Give me a 77 on the INS. Okay, sir, this is our first checkpoint. This is the area here. And sir, that looks like it, right there. And that's it. Assignment, aerial reconnaissance. Reconnaissance that includes photography, radar, or infrared and ultraviolet sensing devices. A wide range of modern techniques. 5.175, mission number Charlie Yankee 4-0-0-1. There'll be no fighter escort required. Mission, primary mission will be stripped and pinpoint photos of suspected heavy enemy truck movements along Route 9 into the K-SAN area. Time on target, 1,300. Communications wise, no changes. Provider and primary remains 28-28. IFF, mode 1, squad 0-3, and mode 3-2-3 and 2-5. Coming back. Weather, local existing F-9, 2,500 scattered, 10,000 broken with 6-plus visibility. And forecast no change for your ETA. Gertfield, U-Bahn, and U-Darm are clear, some high scattered, two line about the same as the name. All field facilities are up. The approach and midfield arresting gear, status is up. The enemy situation. There is a small arms fire along Route 9 where you'd be flying your photo. Suspected 37 and 57. Radar directed AAA in the line bay pass. Two briefings precede each mission. First, the overall assignment. Target, enemy defenses, fighter support, and other critical considerations. Bob, that's Sparky Dask in the north. What's the terrain like? The elevation along the road to the pass where you'll be shooting is 1,000 feet. There are hills on either side of the road 22 to 2,300 feet. Morning, sirs. We've got a priority one target for you this morning. I'd like to have you make one run along Highway 9 just out of Quezon using all three of your camera stations. The altitude will be 1,000 feet, AGL, 1,200 feet MSL. All your camera stations, sir, are loaded with full rows of film. Your station one will have a KS-87, 6-inch vocal length lens.  The second briefing lays out the photographic aspects of the mission. The pilot and observer concern themselves with camera station. The primary camera, the backup camera, the technical factors. Do you want the cameras on all the way down this road or do you just want the two targets? Right, so you'd like to have your cameras on to start the run here at this point, run them all the way through to this point, then bank off. The circled points, sir, are points of most interest at this time. Okay, do you want my station one, the vertical or the blank? Okay, Andy, you've got the radio. The teamwork of these two men is of critical importance, not only to the aerial mission, but to ground operations to follow. When combating an illusive enemy who frequently moves by night and works in small numbers in mountainous terrain with heavy cover, often moving supplies by bicycle, it can be extremely difficult to locate his position. One photo mission by these two men can make the difference. Have a good officers. Hey, Andy, which aircraft do we have? Number 15, I think. 15, I flew that yesterday, that's a good aircraft. Just back from Barsman. Yeah, it sure is. Okay, Bob, I'm just going to stop by a parallel for a minute, pick up my mask. All right, Andy, I'll meet you in the flight line and get my gear out. Goodness. Behind each flight mission is a complex of sophisticated electronic equipment, which must be continually checked and maintained. For modern surveillance aircraft to do their job requires knowledge in the heads of the men on the ground and skill in their hands. A complete film processing unit is ready to develop and print photographs, making the information recorded available to intelligence personnel in the shortest possible time. Enemy air defenses are not ignored. Photomissions frequently requiring low altitudes and high speeds means special attention to ejection seat equipment. Maintenance work seems unending. Aircraft requires hours of servicing for every hour applied. Each photo mission is individual. Cameras for that mission, lenses specially selected, angles precisely calculated, are carefully installed. Complex aiming, exposure and triggering mechanisms for each camera are connected to dual controls, so that they can be operated by either the pilot or the observer. Continual inspections are made for previously undetected damage from enemy fire or any other defects which could cause the mission to fail. Ejection seats are double checked for obvious reasons. In fact, just before takeoff, the entire aircraft is given a final inspection by a skilled maintenance crew. Finally, specially chosen magazines of film are delivered for loading into the carefully mounted cameras. The final inspection is by the pilot himself. Before each mission, he makes a personal check, a complete visual examination of his aircraft. He knows the places to check for possible trouble. Roger 29 or 88. Roger 29. The culmination of so much work by so many marine specialists is at hand. The tent, the mission, sweeping low over enemy-dominated terrain. Now it is a matter of time. If there was something on that road recorded by the cameras, the location can be identified and action taken. The enemy has been in this area. Now is the time to pin him down. This then is aerial reconnaissance, combining the eyes of the eagle, the intelligence of men, and modern firepower. Almost before the aircraft goes to a stop, the cameras will be unloaded and the magazines rushed on their way to the film processing unit. Pilots normally go to the film processing center to check the results of the flight and to determine that all camera equipment was functioning correctly. The proof is in the film. Okay, off to the right-hand side here, you can see the trucks leading off the road where the truck park is. Of course, there's quite a few along the road here. I can see those with my naked eye. Let's see what I hear up here. Okay, sir, I think I found the truck park right here in this area. Right, it's up on the right side of the road there. How about the trucks down there at the bottom of the negative? Yes, sir, they're all full, they are moving. Okay. The pilot knows that much depends on the clarity of the images that he brought back. If they are not good or show no results, the danger will have been risked without gain. Good pictures and good intelligence can bring sudden action by artillery, ground or air, with a devastating effect on the enemy. One picture can save a thousand lives and win a battle. Yes, sir, I think we've got 100% target completion here. Good job, sir. Well, let's get out in time tonight for the attack sorties. The aerial reconnaissance mission of Marine Corps aviation is one more of the tough, dangerous, highly sophisticated specialties that go into making the Marines a complete fighting team. Mission, find the enemy from the air. Mission accomplished. Enemy sighted, plotted and destroyed.


Your faith is not yet complete. It is not perfect. It is not perfect unless I am more beloved to you than yourself. Your parents everything. And then saying, O My Lord, He went and he did, he had to double. He thought about this very hard. And he came back to the Prophet ﷺ to ya Rasoolallah, أحد من كل شيء. حتى نفسي الذي بين الجنبي. I love you more than anything, even more than myself. والنسبة لله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول ، الآن يا أمار ، الآن ، now your faith is complete now your faith is complete so the path of love is معرفة the path of loving the messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم or the path of loving Allah سبحانه وتعالى is having no sense or knowledge of them and we see examples of this amongst the صحابة we have موسعب ابن أمير رضي الله تعالى عنه who was a celebrity amongst the خرش when he was non-Muslim he was a nejem he was a celebrity he had a new phobon every day he was a very young man very beautiful man he was a trendsetter you know like celebrities they make trends for people if a celebrity is doing something with their hair we want to do that as well well not us inshallah but generally people want to copy they make a tough lead of famous people that's موسعب ابن أمير and then he became Muslim and his parents caught him off financially completely caught him off so now he was in his teens at the time he was 15 years old the Prophet ﷺ sent him to Al-Hadasha to Al-Sinia he comes back a few years later he walks into the Haram he's wearing a tattered thob with patches and his skin was rough he was barely recognizable the Prophet ﷺ looked back at him and he started crying he started crying profusely and he said he said he said I saw this person in Mecca and no one was more blessed by his parents that he was and then he left all of that with the intention of good and out of love for Allah and his messenger ﷺ there's many examples of this the older man I say who was for his father was a Zoroastrian he was a fire worshiper so a man traveled to Iraq became a Christian الله عالم he spoke to priests and Christian ألماء who told him to go to Hijaz he walks into the Masjid called Quba and he walks behind the messenger of Allah ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ had he has he has discernment so the Prophet knew what he wanted so the Prophet layered his thob a little bit and between his shoulders is a birthmark and when the man got tired the scholar said he entered in his body a love for the Prophet ﷺ in his body from above from above his head until his feet that the love of the messenger entered into his body from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet so this is what we're after here there's many other demonstrations of love of of an importance of love of Allah ﷺ a messenger of Allah of course we know the story of of Allah ﷺ saying upon the tongue of his messenger محمد says my servant does not draw close unto me with anything more beloved by me than his فرائد than his obligatory acts of worship this is the most beloved thing to Allah ﷺ ولا يزالوا عبية تقربوا إليه بالنوافل and he continues to draw close unto me with extra credit extra prayers, extra fasting and أمراء and things like that super arbitrary acts of worship حتى أحبا until I love him this is one way of becoming beloved by Allah ﷺ doing extra credit now many of us we might say well I can't do the extra credit I don't have time and I have to work and I can just do the follow so we take solace in another tradition of the messenger of Allah ﷺ which is better than friend to him say and the Prophet ﷺ he didn't give a date because no one knows the date except for Allah ﷺ so we asked him a question he answered a question with a question a better question وما عددت لأ what did you prepare for it لا شيئا nothing and the محدثين or the scholars of hadith they said this man just did the فرائد when he says لا شيئا and he just did the bare minimum but then he said but I love Allah in his messenger and the Prophet ﷺ said that person will be with those whom he loves right so if we don't have time for موافل then we have to increase in love for Allah in his messenger you see and this is something that we want to attain we learn about the messenger because we want to have closeness to him this is called محيا this is called قرب we want nearness to the messenger of Allah ﷺ we want to do this next to a neighbor in Jannah this is totally possible we can attain this it's not impossible it's conceivable for us to do this there was a man there was a man who brought the Prophet ﷺ a bowl of water for the Prophet ﷺ just a bowl of water the Prophet ﷺ said ask me for something he said I ask you for your companionship and paradise so this is something that the Sahaba they realized the importance of this was extremely important being close to the messenger of Allah ﷺ another way that we can increase our love for the messenger of Allah ﷺ besides learning about his life and learning about his seerah his way of living is by increasing our is increasing our benedictions upon him saying benedictions upon the Prophet ﷺ which is an أمر in the Qur'an الله سبحانه و تعالى uses a فئ العمر يا أيها النادينا عمر و سل لي عليه و سل لي متسليمة and then a مفقود موط العق at the end for double emphasis this is something good for you الله is giving you a command send blessings upon him امان الوبي اضلو كعب he came to the messenger of Allah ﷺ and he said يا رسول الله how much of my daily as a car my daily vehicle should I give to the benedictions upon you الصلاحة على النبي he said ربعا he said a quarter of it and the Prophet said that's good but more is better he said half of it he said that's good but more is better he said كله who all of it to have a giant that's good all of it of car can be الصلاحة على النبي and this is a form of worship and this is how we attain the love of Allah سبحانه و تعالى we love his beloved this is why Allah loves us we love Allah's beloved therefore Allah loves us and we follow his beloved a group of people came to the Prophet ﷺ يا رسول الله إلا لحب الله it's an old messenger of God we love Allah إنا نحن نحن نحن نحن نحن نحن نحب الله we love Allah and then the Aayah was revealed قل إن كنتم تحبون الله فاتبيعني يحبيبكم الله say if you really love Allah you have to follow me and this is what Allah is telling the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم to say قول if you really love Allah you have to follow the messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم you cannot expect to be beloved by Allah سبحانه و تعالى by rejecting his beloved it doesn't work like that it doesn't work like that وغيره من أكثر منهم وغيره من بسبب الله ومسجر الله وإي لغيره من أخباره. This is extremely important. There are different things that the Mmea mentioned about this longing to see the Messenger of Allah. Which again is conceivable for us to see him in a dream or an awakened state. It's conceivable. The Prophet ﷺ mentions this. الله صلى الله عليه وسلم then you will see him in your dream but very few of us attain this station right now there are certain dua and we can go over them in this class if you like there are certain dua that many of them I have stated has been a means a sub up by which that I've seen the messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم of the dream and we can probably I can probably pass those out a little or write it on the board or something there's confirmed dua but ultimately it's a gift from الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ultimately we take from the asdaq we take from the means because the messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم took from the means right but ultimately it's a gift okay so now in this class um we'll talk about this class before it was 16 weeks um we made a lot of comparisons between uh like judo Christianity and Islamic beliefs um we got some like apologetics with regards to see what literature I don't know if we have time to do that in this class though um we might just skip that it's going to be very much an edited or a bridged a مختصر version uh but we'll try to hit every every chapter in the book we'll get to the textbook in a minute here um so our right now our primary text is this book here uh I suggest everyone get a copy uh it's called Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم his life based on the earliest sources uh it's by martin liens okay who died in 2005 ميلادي is born in nanchester to a Protestant family so it's a convert he was a student of c.s. lewis who was a christian apologist and philosopher he wrote these books you know the narnia books have you heard of these things a lion witch in the wardrobe you know such random objects the elephant the easter bunny and the ironing bordering um so if you so in that movie for example I don't know if you've seen a movie there are a lot of christian undertones right and our children watch these things and they kind of take it in and it could be dangerous we just have to kind of not the lion he dies he's killed and he's resurrected jesus is the lion of a tribe of juda things like that it's very christian in its message uh c.s. lewis was a friend of Tolkien who wrote the lord of the rings series which also has a lot of christian archetypes a lot of christian iconography imagery you know like the the final scene you know as it were armageddon gandalf the white you know on his horse coming down and defeating the the armies of evil so on and so forth it was right out of the book of revelation in the bible so these have to think that be careful about when our children watch them 1939 he moved to egypt he was forced to leave in 1952 because of british activity in the region he came back to england and Oxford and did a phd in arabic he's very influential uh in islam's answer to modernity and westernization of the global environment and an advocate of meaningful interfered dialogue and right now actually a lot of muslims don't know this but muslims and christians are are having interfered dialogue at at the highest levels of scholarship you have you have muslims like the sadak and yemen who have transmission from the prophet who are meeting with the archbishop of canterbury or the Vatican right they don't televise these things though because if this is not good for ratings it rather shows some stupid show or you know there's a sleeper cell in new york and they want to blow something up or something stupid like that right but but if they show these things very powerful right you see muslims and christians at the highest level of scholarship and they're having a meaningful discourse all right so this book actually 1983 won an award it was a the national what's it called the national seer conference in islamabad and this book was selected as the best english seer ever written right and there's other there's other ones that have been written seared nectar karen armstrong was a former nun she wrote a pretty good one mongomery watt who's a christian uh orientalist he wrote one um in the 50s it's pretty good though it's very objective mongomery watt i think taught at ramadan also wrote one so the book isn't perfect okay there's there's there's errors in this book no book is perfect except for the palm right every book has errors but we're going to use it because it's probably the most correct and the language is the most eloquent all right he's he's a shakespearean scholar you know shakespeare back of his hand and i said that about martin lane it's not about shakespeare although he might have sheik zuber right as sheik hamza says so that's the thing if you're going to write about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam you have to use the best language right you have to have very beautiful language when you translate his hadith you have to have very beautiful language and that's what his his his wordology and his phraseology is very beautiful right and we have to be careful that when we talk about the messenger of allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam not to ascribe to him something that he didn't say or do this is uh this is a kabeera this is a major sin the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said in sound hadith uh he says man kathib man kathiba متعمدا فاليتباوق مقاده من النار او كما قاله عليه الصلاة والسلام said whoever ascribes to me something falsely or lies about me intentionally has reserved his seat in the fire right there's there's there's a couple of the liars of this hadith in the sound traditions so our supplementary literature we'll get to the primary sources of this book in a minute so this kind of an introduction class um the supplementary literature are called uh دلائل and شمائل uh literature so the دلائل are proofs of prophecy right like إمام بيحاكي uh we're going to use him and he uses him in this book as well شمائل literature deals with inward and outward aspects of the holy prophet sallallahu and probably the most famous book of شمائل literature is the شمائل النبوية by إمام أبو عيسة ترميدي رهيم الله تعالى and there's other books by قادي إياد الشفاء obviously there's a book i don't know if it's in english it's a contemporary book on شمائل by يوسف النبهاني يوسف النبهاني it's called وسائل الوصول إلى شمائل رسول and basically he takes because شمائل is a very large genre of literature he takes all of the شمائل and he puts it into one volume and he doesn't repeat anything right so it's very useful it's called the the who weighs the means of arriving to the شمائل of the messenger يوسف النبهاني i studied this book when i was in yemen so some of the إمام say you know these these outworld uh descriptions of the prophet you know how what he looked like physically is not important don't worry about that this is what some of them say yeah however we disagree with that because the sahaba mention it why would the sahaba mention it why would they take time mentioning in very distinct detail what the prophet said a lot of something looked like if it wasn't important the sahaba did not waste their time it's the best generation why did they mention that very minute detail they say that the that the the the tol next to the big tol of the prophet was slightly longer than his big tol why are they then who looked at that and why would they write it down somebody saw that and wrote it down because they thought it was important the most minute detail they counted according to the شمائل of the they counted 17 white hairs somebody actually went up to him and counted 17 white hairs on his head he said they're 17 somebody else said no they're 14 so they said i counted 11 right so why is this important it's important because the مخد that wants to hear about the محبوب it's important because the lover wants to hear about his beloved right if you love someone you don't you don't just want to hear about what they're saying you want to look at them you want it you want you want to you want to know everything about them everything about them right this is how the sahaba felt about the مسجر الله صلى الله عليه وسلم the only messiah that فاتم أزهره died from محبة of the messenger of الله صلى الله عليه وسلم إيمان بوسوري died from محبة of the messenger of الله this literally killed them the longing for the messenger of الله صلى الله عليه وسلم this is the the stations that we have to attain so see literature the word سيوة comes from a verb سعر يسيو means to stroll or to walk right yes you this is so this is ماذي مبادي this is past tense is present tense the word سيارة right which means car also comes from the سيارة an automobile the word سيارة is actually in the so it's automobile is obviously a a new application of the term when they came and took use of out of the well it says a سيارة came by the conveyance of some sort right so the word سيارة comes from this root meaning the way of the prophet how he walked right how he walked how he lived his life right so why would somebody write a biography anyone imagine why why would someone write a biography anyone oh we can say to educate right to educate called catechesis to educate to preserve identity right to increase love right so all of these reasons to preserve a teaching or a legacy to preserve the actual teaching right there's many many you know in communist countries the government will pay scholars to write بيارافي of some of the communist forefathers and they and they have to make it very positive so obviously this is not an objective biography right and we'll see that when it comes to سيارة literature with the prophet some of them they said them the scholars were very objective right no one's paying him to do anything right even if you look in the four gospels in the bible uh you have four very different views about yis alay salam the polemical tractates they're trying to persuade people into believing something right it's not they're not meant to be historical at all they're meant to be polemical we're trying to convert you right so this again is not objective there's a polemical aim so سيارة is not a exact science okay it's a distinct science but it's not an exact science the reason why we study سيارة other than what i mentioned before to increase in love and marry for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam the reason the early mustady seerah in depth is because it contains many of the many of the the context of quranic ayat why a verse was revealed right so if you want to know the context of the verse the scholars will first go to the seerah for example Allah says in the quran don't say don't say i will do that tomorrow except don't say i will do that tomorrow without saying inshallah right so that's a that's a a preset in the quran but people want to know why was it revealed what was the occasion of revelation the شعن المزل right so then we go to seerah literature and we find and we'll study this inshallah to Allah at the quraish to send the correspondence to the jews in medina and they said this person is claiming to be a prophet of the god of Abraham uh can you give us some test questions we can examine him and they said yes they sent a correspondence back ask him about the spirit ask him about the part of main right ask him about what has happened right ask him about these three things so they asked him about these and the prophet said i'll do that tomorrow and in 15 days go by and there's no jibil al islam does not come there's no right so many of the quraish started mocking the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam you said tomorrow it's not happening but many of them started thinking he's not making this up he's waiting for something to come right why would he why would he embarrass himself like that and then the verse was revealed don't say except if Allah wills he forgot to say inshallah and this is the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam has isma he's infallible but he has human characteristics and it's conceivable for a prophet to forget something it's conceivable to make errors in judgment it's conceivable he cannot willfully sin right that's the difference so this is this is one of the reasons why we study this as well also the purpose of seer literature according to the early scholars like ibn ishaq was to in atabari ibn jadeed atabari رحم الله تعالى was to collect as many traditions about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam as many traditions as as they can get their hands on without expressing any type of value judgment on those traditions was just to collect everything they could okay whether it was strong weak whether it was fabricated whatever they get their hands on and then they would let them have the theme the scholars of hadith actually go through the literature and extract things that had strong senate right there has to be a chain of transmission this is extremely important there has to be a strong to really pick and choose and indiscriminate seer literature is not hadith we have to be very clear about this seer literature is not had now they put hadith in seer literature sometimes you put a hadith right but you have to look at the senate of some of the stories some of the stories have no senate right there are powerful stories right you you're not obliged to believe in them right so we look at hadith there are the three grades of hadith basic grades of hadith okay there's hadith that are known as hadith multawater okay tawater they've reached tawater multiple attestation in other words groups and groups of people have reported the same thing about the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam okay which makes it impossible for them to have collaborated and conspired to fabricate something impossible there's less than a thousand hadith that have reached tawater less than a thousand denial of a hadith that is multawater is kufr okay it has it has a it's a firmly established proof it's equal to quran right without a doubt this is what the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said hadith multawater okay for example an example of the hadith multawater is the traditions about asheran مباشرينة بالجنة but there's 10 men that promise paradise and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he promised many people paradise many women is a seida right she's a she's a master of the women of paradise she heard the footsteps of the law of the rabbah in paradise hasalan hussein the leaders of the youth of paradise right but these 10 men is established to it's it's a it's a tawater tradition that means groups and groups of people from all over the muslim world are reporting the same thing right so anyone who says hashella that one of the uh uh the the killiffs that precede mama ali was died upon nifap or kufr this is kufr to say that because this is established through the the second grade of hadith is hadith صحيح also called hasan okay which is a strong sound hadith denial of such a hadith is not kufr but it's very the advised to do that because probably the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said this hadith okay so the hadith are used uh to formulate creedal statements okay they're also used for legislation they're also used um for uh for advice general counsel to muslims to water sahih hadith are not used for creed okay they're not used for creed unless the ulama by ijma by complete consensus agree on that statement okay they're usually used for sharia to make sacred law for legislation and obviously for advice and then you have hadith that are da'if that are weak hadith and weak hadith are not fabricated hadith that's a different category some people say don't quote weak hadith because it's probably wrong no weak hadith is one of our teachers said it was like a c- or c right if you get a c- on a test you pass the test it's a bad grade right you're probably unhappy with it but you passed right that's a that's a hadith a da'if it's not a fabricated hadith there's some weakness in the senate in the chain of transmission and these are only used for general counsel not for legislation and not for deriving creedal statements okay so we have four sources usulu-shara quran sunnah right which is not only the the words of the prophet but his f i his actions and his tacit approvals and disapprovals so quran sunnah ijma consensus of scholarship and qias right which is uh analogical reasoning based on established precedent okay these are our sources not seah literature this is extremely important because a lot of these a lot of the stories that are mentioned in seah that Muslims don't even believe in are being used by christians like evangelical christians to uh invalidate the lembuah of the prophet and in other words they're they're judging our religion by things we don't even believe in okay that's not that's that's not a proof that's not a believe against us if we don't believe in it how can we use it against us again the purpose of the early historians was not to express a value judgment on any tradition will suggest a mass as many traditions as possible because they were trying to be objective right and let the muhadithing go in and separate right so so you might come across a story in seah literature that has no sanad it just comes from nowhere it comes from uh israeli act tradition it comes from uh jewish tradition right it might be true right but you don't have to believe it there's no sanad it's just a story okay uh so that has to be made clear you can quote it it's permissible to quote from like you can quote from the bible and things like that as long as it doesn't contradict your akhita you can quote it and use it as an example but if it contradicts and you stay away from it be very cautious about that and some of the olem I said don't even quote the bible don't quote it at all just be safe and some said the dominant opinion abu hamad al-vazali he says you can quote it but be very careful when you quote it because many of it doesn't have a sanad okay so the sources of this book the first source uh that he uses here is called sila to rasulullah okay this is where abu bakr محمد ibn ishaq ibn ishaq okay uh and this is the oldest complete sirah of the messenger of Allah ﷺ although uh there was evidence that sahabah did write down sirah and tabi'een wrote down sirah okay oh lord ibn az-zuber uh رحمه الله تعالى who is the son of uh az-zuber ibn awam who is from the ten promise of paradise his mother was uh asma bintu abibakr siddiq so the son of asma the daughter of abu bakr and uh az-zuber he wrote down sirah literature that his works are in fragmentary form they haven't been preserved completely right there's many there's many examples like وها ابن منابه was from the tabi'een he lived at the time of the tabi'een in yemen he wrote down sirah literature his work is lost right but there's evidence that he wrote it abdullal ibn abbas who is مفصد القرآن right he's a companion of the messenger of Allah ﷺ he's the founder of the science of quranic exegesis he's the founder of usura tafsir quranic hermeneutics he wrote down sirah on alluah on tablets he wrote down the sirah of the prophet ﷺ but this is lost right so the oldest surviving a complete sirah of the prophet ﷺ is by محمد ابن إسحق who wrote it about 120 years after the passing of the prophet ﷺ so it's considered foundational but also very problematic it's considered very problematic because he includes again many of the apocryphal stories he just took from any source right so it's problematic in a sense that if you don't know how to approach it it could be problematic right and this is a sirah that christians and you know atheists they love this sirah because they don't know how they don't know how to approach sirah literature you don't just take it any tradition if you go to some of these websites like whatever i hate islam.com or something and i've seen these websites you go there there's articles about the prophet ﷺ and then you scroll down to the footnotes and you know it says very rarely will they quote directly from quran or hadith right so this is the main thing they attack is sirah literature okay especially ibn ishaq's sirah there's a lot of apocryphal stories in the sirah in that sirah but there was a very strong old tradition amongst the muslims it's an oil society i visited moritanya a couple years ago and you meet uh people that are umniyoon they don't know how to read or write but for father quran how can you be a hafiz of quran you can't write your own name because it's very auditory right it's a very oil culture the sherpa is in front of him and you'll recite to him and he just repeats and he's got it that's it right so they're still and it's a pre-modern society very i mean moritanya is kind of middle of nowhere but they're still societies like this a very strong old tradition okay they said that the knowledge of the salaf was in their breasts imam shafa even pointed his chest this is where my knowledge is right so you know he didn't carry on his books we know the famous story of imam rizali when he studied in uh nizam and mulk he studied under juwaini imam al haramein right he was a he was a most learned professor abou hamana rizali right he's coming back from samathand and he's he's uh he's a group of brigands right robbers they they they rob him right and uh they want to take his books and he says to one of them don't take my books that's my knowledge and he says this is your knowledge what kind of knowledge do you have that the likes of me can take it from you you're not a scholar right so imam rizali suddenly realized that i have to memorize this so he committed the next two years he committed all of his notes to memory your knowledge is not in books your knowledge is in your sub-border it's in your chest it's in your brain it's in your mind right this is it is extremely important and some of these scholars say that during their exchange imam rizali found out that this man was fasting and he was robbing him so as a vibrato imam rizali said you're fasting and you're robbing me what kind of Muslim is that and the man said i didn't want to close all the doors to my lord i didn't want to close off all the doors to my lord so imam rizali even learned a lesson from that and it said that many years later imam rizali was making tarafa on the ka'aba and he found the man that was clinging to the kiswah he was clinging to the curtain that the ka'aba was crying and it was the same brigand right so you leave a door open to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala you don't close the doors off so of course you know in christian history as well there's also a strong old tradition like the gospel of john was written at 110 about 80 years after isa al-asala the difference however is that christians believe the gospel of john is the word of god whereas no muslim believes that seerah is the word of god and the gospel of john written in greek which is not the language of isa al-asala by an anonymous person right whereas we know this is written in arabic and we know we wrote it even his hack even his sham so on and so forth there's a major difference now the three errors in this book that i'll say now um so just to keep in mind uh and this is probably uh something that he did kind of just um to um make it easier for christians to understand i think he he equates isa al-asala in the christian tradition as being the logos right which is a divine incarnation an avatar he equates that with the quran he says jesus is the word made flesh the quran is the book made word or the the word made book right so this is true up to a point we believe the quran is uncreated and the christians believe that isa al-asala is uncreated that christians also believe that isa al-asala is god and that he's separate in distinct from الله سبحانه وتعالى or the father in heaven wherever you want to call him one of the christians call him right whereas we don't believe that the quran of الله سبحانه وتعالى is deity in and of itself it's an attribute of الله سبحانه وتعالى so that's something to be careful about the other thing he mentions is at the uh he says that the prophet and i wouldn't know if he's getting this from um he obviously he has a source of some he didn't just make it up we have a good opinion of him رحيم الله وتعالى very blessed man she's not only this was also known as sheikh abu bakr asiraj رحيم الله وتعالى that was his muslim name sheikh abu bakr asiraj died about five years ago رحيم الله وتعالى he says uh the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam he destroyed all the idols except an icon of marwan and isa he left that in the kaba so this is not true he didn't leave anything he didn't leave any iconography in the kaba okay so it's it's not considered an insult to destroy an icon of isa alaihi sallam it's considered actually a praising of isa alaihi sallam to do that because nothing can capture the essence of isa alaihi sallam no orders can render anything that comes even close to the essence of isa alaihi sallam or any of the prophets right the other thing he mentions is uh and he implicates this is that when uh the marriage of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam to zaynab bintu jahsh is in the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam sees her and then suddenly he's enamored with her right uh so this is something that we reject completely it he implies that's what happened all of the marriages of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam are by command of الله سبحانه وتعالى okay one نجم إذا هوا مضى الله صحيبكم وما غوا وما ينطيقوا عن الآوة انه إلا وحيو يوحى علمه شديد وقوة that the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam does not speak from his howa from his own caprice he doesn't he doesn't make decisions based on his own howa right his own emotions his emotional state right this is extremely important so uh when we when we get to that so these are three problematic aspects again no book is perfect except the book of allah okay so mistakes are inevitable now uh in addition to ibn ishaq uh there is a مختصر of ibn ishaq which is much more uh um reliable it's called uh the مختصر of abdul malik ibn hisham it's three volumes ibn hisham uh and basically he went through ibn ishaq and removed a lot of these stories that were causing a lot of controversy amongst the early muslims that ibn ishaq hook from uh sources that were not sound right so this is the most popular seerah probably in the world is the seerah of ibn hisham okay um for example he removes this story recorded by ibn ishaq uh this the satanic versus story right there's a story um and we'll talk about that insha'Allah but this is rejected by you know abul bakr ibn arabi فخردين الرازي ibn taymiyah ibn kathir qadi iyad go right down the line complete fabrication he also quotes and this is if you get the books um this is uh at the end the new copies have this at the beginning but there's a page called key to references okay so these are his sources okay so he's not like making things up he has sources here okay so he says here he also quotes from ibn sa'ad it's called the tabaqat um and then also from muhammad ibn umar al-waqidi كتاب المغازي which is a chronicle of the military expeditions of the prophet ﷺ also quotes uh أخبار مكة by azraqi and then uh ابن جارير تبري تاريخ الورفل والملوك right the annals of that Tabari right which is extremely important work as well as a famous exigit مفصل of the quran um and then obviously he quotes from eight traditional books of canonized hadith he quotes from the sound six right asihasita who can name the sound six who can name the sound six you heard the sound six you can imagine two more and he also quotes from the sunnan of Ahmed ibn hambal okay which is a great scholar is a muchtahid right and uh داري مي امام داري مي so these are the eight books of hadith that he quotes he tries to serve it in the sahi tradition right the strong hadith in the mutawater حديث finally there is an occasional reference to bay haqi and the mishkat he says it was written by baghawi but that seems to be an error the mishkat was written by khateed tabrizi um it's about six thousand hadith it's a very beautiful book the mishkat um so we'll take a few minutes now what time is isha ten o'clock okay we'll take um we'll do this on the board then next time inshallah we'll do a historical overview of what the world was like at the time of the birth of the prophet sallallahu and why it was so necessary the world was literally in chaos what was happening in europe was unbelievable there was there was barbarian hordes everywhere pillaging and plundering there was just an unbelievable the dark ages right so we'll talk about that we'll quote from a christian scholar who is a uh he has a this is a text that we've studied in in seminary at the graduate school level about what the world was like during this period right around the sixth century but before we do that it's important for us to know the lineage of the prophet sallallahu and many of you i've already i've already do this to you if you took the previous zero class or the lives of the prophet's class we're doing in san remone um so it's important to know his lineage his confirmed lineage okay um we can go all the way back to adam right but only names that we know for sure are the ones that he named sallallahu and so there's a poet who said وحفظ أصول المستفى حتى ترافي سلسلاته أصوله عدنانا so remember the lineage of the prophet sallallahu and until you get to a man named عدنان فهو نان فى تف when you get there stop وعلم برث إيه إلى إسماعي لكانا للأبي مئوانا but know that it goes back to إسماعي عليه السلام who was a helper to his father so obviously the first person on this is abin عليه السلام okay the first human being خديفة الله سبحانه وتعالى and then the prophecy moved to the second prophet name either شي or شايف شي or شايف there's a difference it's set so these are Hebrew names right they're not Arabic names most of the prophets a lot of muslims don't know this most of the prophets name in the wallah so Hebrew and her israeli prophets not israeli prophets there's a difference between Israel and israeli okay israeli is the the bani israel with muslima before the prophet sallallahu وعالي سلام when i talk about israeli's we're talking about israeli okay so the second person that was at a dinner party or something and there was a brother there and he was from Iran and his name was yasha and i said uh did you know your name yasha is a Hebrew name that means the just one and his friend next to him started laughing ستقوم بإمكانك دخول sincerity وإمكانك إائل الصحيح وإمكانك فعل مصر كمkor شهرت مقاتلية كما انتت مرحبا ثم قمتissıllك وإمكانك فعل مصر كمار كمار فعل مصر في تأثير سكانك لا وقوم بإمكانك الظمت فأصدر الله يقول لقد انت لك جهة خلالك هذا الشيء يأتي من دلسة هذا شخص who is disciplined who is learned يجرس عليه السلام إذن كثير يجرس عليه السلام يجرس عليه السلام إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى إذا كنت أرى امام العام سام وشم ذلك إنها سم سم كل شيء سام هو أبي سماe أعطوناه محافظاً على الموضوع الصوتي. ثم نستطيع الرجال الثلاثة. لدينا إبراهيم عاليل سلام. وإن من الشيعة هي إبراهيم. إذا كنت أبدأ إبراهيم عاليل سلام. ثم آلاء الإبراهيم عاليل سلام. إسماعيل عريسلان إبراهيم يعني أعظ رحم في إبراهيم أعظ مرسي إسماعيل سميع الله سميع الله دار هر الآن لا أتكلم أي شخص حتى أجنان أجنان إسماعيل عريسلان أكثر من أجنان يتكلم أن هناك أجنان قدار who is the son of Ismael and the reason the reason why they say قدار because there is a figure in the Bible who is the son of Ismael who is very prominent and the word قدار in Hebrew is used synonymously with أرب so he was a very important figure in the Bible so we just put that in the parentheses so this is speculative we don't know so after أجنان you have مع أجنان مع can we children Sunday schoolers معد نظار في اليس this is not the prophet اليس عليه السلام this is a different اليس مجليكة so we want to know everything about him that you can tell what a person loves by what their tongue is always saying so someone is always talking about their car my Mercedes Benz it's beautiful that's what they love the tongue reveals the heart so there are youth who know the score of every single whole series since 1901 and you say well that's so useless why would you even well I love it right this is how I remember it when I was in the middle of the Bible for the mother to know this is a good practice نظار نظار نظار name for فهر who's فهر he's known by a more famous name so you want to know good guess not who say قرش it's on a skill called تسغير like حسن and حسين it's diminutive قرش means the bite اكرش is a shark so قرش is a niche maybe they say like when he was a kid or something he bit something and they kind of they called him yeah قرش so it kind of stuck with him but his real name is سدرون قرش this is the قابيلة of the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم this قابيلة is called قرش not either كلاب or حاك this كلاب in Arabic has a bad meaning means dogs that was his name sometimes they say they use it in Arabic كلاب now قرش about 400 of common era who told the Arabs to stop moving around to stay in Mecca and build houses who say قرش is the Messenger of Allah is قرش that's the tribe and then there's a قرش there's a قرش the قرش is داني حاشن قرش is the Messenger of Allah this is his knowing lineage names we know for certain from tradition so maybe we can go further أمضل الله at a brother and he has a son من دعالي the Prophet ﷺ is the daughter of Fatima they marry with حسن and then they have their own lineage stop at that point إن شاء الله is there any issues or any questions now we can take their comments if not next time إن شاء الله we'll start with the historical context and then also read if you get this book you have to get the book maybe it's not a mandatory book but read the first two chapters the house of God and a great loss and maybe what is the hollow the chapter like a page and a half each it's very short chapters and there's a lot of chapters very short okay any questions so probably we can find this book so this book you find anywhere Amazon most bookstores even like Barnes & Noble what not there can you strike it down do you name the book the name of the book I'll hold it up you can write it Martin Leanz L-I-N-G-S Leanz it's very easy to remember if you guys are interested before you leave today just sign up Leanz and any go to amazon.com it'll come right up this is his most famous book there's different editions but they have different covers and they move things around but it's the same text any other questions like I said there's a lot of information we're going to move quickly they're not out there out there they're writing yeah it's my it's my it's out there smiling all of them now Allahu Adam we don't know maybe we don't know my kid art could have been a prophet Allahu Adam as I mentioned in our sources but الله سبحانه وتعالى says in the book some of the prophets we mentioned their stories some we have not most of them الله as Na'a mentioned it's conceivable there have been many prophets because they fall within the prophetic Fathara but definitely there's no prophet between Isa and the prophet S.A because it's a confirmed in Hadith there's no prophet between Isa A.S. the prophet S.A yeah he's a contemporary prophet what's that this linear he's contemporary who's in the who's in the lineage of Isa A.S. he's contemporary I see I see what you're saying this is about this is about 230 years I'm Adnan maybe about 600 Allahu Adam just based on you know this 400 it's 1234 6 names away I'm sure we can calculate it or play an amusement it's serious business we can have fun doing it and it depends you know it's just a way where it's socialized as people need to be entertained and whatnot people find different things entertaining I can sit with a shave for five hours and he can explain the very monotone voice about the c-fact of Allah and I'll be in thrall for four hours but for other people you know it takes a little song and dance and so I'm sorry I'm kind of boring but just this information we have to learn I can't learn it for you it's like with the Arabic class people say you know you have to do this and that and then you have to do the work you have to memorize the brain of a child so ready to absorb it's very easy to learn things when you're a child learn languages it's very easy encourage the children to come and take notes as well and send them so they're welcome to come as long as it's okay with the mustard board I don't mind anyone coming in I'm sure when I see non-Muslims people that look very strange and they're probably you know working for some agency or something but when I have nothing to hide we're teaching love and peace


Welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcasts the newsroom for telecom professionals I'm Carl sketch Lee and joining me today is mr. Eric Highland program manager for a claim at Legrand welcome Eric Hey, Carl. How's it going today? Good. Good. Let's dive right in so Legrand It's a big global brand that is known for being a leader in electrical and digital building infrastructure and connected solutions But it also has its own division known as Legrand data power and control Can you tell us more about what inspired Legrand to create this division and what your team is trying to do? Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so as you said Legrand giant company lots of different fats is lots of different brands that fall underneath it data power and control DPC is Really focused on just the data center, right? So we have all these great innovative Strings right so to gather them all together arrows, right and gather them all into one quiver to focus on data center space is Is what the the goal of DPC is so we we take all the different pieces and innovative Subsections and try to put them in a house, right? And so everything that isn't a switcher router or a server Falls under that encompassing on under the umbrella of the DPC And so my my personal focus within that is on the connectivity side of things specifically in the fiber optics connectivity side of things and more specifically a claim is really the focus of Connectivity within fiber optics within the data center space, although really fiber optics everywhere But data center is where this kind of was born from so That's that's that's where I sit and kind of how Legrand's Silo's out and plays, you know, we're happy to play well with everybody with all the different pieces But to give us some direction and some functionality DPC is specifically more on the data center space Awesome. Well, thank you for that insightful answer Now let's talk about Legrand Infinium a claim a relatively new product that redefines fiber cabling connectivity By replacing pre terminated cassette based solutions with direct mating breakout connections So what makes this innovation a big deal for our viewers Eric many of whom are in the mission critical and data center industries? You know, maybe just tell us the top three big takeaways a data center executive should know about this product right off the bat Yeah, I think From from a overall connectivity perspective right like We came Fast history lesson 30 years ago cassettes were invented right in the early 90s If you took brave people and said how fast are we gonna go in 30 years?  They would panic at wide-eyed and say, I don't know 10 gig right and like we're now in this space We're casually having conversations around 100 gig and 400 gig and planning for 800 gig and 1.2 terabyte and so, you know, we've got this infrastructure that Was designed 30 years ago and the best it was ever gonna have to do was 10 gig right and like we're now Well way past that and so we're we're seeing You know infrastructure as a whole as an identity if we do our job, right? We're forgotten about you know, we're in the business of down is the dirtiest four-letter word And so having stuff that you now have to pay attention to when you're deploying new things and building new architectures Kind of defeats the purpose of being forgotten about and so like it's an opportunity for innovation to happen, right? We're we're there to enable Connectivity we're there to enable the evolution on the edge and the evolution on the edge has now gotten to the point where it's asking for things that Stuff designed 30 years ago isn't able to support and so now What that kind of turns into as far as? Punctual things is you know loss budgets are important now loss budgets are more important than they ever have been so paying attention To loss and how loss is created and then improving upon it is important, but anything that's new Can't be scary. It has to be approachable. So like as an overall design We need simplicity to be part of that deployment as well. And so, you know having space for It to be easy to deploy easy to think about and easy to Kind of touch and how it feels and also like what it's doing from a breakout perspective is important and impactful, right? And it also has to be fast not only from a bandwidth perspective, but from a deployment standpoint so like we want something that Takes into consideration not just our tree of like connectivity But looks at the whole campus and forest of what we're actually plugging into and how that works and thinking about what? The transceivers are and where they talk to each other and how they talk to each other and what they're supporting And so it's a really long way to say the three things are You know, we're able to do a simplicity from a design perspective as well as a connectivity perspective and and then also What and how those interactions happen and what they and how they behave with one another so Interesting yeah, that's so cool And I like that you said that it's not just about you know It is about simplifying and speeding installations enabling the higher density deployments as well But I think one of the points you touched on was that it's also about offering the industry's lowest optical loss by significant margin Can you tell us a bit more about that? How does the Infinium acclaim product enable that? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so In a word, it's alignment right like we have this big impending doom coming from an optical standpoint of like bandwidth is always increasing, right? And um, you know, I like to think about how light moves through Fibroptics the same way that water moves through a garden hose and so, you know bandwidth is just an increase in pressure So like if you've got a garden hose in your backyard and you screw another garden hose into it Like water wants to leak out right and that's the same thing with how light behaves in fiber optics There's always looking for a reason in a way to escape If you take that garden hose off the back of your house and plug it into the fire hydrant down the street That's kind of like where we go from you know 100 gig to 400 gig to 800 gig and so we're just increasing that pressure So much that that little leak in the backyard becomes A massive pond right and like just to really kind of pull out this analogy each droplet of water That doesn't make it it's in that pond is information that didn't make it to the other end and While computers are really good at making guesses about things they still need a bit of the puzzles put together before they can say what the picture is This all goes back to that's what we're seeing from like a panic perspective, but the reason that happens is because We built Stuff that was never supposed to support that pressure so like The where that falls apart where that starts being a consideration where we start looking at that is at the alignment part Right. So like that phrase direct mating breakout is really just ensuring that individual strands of fiber are Aligned perfectly and aligned in a way so that they can Are set up for success from a transfer and throughput perspective You know to get a little bit more into the technology Things that worked in the past still work now fiber still works as fiber LC connectors still are the cleanest best way to terminate a fiber so that you have Ensured directionality and loss and throughput is is minimalized. So like all that acclaim is doing is taking LC ferrules from the trunk side in a high density situation And aligning them with the LC ferrules that are on the patch cord side of things and that mdc connector so that Individually those fibers are set up for success, right? And so paying attention to alignment has gotten us To be able to say with confidence that our overall loss throughout the infrastructure Is you know 0.4 db where everybody else is performing around like the best anyone else is hoping to do is like dot 75 channel right so that's not insertion loss but full from transceiver to transceiver So the whole way the whole pathway from one end to another where the claim is Dot four where the best performing cassettes are dot 75 and like that difference because it's that you know db because It's logarithmic is like puts us in that place where we're pretty safe to say 3.2 terabyte isn't scary Not that it's theoretically even a thing that most people are talking about right now, but like that's the kind of You know the last thing we did last in 30 years the next thing we do Should at least last that long right and it's like we're in a position now Or we can start being excited about that kind of innovation in a space that is often forgotten about Yeah, that is so exciting. I mean that is a significant upside of this product it sounds like so I mean Probably our viewers think wonderful in theory Where does the rubber meet the road? We've heard that infinium acclaim has actually supported some very big names in the industry one of them being sisco In fact, I think that this product actually played a pretty crucial role in supporting last year's sisco live event So can you tell us a bit more about the role that acclaima played there and You know why that success was really important Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think that Overall, this is a brand new idea right so like we launched in april It's not quite a year old yet But we are seeing successes immediately from the people who care right for the people who are looking for The agility of a pre-terminated solution, but need that support and that performance from something that's uh, you know Anecdotally some of our better individual connections are equal to the splice connection So like having splice level performances and fiber that is a pre-terminated solution from an agility standpoint Matters and for the people it matters to usually is those bigger fun names right and for for sisco live sisco Maybe a surprise to some viewers. I don't probably think it's really a surprise Any of them likes to own all the connectivity in their Uh in sisco live in their different events right so like they bring to the event Their own knock with their own, you know servers and everything else and and all the connectivity that lives there is sisco connectivity um, so We worked with them to help build and design of full new Deployment that is sits inside of a container right and so they can ship it to all the different places and for them It was really impactful and important to have something they could unplug and plug back in quickly Because they're tearing stuff down and moving on to the next one at a pretty high rate of speed So having something that guarantees performance to support all those people walking around and all the different things that are plugged in but still allows for a quick move onto the next one was really um important to them and and it allowed us to really kind of flex our muscles and show how Different this architecture is but how it still is some simple to get out into the world and kind of interact with Amazing. Yeah. I mean this product sounds like such a win for the industry. It's technically astute. It's innovative and enables agility So what's ahead for infinium acclaim? Uh, you know, I think in the run up to this interview We heard that there may be a new suite of additional developments ahead for the product Are you able to tell us anything more about that? Yeah, absolutely. This is this one of those things. It's really fun, right? Like it's a brand new thing so like we came out with the beginning ideas of what this is and like I don't want to say the bare minimum but Change is hard and new things are scary And so we want this all to be approachable and so like Having a deployment plan is important not only for how this is going to go into your infrastructure But also how we're going to talk about this out in the world and how we're going to release our You know wobbly baby deer out into out of the nature, right? And so, you know the the next steps of this are really Twofold one like we know what we want from a productivity standpoint. We know what we want from a footprint standpoint Um, you know the initial version of this is something that was very modular that plugged into our existing uh enclosures and panels and things and so the next step is What can we really do like this this as a individual piece is very small, right? And so the connector itself has a lot of agility And the the conversion adapters have a lot of agility and where they can sit in the infrastructure Um and to get a little boring for most everybody. Apologies there gives us some spaces for Us to really start playing around with what connectivity and what cable management looks like in an enclosure But also out of an enclosure.  Like let's give all the rack space back to the compute and storage And do all the connectivity off to the side somewhere and so having a smaller more agile Footprint allows for us to start playing with like what zero you looks like and integrating it into our cabinets and into Lagrang again giant company like part of dbc and everything else is that we build cabinets and enclosures And and racks and whatnot. So like we can start integrating this footprint into the rest of the physical space so that The compute and storage can be totally occupied in all the r.u. Um That falls out in a lot of different ways, but probably from like how that's exciting and what that conceptually can look like and where that flexibility comes from more Like directly it's different different types of adapter panels different types of patch panels Um, you know, we can get some densities. We can get 384 fibers in a one r.u. Space which has some pretty interesting Applications for you know, large data centers, but also across connects and everything else. And so um really just kind of taking customer feedback and and turning that into products that are necessary and impactful to them And also a little bit of that Jurassic Park dancing on the edge of What we can do versus what we should do a little bit right and just kind of taking that into into consideration and making sure that Um We're having fun Innovation in this space doesn't happen very often. So like we're excited about it We're excited to push what the boundaries are as far as what this means and what flexibility can come out of this as a As a concept all the way from start to finish Very exciting very exciting. And I think this is such a great Way to um introduce legrond and your team to our viewers here today So one final question for me How can our viewers get in contact with your team if they want to learn more about a claim or obviously any of the other Wealth of solutions that legrond offers. Yeah. Uh, so legrond giant, uh Presence right like we are a global company probably the cleanest way I'm not knowing quite where all your audience is located right the cleanest way to do this is it's it's a little bit of a Cop out but probably going to the website, right?  Um, and there's more information there and ways to contact your local local Acclaim people and the grand people for for the rest of it. So um, yeah Legrond dot us slash acclaim probably the cleanest way to do it Um, and things will find their way to me We'll end up having a conversation at one point or another but that's probably the safest way to make sure that everyone's covered from start to finish Awesome. Well, thank you so much eric for joining us today and obviously thank you to all our viewers for tuning in Uh, stay tuned for more episodes down the line and as always happy networking Thanks Carl


Hello everyone. My name is Rakesh Ranjan. I am from Begusra, B.I. Currently, I am pursuing a bachelor's in computer science and engineering from the University Institute of Technology, B.I. I have been placed in Infosys after I cleared the placement drive interview. I got a referral from NPTEL as I am among the topers in the courses I have taken. I took three courses. The first was Introduction to Programming in C, which was a basic of programming skills which I took in the first year of my college. And I performed well in that examination. And furthermore, I went ahead and took two more courses. One was the data study and the algorithm using Python and the next was Introduction to Machine Learning. And I performed well in these two courses also as I am among the topers. So NPTEL has a program that they refer the topers of all courses to the different companies for their equipment drive. So I recommend the students to take these courses because this will provide you an alternative to get to sit in the placement drive of different companies. So that's all about me. Guys, thank you.


I'm Jay Fiedel, this is Community Matters at nine o'clock on a given Thursday. And we have Annalisa Burgos with us. She's a TV journalist broadcast a person. And she's gonna tell us about a life in TV journalism. Welcome to the show, Annalisa. Hey, thanks, Jay. It's good to be with you. Sorry for the technical issues earlier, but I think I'm good now. So that's the world we live in, right? Then I can ask you any question now. That's the thing. So the first question is, I mean, they're all out there trying to figure out how to become a TV broadcaster. How do they become a TV broadcaster? Where do you sign up for that? Well, first of all, my big question to everyone out there is why would you want to be a TV broadcaster? I mean, there is no money in this business. I mean, there's only a very few people that actually reach that level where you can actually make a decent living out of this business. I rely heavily on having a second income from a partner. But if you are a single person living in a major city, this is a really difficult job to be in. But in honest seriousness, you really have to be that type of person that is really nosy, really curious, really kind of doesn't care what other people think about boundaries. It really is a calling.  And the industry itself has changed. I mean, we could talk about that on a different type of show. But just going back to where I started from, I come from very humble beginnings. I'm not from lower middle class. And I wouldn't say that it was one of those things my parents wanted for me. It was more like, oh, you have to make money. You have to be a lawyer. You have to be speaking of law. You have to go into a business that makes money. They knew they knew you could. They knew they knew you were smart. They knew you could do anything, right? That's true. Just like every immigrant family who comes from, because my parents are from the Philippines. And when they immigrated to the United States, as so many immigrants do, you come wanting the best for your children. You don't want them to come from the hardships that they came from. So education is such a huge part of that American dream, especially when you don't have wealth. And again, you start from the beginning. I went, my mom busted her butt to put me through private schools and put me through, just have the best education available to us at the time. And so that's really how it started. And funny enough. Where'd you go to private school? Oh, I actually, I'm from LA. So I went to this school, Immaculate Heart High School, Immaculate Heart. We were the pandas and you may know we have some famous alumni, Megan Markle, Tyra Banks. That's my school. Okay. Do you remember the school song? And can you sing a few bars of the school song? Oh, wait, is it raise on high your standard? That's enough. Yeah. I didn't know it was a karaoke time, Jay. That's a different tone. Also, invite me to that one. I'll be really good at that one. But I totally digressed, didn't I? Let's get back on track. So I'm talking about being a TV broadcaster. So basically, if you have this calling and this interest, you just do what you can to get in there. I'm a good writer. Ironically enough, I didn't start in TV. I started in newspapers. I was a newspaper reporter. So I started actually, if you want to go way back, I used to be a copy editor, which is a very, very introverted type of job. And I think I realized I was good at writing. I was good at editing. I was good at just formatting a lot of copy, bad copy. But what ended up happening is I realized I was too much of an extrovert to be in that job. And a few of my mentors had told me that you should consider TV because you have a personality for TV. And you have a knack for getting people to talk and a knack for telling stories that most people can't find. And so that's kind of how I got into the business. I went, I'm in LA, like I said, I worked at the Orange County Register. Then I was at the Daily Bruin first. That's where I got my chops. Shout out to my former editor, Elena Jarvis. Hey, thank you for molding my young mind. I worked in Dallas at the Dallas Morning News. And then I decided, after everyone kept telling me, your personality is very much a TV personality. You should try to study and bring that to TV journalism. And I said, okay. And I applied to one graduate school, one graduate school alone, and that was Columbia University because that is the only school I would ever go. I don't care about you Northwesterners or Columbia, Missouri, or all the other graduate schools there. And I joked with you, Jay. It's like, I'm still paying for that education. But it's still benefiting you. Digression for the folks out there is that Columbia Journalism School is like the best in the country. But that's just me talking. Well, they award the Pulitzer Prizes.  Okay, fair enough. So that helped you? Definitely. I mean, and I moved to New York because that's where the hub of all media is. And I felt like in order for me to really break into the business in a big way, I had to move there. And I did that by going to graduate school. I met some great people, mentors, and I stayed. I was, I covered some amazing stories in New York. I ended up being a business reporter, which I never thought I would because I was always a community reporter. You know, cops, crime, local news, local stuff. And when I went to New York, I became a financial person and I covered everything. I mean, it was such an interesting time. This was back in 2003. And there was a huge bubble forming, as you may remember, if you, from that era. Rich burst. Well, yeah. Well, it was funny because it was the dot com, right? The dot com. Oh, sure, yeah. Yeah, that bubble burst. But then it came back in a very strong way because then we have social media. I mean, things like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, none of that existed at the time when I was a journalist. So, I mean, it's so weird now to see the young people coming through and it's just native to them because it's so different. I mean, I interviewed, one of my really fun interviews was with a very young Mark Zuckerberg. And he had just, I remember, because I used to work for Forbes, one of the companies I worked for was Forbes. So we started this video network, which was pre-YouTube. So they had their own proprietary video network. I mean, it's exactly kind of like the model you have, right? You create original videos, interviews, and you post them. And we were distributing it to like, at the time, MSN, AOL, you know, Yahoo, all of these kind of aggregating, aggregated sites. And I covered stocks. I used to do stock market updates and I interviewed CEOs. And so one of them- At some point you got into international news too, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, they all intersect, right? When it comes to finance, the markets are not borders. They're not, you know, there's no borders there. Well, two questions come out of that for me, okay? Yeah. Number one is, okay, so I say to myself, I want to become a finance broadcaster. So what do you do? Go to finance 101 or make that finance broadcasting 101. You get a mentor and tell you what to do.  How do you do that? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know. Especially if you're not an expert in it, right? I mean, the type of business this is, is like you have to be an expert very quickly. You don't have time to be getting an MBA. I mean, there are people that will go back to school and really specialize in certain subjects to be a finance journalist. But I just happened, I just stumbled upon it again, because New York is finance mecca and there was at the time this kind of desire and interest in explaining financial news, especially with all the, you know, the dot-com, the all the startups happening, all real estate. I mean, I was there when Lehman Brothers collapsed.  Oh no, definitely not.  I mean, the funny thing is I knew stuff also, but I didn't capitalize the way she did, but- What is it? It's a different life. It's a different mindset, isn't it? To become a professional TV broadcasted journalist person. And I really, I conflate the two of his journalism and broadcast journalism is pretty much the same. But it's a different life. How is it different when you walk down the street? Let's say you're walking down Broadway, for example. You see the world differently. How is it different? You nowadays or back then or what do you mean? Or both. Both?  I mean, I'm a positive person generally, so I like to kind of maintain some positivity. But at the very crux of it, you have to just remember that there are agendas. There are, there's things that people do with motive, with intention. And things aren't as random as you would think. So when I'm around, I'm walking around, I'm looking and talking to people, I'm always constantly thinking in my head, what's the end game here? What's happening here? And I know it's kind of a weird way to live because you're always kind of thinking two or three steps ahead, but that's just the way. No, it's no weirder than going to law school and practicing law, let me assure you. I wouldn't do my other job. I'm sure you mentioned that, yeah. So okay, so that's the kind of critical thinking business. But the problem is, and we talked about before the show, is how do you maintain an impartial approach to the world and life? Or putting it this way, do you need to do that? Is it part of the job, so to speak? Keep your mind in the middle somehow. You know, honestly, I think so. And the unfortunate thing I've started to, well, it's happened for a few years now, but more and more media has become just biased. It's hard to find balanced reporting unless you go to certain companies or outlets that are known for being in the middle range. And I'm a purist, so I believe that reporters and journalists have to be objective. And even if we don't agree with what other side that we're interviewing or trying to cover, we have to do it justice, you know, in order to let people be informed and give them both sides. I'm really that type of person where that's our role, a journalist's role in society is to educate and inform. That's become much more difficult in these years. I mean, because there were some people that take a position that's absolutely looty to us. And if you maintain, you know, the need, and the ethical need to represent all sides, you wind up representing or at least giving credit to a side that's loony to us. But this makes it complicated for a journalist. How do you handle that? You have a thick skin. I mean, that's really what it is. I've learned over the years not to take things personally. I mean, I've been trolled, I've been criticized. You know, nowadays people are much more critical of the media than before. I mean, social media was a big part of that. But I really believe that the benefit of journalism is the vetting process. There are multiple layers that are looking at what you are saying and what you are covering. And that's kind of how we hold ourselves accountable. Social media doesn't hold anyone accountable.  Well, a lot of people don't understand how to decipher a fact and opinion nowadays, especially the young people. I mean, I'm teaching at UH now. So just a little bit of background. I used to work at KITV and I left and I'm teaching now part-time one of the reporting classes. And when I talk to these students, these are college students, young journalists, you know, we have this discussion about how do you remain objective? And a lot of them, they just refuse to talk to the other side. They say, you know, that is, why would we give them a voice? They don't, you know, they are completely wrong.  But, you know, at the bottom, I mean, at the end of it, it's about giving voice. That's really how I see my job. It's like, you're supposed to give voice to people that don't have it. You know, it's about questioning, raising the bar of conversation. And while you don't exaggerate it and you don't celebrate it, I think it's important to at least include it, you know, in a very kind of neutral way. It's hard. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes these days, you know, you see MSNBC or CNN, I'm sorry, I don't watch Fox News. No, I used to watch Fox News and I had a rule. I would watch it until the first lie. And at the first lie, you know, I would turn it off and go somewhere else. Usually I never got to watch it for more than 10 seconds. So that, you know, that was my way of, you know, dealing with that issue. But that's a problem because, you know, we live in a world of PR, social media, people coming up with opinions that are ridiculous. And, you know, the journalist has to be able to, or the producer, the news producer, has to be able to discern what's appropriate for public consumption and what's not.  And at the end of the day, you're not doing much for the country. As a matter of fact, you're damaging the country. So this gets to the question of the duty of the TV broadcaster, or for that matter, the TV news producer director person who establishes what stories are on the top, what stories are on the bottom. But Jay, I would argue that those outlets, I wouldn't say those people are journalists because I think they're more commentators, or maybe they're more... Opinion. Opinion, you know, I understand what you're saying, but you're talking about outlets that are, their business is to take a side and then argue it or promote it. Well, their business to sell soap is what it is. Yeah, I think journalists are Reuters, AP, The Associated Press, you know, our local news is that as well. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about fundamental news outlets that their business is to cover news, traditional news and not wax poetic and fill airtime. And I can say that because I used to be a cable anchor as well. And I got to give my share of opinions on lots of things. So I mean, that's just a different type of business. So just... As a cable anchor, as a newscaster who's reading off a prompter, I love the way that works, it's not easy. All the folks out there should understand that reading off a prompter is not easy. You need years of experience to do it well. Thank you, Jay. Sorry, I said that. I think it's so easy. No, don't be sorry. I mean, they think it's like this easy thing, but I've seen some really bad anchors. As a matter of fact, what people don't know is that two of us are actually reading off prompters now. Oh, no, we are not. This is totally off the cuff and I love it.  So I noticed I was watching for this. Last night, we had this invasion into Ukraine. So the question is in the morning, what are they talking about? Were they talking about in the print press? Were they talking about television and for that matter, social media? And the answer is, yes, it's an important story, but it does not fill the airwaves. And so wait a minute, you know, in a larger picture, you know, this story about Ukraine and the invasion and the end of the liberal order in the world, I see it that way, that's really an important story that could affect us. And yet, I don't think a lot of media pick up on the priorities. They have their own priorities and it really doesn't matter in a world where news changes by the minute. What do you think? Are you talking about local media? Cause I've been hearing it all over the media that I'm reading. Okay, good. I like to hear that, it's good. Yeah, I heard it on an HPR this morning.  So I don't know where you're pointing to. Are you talking about local media or like where they're not covering it as in depth as? Well, last night every channel had it live, you know, from, from Kiev and other cities in Ukraine. And that was good. That was reminiscent of other military invasions and conflagrations that we've seen in our lifetimes. But I want to- I mean, I covered the South China Sea debacle. So I mean the China building all of those military installations right next to the Philippines. So, I mean, for years and years. So again, these are stories that as an international news anchor, I find important and I find relevant to us. It's just a matter of translating it to the local audience. So I agree with you. Like when I work at a local station, the priority is not international coverage. It is more local community coverage. But there are ways to localize things, as you know.  So, I mean, there's a lot of ways we can localize it and make it relevant to people. It's just a matter of putting that investment and the interest. And honestly, between you and I, I don't know if the younger generations of journalists are being taught to appreciate international news because as you know, budgets for international news coverage is very low. So I got to be a foreign correspondent for a little bit, but it was because I moved over there of my own accord.  Is that your preference, Annalisa? Is it your preference to cover international things? Because they got a lot of work for you right now in Eastern Europe. Oh, I would love to. But I don't think, you know, like that one journalist that speaks six languages and that went viral and covered the Ukraine crisis. Yeah, I mean, I would love to, I mean, I obviously moved to countries where they have English language channels, which is, and you know, like in the Philippines, I can speak Tagalog, but it's very bad Tagalog. I would never broadcast in Tagalog, but I can do interviews enough to get the information from people. So I was able to work at a network there and then in Singapore, because Singapore has an English language channel too, Channel News Asia. So I had a fortunate opportunity to work out of there and cover big news. That was a big South China Sea. The, that's when it first started. Also, I think Crimea, also lots of, lots of interesting stuff. You gotta be nimble to do that though. In fact, you have to be nimble to be a TV broadcaster. I mean, your career has gone from city to city and station to station for years and years.  I mean, maybe you started when you were 11, but. Thanks Jay. It's that Asian, it's that Asian gene. It must be, it must be. I got to get some of that. You look good for your age too. I have to say that. I'm not telling you my age, Annalisa. Oh, I looked you up. I did my homework. Okay, so you move around like that. I mean, is it good to move around like that? In some businesses, it's really good because every time you move, you have the benefit of a bigger CV behind you, you know, and the opportunity to ask for more money when you move. And so your career, you know, moving from hither to yon sounds like it's the normal TV broadcasts career everywhere. Am I right? Yeah. And that's what I tell people all the time. If this is the field you want to be in, it's you have to keep moving. You can't stay.  Joe Morquem's up to mind, right? I mean, there are people that can actually stay in a market for a really long time and move up and be successful. And that's fine. But for the most part, a lot of people will move to different cities because the opportunities are in different places, you know, and then you have to, you know, make money. You have to find what's right for your own personal goals. And that's what the TV stations want to do. They want to see fresh face all the time, right? They keep on moving. I don't think so. Tell me. Well, I don't know. Anchors are your community faces, right? So in my experience, it's a little bit harder to be an anchor in cities. Like you kind of have to have a following from wherever you're from. You have to kind of prove that you have this like wealth of knowledge and that you can jump into a city and a community and be part of it right away, you know? So that was the benefit of me coming to Hawaii is that, you know, while I've been here many times, I'm not actually from here, but I make it a point to really get to know the community so that people feel like I can represent them. And that's the same when I moved to Singapore and that's the same when I moved to the Philippines and that's the same when I moved to New York. It's like you have to be part of that community and kind of defer to that culture. That's it. That's it.   And my own way of handling that was with Mr. Potato Man. What I mean, what I mean by that. What is Potato Head? Or Potato Man? Yeah, Mr. Potato Head, right, right. You would design, just you have to have one listener or viewer that is, you know, your viewer who you are speaking to one person and you would design this person with Mr. Potato Head and he looked like this and he acted like this or she, whatever, okay? And you would speak to him and that was a connection. You kind of represented him. You asked questions on his behalf.  And, you know, it's a one on one but it's really one on hundreds of thousands or millions. By the way, we take questions here. We have a question. This is a very interesting question, Annalisa. I like this question. Are we live? Sorry, I didn't promote it. That's why. This is, yeah, next time. So this is a question that we haven't covered and you'll enjoy this question. Good for the questioner. I'm excited. Thank you to the questioner. Okay, what do you think are the most underreported stories in Hawaii? Ooh, that is a good question. You know, honestly, I feel like there is so much in our schools and we don't know. I mean, maybe it's just me, but I'm looking and trying to find interesting things that students are doing. And I would love to see more of that coverage. There's a lot of amazing things that teachers and students are doing on a very local front, innovating, trying to solve a lot of the problems that we have here in the islands. And I would love to have a series on that. I would also love to have a series on, you know, I know I've seen coverage here and there of things like this, but really deep dive into some of these local startups, you know, that are making waves in the world, you know? And I've always done that in every station I've worked at, at every network is trying to promote entrepreneurship and that feeling of inspiration and thinking outside of the box, you know? Like kind of like one of those types of stories where it's like, this is what we think the future is, but it's happening now and people are working on it. Sea change stories. Yes. Changes that nobody recognizes and there you have it. Yeah, like really looking ahead.  And I know I've seen some, but not enough. I feel like we could do more, especially on the TV side. You know, I know civil bead and other online publications do deep dives into big issues, but on the TV side, I think we could do more and especially for the, you know, because TV is really for the average person. Well, there are some TV producers that say, we don't need to cover this kind of exotic news. We need to cover the things. Well, news outside the mainstream news, you know, that people want to see, people want to see it. And I say, wait a minute, wait a minute. What's the test here? Do you want to give them news they should know about or you want to give them news that they want to know about? And the answer, you know, from a lot of producers is, we don't care what they should know about. We want to give them what they want to know about. And that sells. And I say, really, is that doing your duty as a journalist or producer to inform them and to give them the facts they need to be good citizens and, you know, train them in civics, which takes me to my last question for you. Well, my last area of question, leaving room. Okay, so you're teaching, okay? This is very important because you're teaching students who may never be journalists, never, never, ever, but you're opening their minds, you're showing them what happens to your, you know, your way of looking at things as you're walking down Broadway. And how do you impart that to them? This is not easy when they would not otherwise be inclined. They'd be inclined to, you know, flip to a football game. Instead, you're showing them something else. How do you make that impression? Teaching these students how to make that impression?   They see you a little wider. How do you teach them that? I think people who end up deciding this young to go into journalism have this almost, like I said earlier, this calling. You know, they're not in it for money or fame or they shouldn't be.  I think the way to get them to really appreciate this business and, you know, just is to focus on it to read news, to consume news and look at things with a very critical eye because our business is broken. I mean, I think social media ruined it. I think it's harder for young people these days to focus on listening, the basic skills of listening, interviewing and really being humble. We are in an era where people are more focused on influencing rather than reporting. And I think that is such a shame. I mean, again, I'm generalizing, but these are the trends that I'm seeing. So when I talk to the students, I'm lucky to have a great group. They're diverse. They have interest in international news. We have good discussions in class about that. I think what we need to build and not just in journalism students, but all students, all youth in education, I think we need media literacy. And I think we need critical think, we need to work on that critical thinking. So many times they're just taught that whatever is put out there is, you know, correct or it's right when it's not from a legitimate source or from something that's verified and it's shared. Multiple, multiple times without actual vetting. Those skills are necessary and I don't think we're teaching that to our youth. I think that's one of the biggest things we should be doing to have a informed society with media. Because, you know, all the young people going into this business, they're gonna need those skills because they're the next generation of gatekeepers. I would like to say, remember that term? I don't know if you ever learned that, but media used to be gatekeepers, now the gates are open and we're just trying to close them back. There's a lot of noise out there, you know. Contended to confuse people, propaganda and PR and it's very hard to discern. Well, I think that's a very important thing. So it's, A, it's more important than a lot of other courses and it's probably actually, may I say this publicly, it does more good than going to law school. Yeah. Well, we can go into law if you don't like journalism. There's a lot of journalists who actually go back to law school because they realize that's where the money is. And there's, well, sometimes and there's a lot of lawyers that go into journalism. That is true. There's a connection there. That is true, I think. And it does help in the long term for your career if you have that legal degree, you know, you can really question things a lot more than if you didn't have one, I would say, you know. But like I said, when I talk out in the community, I just went and met some police officers at a coffee with a cop discussion the other day. And, you know, I asked them, I said, what do you think is wrong with media? And they said it's not balanced. You know, they're giving one side to most of the stories and there's not enough diversity in the voices. And, you know, I agree with that. And I think it's hard because, you know, if you're on deadline, you can be tempted to not do more, but we have to teach our youth to push, keep pushing. And I can't resist asking you this, Annalisa. Yeah. When the cop at the media cop program said, you know, that there weren't enough stories on some side, whatever side, what stories was he referring to? What was missing as far as that cop was concerned? No specific, I mean, no specific story that he pointed. He said he bunched it all as a broad, a few of them had said this, as a broad discussion that the stories are always from a very litigious point of view and not from a more holistic criminal justice point of view and how our legal system works in terms of laws and how criminals are put away. It's very must arrest. And then, you know, this person was let go again. You know, if there's... You learn something from that. Yeah, I feel like... Did they learn from you? It strikes me that they could learn a lot more from you than you, sorry. They do learn from you. Anyway, look, we're at the end of our time together. I have enjoyed this re-partee. It's really re-partee. And I wanted to ask you one more question and that is this, you know, and you don't have to answer this question. You can say no. Oh, it must be a bad one if you're saying that. You can whisper if you want.  I wouldn't mind that. Oh, okay. And I know you do better than the school song I'm an awful, awful singer. Okay, go ahead. What's your next gig, Annalisa? Oh, that's a secret. We'll have to, we'll have to fight. You'll have to tune in to find out. I mean, I'm always looking. Let's put it that way. But I'm always looking. So yeah, I mean, I'm here. I'm invested in the community. I'm talking, I continue to talk to people, get to know their stories. I never stop doing what I love.  Okay. All right. So you don't have to whisper to sing it. I'll let you off the hook. You'll, you'll be the first to know. You'd have to invite me back. I'll break some news on your show. Yeah, okay. It's a whole set. You can run, but you, you can't hide. Annalisa Burgos. But you haven't seen the last of me. You're not getting rid of me yet. No, no, no. Not a chance. Thank you so much, Annalisa. Great to talk to you. Thanks, Jay. I appreciate your time. Thanks for inviting me. This was fun. Absolutely. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.