active so that makes it very difficult to get the Anatolian use from that so it's difficult to imagine can I go back here so if we have active input structures like this it's difficult to imagine how that could be re-analyzed as passive so going from active to passive is going to be very difficult even if you take an unaccusative form and let go it's difficult to see how that's going to be re-analyzed so so this is relatively difficult we could start with the theme-oriented situation in Anatolian but then we have to explain how this changed into the inner European active participle and then the solution is going to be what actually looks like a complication the evidence for the nominal nt in the European branches that we've already seen yesterday so again some examples we've seen that this nt also derives adjectives from nouns with nice examples from Hittite and from Indo-Iranian some of these look very old so probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European and even some synchronic ones in Sanskrit that look like participle so Sahand and Shuchan but they can't be synchronic participle because there's no synchronic finite verbals or in this case this is even worse if there is one then it's non-active and we see the same in some other Indo-European languages where we have these mismatches where things that look like active participle don't have a synchronic finite paradigm or if they do it's not an active one so this looks like it should go with an active participle but there's no such thing or creole these don't exist and even worse this one looks like an active participle but the corresponding finite verb is always non-active this is a deponent verb so these have long been interpreted as archaisms and it's been suspected that this participle nt was actually originally a denominal adjective there are also typological parallels for this kind of development so for our purposes what this means is that this nt must have acquired more verbal functional structure it must have been able to select verbal functional heads at some point in the course of its development and this means its selectional properties must have changed from selecting roots to selecting a particular type of v so originally a stative v and then eventually also eventive v and this is what we need to get to the inner and the European stage so this is our first attempt at formalizing this so in probably in the European and probably in the Italian we must have had this stage so this thing selects nouns or roots we must be able to select nouns because we've seen examples from Hittite where we see this nominal stem from in morphology and then from the reanalysis so these adjectives are going to express states so to go from this kind of state to a verbal state should be a fairly trivial reanalysis so we get to this stage and this initially would have had a morphosyntactic feature state or stative so we get from this to the next stage well states are ambiguous there's a lot of literature in that it can be a resultant state or a target state or different kinds of states and some of these are more amenable to being reanalysed as eventive and some as processual which Hannes already talked about yesterday and then we get to a situation where there's even more verbal functional structure and this thing here that we don't need to worry about too much is what gives us the subject orientedness so now we select something that actually has an external argument so this is an Italian state where we only have the internal argument that this is the European stage where we select something that also has an agent okay so this is the first case study the or this is an attempted formalizing this analysis the second one is similar here we also go from a nominal state or a nominal morpheme to a verbal morpheme this is probably in the European e-larange one and here we have a similar puzzle we see in almost all branches of Indo-European a verbal standpoint that looks like a long e from e-larange one but the distribution is weird so it makes a denominality verbal present but also hei-rists so it doesn't seem to know whether it's a present or an hei-rist stem and this is unusual for a verbal stem from morphology imported in the European so this is immediately this makes it immediately suspicious in Anatolian for example we have presents with this long e from adjectives so Marcia falls Marcia it becomes falls in Latin we have primary the verbal e-forms and the adjective ones and in Germanic the same way so these languages all have presents but then in Greek and Slavic and Baltic it looks like this thing makes primary ae-rists so in Greek this is called the passive ae-rist but it's usually in the older stage it's not necessarily passive but in co-etive so the solution for this that LIV proposes is to reconstruct two different primary verbal suffixes for Proto-Indo-European one that they call fientif and this is this ae-laryngeal one that gives ae-rists in the older languages and one that they call passive and that's the laryngeal of the suffix plus another suffix so this is a composite suffix actually and that results in presence in the older languages and to give you an example for the entry of this root tells to become dry here you see they reconstruct the primary ae-rists, the primary present and then a fientif and an ae-sif and to be fair they have some question marks here for some of these forms but it feels a little redundant to have fientif and ae-sif in addition to reconstructed primary ae-rists and present stems and then the question is why do we assume that branch specific things that look like branch specific developments are actually inherited and they also say that well maybe this is actually derived from that and so on so this doesn't feel like the ideal solution there are also phonological problems associated with some of the reflexes of these suffixes so an alternative that's been proposed is that this long ae actually originated as a nominal suffix we see many old ae-verbs associated with so-called adjectival roots or roots expressing a state that belong to the so-called Kalan system so primary adjectives like red or dry and so on and it's been suggested that this verbal ae was originally identical to the instrumental singular ending on abstract nouns on adjectival abstracts and we still see this in some instructions in Vedic and Latin where we have things with a long a or a long ae plus some auxiliary that express a state or a change of state so become hidden or become hot or make hot or something like that so you can also make factitives so this suggests again that this thing that looks like a verbal suffix was originally denominal or adjectival and developed into a state if in co-authiff verbal stem-forming suffix and we still see this stage in Greek actually because as we said the passive ae-reast is actually not passive at the oldest stage it's in co-authiff it's in complementary distribution with verbal stem-forming morphology so it looks like lexical aspect originally and not syntactic aspect and it originally did not express a voice a voice distinction so the passive use developed later and also suggests that this suffix changed in the history of Greek and acquired more functional categories so again this is my attempt to formalize this a little bit we start with a noun with particular features this probably should be a separate functional projection but we have to formalize these instrumental features somehow this seems to have meant with or maybe possession and it looks like these types of features when they're re-analyzed as part of the verbal domain express states and that's not surprising because yeah this thing with or possessing something also expresses a state so this feature was re-analyzed as part of the verbal domain and conflating little b and aspect here which I probably shouldn't do but originally this must have become re-analyzed as a feature of little b and then if we do that we can also say in the European languages then categorize this as perfective or imperfective depending on exactly what this little b expressed so what kind of state it is or is it entry into a state then you're going to get a perfective verb or just a plain state and then it's going to be a present stem so not all of these stages are illustrated here but we basically go from a nominal suffix to a state of little b to an inchoate of little b this is what we see in Greek and then an event of little b this is also what we see in Greek when we get the passive use okay and this actually has some nice consequences because this means we can take this whole thing and also this Vedic form up there and conflate them into one which we're going to skip now because I'm out of time I also wanted to talk about verbal diminutives in German and in Germanic this is the third case study that's actually the most exciting one I think I'll just show you maybe the last slide so diminutives verbs in German are very productive they are formed with these L suffix that seems to be the same that we have nominal diminutives so the idea is here that we originally form a nominal diminutive with these suffix and verbalize it with a verbal category changing head and then this feature becomes re-analyzed as part of the verbal domain and interestingly diminutive in the verbal domain seems to mean iterativity so these things are plurational iterative activity verbs okay so to conclude very quickly so this case study here is that we see regularities in the way verbal derivational morphology develops surprisingly often we started with something nominal that becomes re-analyzed in the verbal domain we go from selecting nominal heads to selecting verbal heads we very often go from stative to eventive so adjectival state, verbal state, event and there are good pathological parallels for all these developments especially the development of adjectival morphology to participle morphology as Hans already mentioned has a lot of parallels and I think when we start to generalize and formalize the morphosyntactic features of these formations we can identify we can better identify regularities right so we see possessive means state when it's re-analyzed into the verbal domain and so on and this works even for developments that do not display traditional grammaticalization characteristics so most of these things I think would probably not be analyzed as grammaticalization you don't go from less grammatical to more grammatical or from lexical category to functional category that doesn't seem to be happening but there's still a re-analysis going on and I think we can find out more interesting things about that thank you


state of salam and taslim and so submission it's no coincidence that the root of the word submission is also linked to the root of the word peace which is salam and also that that is something you and I say to each other to our families to people we speak to many many many times a day we send peace upon people we say assalamu alaikum which is not just a word we repeat not just a phrase we repeat but ideally a do I a state that we are wishing or hoping for someone to attain so the one who actualizes their Islam through properly practicing as a Muslim as the one who as someone who submits will now begin to have a door an actual route to attaining the state of salam the state of peace and then that links very much to the state of taslim which is a complete internal peace that comes when you submit so it's all alhamdulillah summarize there if only it were that easy if only we're as easy as the way in which the names have been set up but this is what a unique a unique component of our religion that is very difficult to find in other traditions and other religions today where someone can actually attain this state that many other people are searching for in a time that's riddled with stress riddled with anxiety riddled with worry riddled with depression many people are searching for this state of inner peace our religion already has all that to offer the problem is is that we only do things at the surface level we look at Islam as a very textbook black-and-white understanding we say these phrases without really contemplating the realities the haqiqa the haqa of what they actually mean the haqa of what they actually mean and then we just go through the motions but this religion this life is a lot about a lot more than going through the motions and Allah even in the prayer itself Allah is teaching us what it means to submit there is a reason why in every unit of the prayer you make sajda twice compared to every other action because sajda is at the essence of submitting at the essence of submitting to your Lord is telling him ya Allah only you only you can help me in whatever problems I'm going through that I am putting my head on the forehead to admit to you my incapacity my brokenness before you my weakness before you and there is a reason again why in the prayer we make the sajda so often why the masjid is the place of sajda it is the place of prostration there could have been many other names for Allah's house but he chose it as the masjid so all of this is linked but we have to think afala taqilun Allah asks us in the Quran do you not think do you not use your intellect as Muslims we have to begin to reuse our intellect we traditionally the Muslims were the most intellectually advanced civilization with no exaggeration even non-Muslim intellectuals will point this out with the most intellectually advanced civilization in the history of civilizations because when someone practices this religion properly they begin to unlock parts of themselves that they didn't even know that they had because the intellect actually lives in the heart it's it's part of your akal is part of your heart it's part of your khalb it's part of this understanding that you can get the more you practice properly the more your intellect your akal widens it's now in the modern days in the time in the last 100 to 200 years we've fallen a bit on hard times we've begun to become followers of Western traditions rather than the leaders which we were in the past which were we set the foundations for what subsequent civilizations including this civilization was built on top of because we had much more to offer we didn't need to go and look at every single new movement or new ideology or new shiny technology that was coming out we were the ones who were developing all of that and that's what happens when someone attains this state of actually submitting to Allah is now Allah begins to give them openings and begins to use them as a community and as an ummah to make major major contributions both to this world to improve someone's life here as Allah says he is made as a Khalifa in the earth as a steward of this earth but also to help people advance and reach higher stages beyond what they thought were even possible this is the role of the Muslim but it all begins with our individual submission there is no attaining this without our individual submission as Allah says Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves you have to begin we have to begin by working on ourselves so submission has multiple multiple components to it one of the ayahs that beautifully summarizes what submission is Allah says in the Quran perhaps you hate a thing and in it is much good for you and perhaps you love a thing and in it is much bad for you will not we are the moon Allah knows and you don't know this gets to the essence of submission in our religion that Allah has the information and we don't have all the information so we can certainly not have all the answers and certainly we cannot expect everything to go our way when we expect everything to go our way we won't be able to submit because submitting requires this is the way Allah has set things up it requires turning things over to him and Allah will test each and every single one of us at a macro level and at a micro level out of an a and throughout our life with big tests and then on the day today with small instances to see are we submitting to him or are we resisting and you'll know whether you're resisting or submitting because the inner the inner state that someone has the level of calmness and tranquility that they feel the level of Sakina that they feel is directly in correspondence with how much they submit to Allah in the level of trepidation and stress and anger and and intensity and trepidate and and and torpedoity that someone feels is directly linked to how much we don't submit to Allah because we don't actually achieve the state of being a Muslim so that's at the first level is perhaps you don't like certain things but it is much good for you many of us we go through parts of our life especially as someone begins to practice the religion more seriously there's parts that are hard perhaps someone does not like to wake up at 5 a.m. in the morning or at 4 30 in the morning to eat the the Sahur meal to eat the the pre-dawn meal during Ramadan or any other time they're fasting but in it is much good for you in it is good for you in this life from a level of learning patience and certainly in the next life from a level of the amount of reward that Allah has given to the human being but word up to the human being very few people would just do that themselves willingly just on their own come up with that and perhaps you love a thing and it is much bad for you many the majority of desires that human beings are caught up in or the majority of planning that we do ourselves that's not rooted in principled thinking that's not rooted in spiritual ideologies there's a lot of bad in that we might somebody might be wanting to fall into a certain sin they think oh I this this seems really appealing this is how this happens all the time now we something we might look at something we might want to eat we see everybody else eating certain types of food oh I want to eat that but it's not permissible to eat it's not halal Allah wants us to submit to to what he has ordained for us to do and it is much bad for you and then Allah says what Allah knows and you don't know this verse just reflecting on this verse and really actualizing it can solve the majority of the things we go through on a day-to-day week-to-week month-to-month in our life because we're constantly going through this thing happened why did it happen how come it happened like this who do I blame that today well hold on a second what about Allah where's Allah in the equation because Allah is the one who's behind everything Allah is the one who is testing us in every moment but that requires a awakened heart a heart that's alive in order to realize this and so this happens then at different levels at the first level of submission is when someone just submits to what Allah wants them to do and what Allah wants them to stay away from and this is the battle at that's defined in the early phases of spirituality known as the nafs al-amada the evil commanding soul that it does it inclines towards desires it inclines towards the haram it inclines towards looking at haram and eating haram and listening to haram and wasting time and not wanting to do anything that Allah has that person it doesn't want to pray it doesn't want to wake up to pray in the early morning most certainly it doesn't want to fast it doesn't want to give money away in charity doesn't want to do good for others it's all about me nafsiy nafsiy nafsiy me me me once the human being reaches adulthood they are not allowed to be about me me me anymore when we're young and we're children children have that natural sometimes they a little bit of hey no this is mine this is mine but that's not that's the station of the child not the station of the adult but some people are spiritual children trapped in the bodies of adults and we have to rather be spiritual adults in the bodies of adults this is the definition of the Rijal of the of the spiritual man or the spiritual woman and so that's at the first level is someone submitting to what Allah wants from this is not easy to do but once someone unlocks this now they really began the journey of spirituality now they really began the journey of actually how is my religion going to give me immense benefits in this life and the next it's a struggle Allah Allah knows it's a struggle that's why they're in our religion there's this concept of jihad a struggle it's not going to be easy the human the nuffs the ego of the human being desire is designed initially without actual purification to do what to fall pray to sin and to desire and Allah says have you seen the one who takes his Hawa his or her Hawa as their Lord their desire as their Lord because everybody everybody is in every moment a slave to something human beings are either Abdullah a slave to Allah by submitting to what Allah wants or we are slave to some desire so slave if we don't want to if we miss our prayers constantly because we're so busy with work work work we're slave to the dunya if we are constantly caught up in another desire or we're sleeping through all of our prayers we're slave to sleep whatever desire catches you in the moment that prevents somebody from doing what Allah wants them to do that's who they are slave to so there is no idea of independence in this world everybody is dependent on Allah Allah created us Allah is nurturing us Allah is sustaining us but whoever doesn't realize that in that moment is not a is not really achieving their state of servitude to Allah so the first hurdle to get through to achieve this state of submission and to actually begin to realize the realities of being a Muslim of being one who submits is to submit in the big things to submit in the big things and staying away from what's impermissible which we generally know and we learn growing up but we have to actually practice it and doing what Allah wants us to do to do in every moment not picking and choosing there's a difference between somebody who has the is working on themselves and is like you know I'm not there yet I'm not at the point where I can do all the things my religion has asked that's different from somebody who is just like yeah I just don't think that's the thing I have to do I don't think that's an obligation I don't and that's that happens in our times and we have to be very careful Shaitan he wants to make us think that we can define our religion ourselves I hear this often where someone says you know that's just I just that's not my set of belief that's not how I believe like our sets of belief are already defined for us we don't pick and choose what we believe in our religion that's there is no innovation in our religion it's a very very serious concept to reimagine what we believe no belief is very very clear it's not about I I can be a good person and give charity and so on but I'm never gonna pray but this is just my belief no no no no sorry that's not your decision to decide the creator of all beliefs the creator of human beings already decided that for us the goal for the human being is to submit and this is why the human being naturally the nuffs has a state of arrogance and a state of desiring independence this is the trait of Far'on where the Pharaoh said I'm a rabokumala Allah says this in the Quran that the Pharaoh says I am your Lord Most High no no no no he's not the Lord Most High he is a slave to Allah but he did not realize his servitude and so Allah taught him a lesson and now that lesson is being perpetuated and being taught to more and more and people and he was made an example of we don't want that to happen to us so that's where the submission at the first level comes in at once someone starts to submit to Allah in staying away from what's impermissible and starting to practice what is permissible at a especially at a daily level this is the goal to get to that what Allah wants us to do every single day for our own benefit it doesn't benefit him now you begin to graduate into the next step where someone is going to be able to more successfully submit to Allah in the big decisions that that you're grappling with in your life many times we might lose a job and now we're like why did this happen what's going on we're stressed we're confused natural human emotions but there's a big difference between the one who sees Allah in all of this as ar-razaq and the one who's going to take care of them and the one who's providing for them at the end of the day and the jobs was simply a means and the one who submits to Allah and someone who just completely in a state who's completely perturbed big big difference or any other calamity that someone might go through or someone is trying to get married and is unable to get married or trying to conceive children is unable to conceive children there's a big difference between someone trusting that I want to do this in this time and Allah saying well you try but it's Allah's timing that's going to work out and Allah knows and we don't know there's a big difference but to even start to grapple with these concepts to even start to internalize these concepts the first step that we just mentioned that first hurdle has to go through because all of the prayers that you do every day all of the acts that we do every day there to help us achieve this internal state of submission there's that there's a deep internal submission that comes with our religion which is why you'll see people and many times you'll see this and especially may Allah bless our elders in the older generation our grandparents that there is a certain state of teslim that just exists that Allah knows what he's doing that Allah is aware of this and they're not perturbed in the same way that when we're younger in life and we're going through certain situations we're frazzled very easily because the life experiences has to have taught those have taught them that you know what I'm not in control of this whole Nizam not in control of it he's in control of it and I have to submit to what he wants and that will happen in both tribulations and things you want to happen in planning that you and I do and then in planning where Allah teaches us no no no no that's my plan to do you try it but ultimately you have to submit to what I want it doesn't mean we don't try and we don't intend and we don't make our own plans or our own intentions rather we do that but we have to submit to what Allah wants so this is now at the second level and this is there's a whole spectrum here of work that needs to be done in the different type of decisions that a human being is making one of the ways in which this manifests in our religion is through the istikhara prayer where you admit in the istikhara prayer what is the istikhara it's for anyone who doesn't know it's that you pray to raka of additional prayer to ask a love for guidance in a certain situation you say yalla I don't know what the answer is you know what the answer is you know what's best for me so if it's good for me in my religion and in this life and the next then ordain it for me and if it's not then make then guide me away from it and ordain and ordain me contentment so submitting to Allah is somebody who does istikhara regularly that's a sign okay you're not just trusting yourself you're actually trusting your Lord because he has all the information this is the difference between the angels and shaitan in the first big the big incident that took place in the heavenly realm where Allah told shaitan shaitan keep in mind who is iblis he had worshipped for tens of thousands of years on the earth he wasn't just some big sinner who became shaitan no no he was a worshiper he was a person of a lot of worship it's mentioned in the books and he worshipped and worked till he was called to the divine assembly and he was called to the divine assembly and he is in this noble presence and then Allah issues a command to submit to to bow down to Adam and the angels do so and shaitan does not do so and once that arrogance that he had in that moment because when you don't submit you're being arrogant you're saying Allah I know better what's good to do in this moment versus what you think is good to do in this moment he did not submit and then for eternity now he is ruined through that act of not submitting to what Allah wanted the angels they admit that we don't know subhanaka we don't know glory be to you who has all the knowledge we don't have all the information you are the most knowledgeable in the most wise this reality of accepting this is going to transform your life transform our lives is accepting that you don't have all the information and so stop relying on yourself rely on the creator who knows all things he is al-alim and the hakeem so this is at the second level and then somebody goes beyond this and they began to submit in the big things and now Allah will start to want you to submit in every single little thing every moment he wants to see are you going to submit where is your subar at where is your shukr at and this will start to happen and it will happen throughout this path for everybody but there is there is there is a question now and that the test that will come and it's up to us are we going to get upset are we going to get perturbed are we going to lose our cool we're going to start yelling and blaming this person or are we going to say okay this is something coming to me from Allah like they're just just this morning was already did hadn't slept too much last night and then woke up this morning to my wife woke me up to a huge leak in our sink or in our kitchen because of some dishwasher issue and immediately I was like obviously getting upset someone saw the dishwasher they did it wrong big leak you know you have some flooding going on and then I had to like calm down a little bit and remember that okay hold on it's not it's not yes the person is at one level accountable and responsible however what is Allah trying to teach me in this moment and what does Allah want me to submit to and am I just going to lose my cool and start yelling and get angry and all these types of things or am I going to try to heed the lesson I'd probably give me you know give myself a B minus and how I responded and need to do better but that it was it was it was reflective I had to realize that hold on he's who's behind all of this what's the test in this moment why is this it's not about why is this happening to me oh my God my whole day is ruined and I have so many other things to do and that that that that no it's like hey Allah ordain for something to happen this is the decree this is what's called submitting to the decree so in your day in your life in your week and your month big things small things will happen you have to we have to learn to find a way to submit to Allah and when we have suburb through the small things Allah begins to teach us shukr in the small things that that Allah says that these are signs for every sabbadan shukr the patient one and then the one who is grateful because the suburb through certain things will allow you to reach a state where you are just grateful you know what it could have been much worse I could have had this problem happen and this problem happening someone will start to orient their mindset completely differently the two are very different then the person who complains about everything and does not see Allah and so submission is the key that is what our religion is literally the name of our religion that's what it means that's what a Muslim means and that is the state that we are trying to achieve and when we do so we will now begin to achieve a level of comfort in our life that every single other person on this earth is seeking and then we can be means to hopefully helping others attain that state. And so what is the process for attaining this state of submission? The first is to align yourself in as much as possible with the Sunnah of the Master of Submissions that he taught us in every moment what to do and so following the Sunnah is not just this outward action that we do just to go through the motions no no no no it's supposed to be a means of transforming your heart your heart goes through spiritual alchemy it goes through a transformative process the more and more the Sunnah of the Beloved sallallahu alayhi sallam is followed and the more and more someone realizes the meanings of the Sunnah the more and more the heart begins to transform because you can't do this just by these concepts intellectually you know you could understand them in like fifth or sixth grade but it's super difficult to implement because that's at the heart level but when the heart begins to transform and this alchemy happens and the traits of Subbar are attained in the heart and the traits of Shukr are attained in the heart and ultimately the heart attains the state of complete submission now it becomes way easier to actually do the things because the limbs the way you respond outwardly are simply responding to the state of your call respond based on or rather based on the state of your call based on the state of the heart and so what are these important Sunnah and of course we already know the Farah of the activities we're supposed to do but align yourself with the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam in every daily action that he did he had a do I he did when we woke up when we the praise be due to Allah for the one who has awakened us from our sleep and there's he had a do I when he put on his clothing he had a do I when he entered the restroom he had a do I when he exited the restroom all of these do I why did they exist it's not just to repeat on our head on our lips without having any idea what they mean no no no no that's in Sunday school we might learn that when we're young but the goal is to eventually learn the meanings and to actually begin to practice so align yourself with the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam at a deep level there's the as he did in the morning and the as he did in the evening to help at the body attain it or the soul attain a state of submission throughout that day and there's many compilations one that I would highly recommend if you are trying to start to inculcate the Sunnah in your life more is to do the where the Latif of the Mama Haddad I think they do it at MCC once a month or so on Sundays or so in the mornings but this is 10 minute compilation you can listen to it on YouTube follow along it's a do as from the Quran and from the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam compiled that he would do every morning and evening align yourself with the Sunnah in the daily actions of worship and then the actions of interacting with people and the state of submission begins the second is to begin to reflect at a regular level on why are certain things happening to you in life not questioning Allah but rather okay so some lesson I'm trying I'm supposed to learn in this rather than blaming other people all the time or getting angry or getting upset with our spouse or with our this person with our children hold up why is Allah testing us through those means because there's some trait he wants us to inculcate some people will be able to do it in a month other people might take 10 years because we don't learn what he's trying to teach us in that moment and so have that level of reflection especially when the same test comes over and over or the same category of test comes over and over again and third is for us to really elevate our spiritual aspiration when it comes to trying to travel this this spiritual path this is not something we want to just waste our lives doing everything that everybody else in society is doing and then we just follow a few of the aspects of Islam until we pass away we get one chance at this life one chance of this life and left and right these days we're hearing of people who may Allah have mercy on them who are young and young ages and then all of a sudden something happens and they begin to that life their life ends within a week or two weeks the way you live day to day is the way that you will pass away there is no magical moment of some notice that's given to people where it says now you have five months to transform your life before death comes if only it were that easy that does not it doesn't happen like that it's the way in which I live our day to day life the way in which we submit to Allah in the day to day is the way in which we will submit to him in those moments and there's various parts in the Quran various Dua's in the Quran where they ask Allah is telling us to ask him to let us die as what people who submit people who are in a state of submission because if you submit to Allah you are already in accordance with what Allah wants from you and then inshallah the journey through to the next life in the barzakh in the grave into the intermediary realm and then beyond that inshallah will be a lot smoother because the realities of submission will be attained and finally be on the lookout for certain types of examples that exist in the Quran that align with examples in your life Allah makes his messenger submit in very very big ways that don't make always make sense to the human mind he asked he said sacrifice your son he said told him sacrifice your son and he obeyed he was about to sacrifice his son and then we know what happens that it's replaced with the Ram and this signifies what we do on the Eid al-Adha but he submitted to that so that when Allah commands us to do something in the submission is the goodness when you submit Allah gives the way out from a yet to go out of mahraja whoever has talked about Allah Allah gives them a way out of every problem but that the submission has to happen first that Allah will give the way out of the problem but don't resist it so much don't fight it so much and when the nafs and shaitan want you to fight it ask Allah to assist you do do some abqar pray to Allah to Allah calm my heart down let my heart attain the state of submission and then you'll start to see either immediately after or soon after whatever thing we were struggling with the answer becomes clear the answer becomes clear and now Allah takes over the affair that's what we want ultimately Allah says in the Quran for us to say I resign my affair over to Allah this is the way of the messengers that sometimes so much was happening that they said Allah I resigned my affair over to you take over I can't do it I don't have all the knowledge I don't have all the information I'm just a weak human being but with your strength I can get help with your knowledge you can help my ignorance with your strength you can help my weakness with your ability you can help my incapacity that ultimately is the reality of this entire life that we have in the reality of the lessons that Allah wants to teach us in Allah Allah that you allow us to attain a state of submission or Salam and to attain a state of peace or Rahim in your own that you pour your mercy upon us and upon our loved ones and all of those who have passed away in our community very very recently and before this Allah that you grant them high stations of Jannah and that you make their graves illuminated with light and that you give their families patience and that you allow us to attain a state of submitting to your decree in every situation inwardly and outwardly in small things and in big things. Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa baraka ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahli wa sallam. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alamin wa aqeem as-salat.