So today we'll talk about careers. I hope it's not a one-way me saying stuff, because that would be very short, if it turns out to be like that. So I would like to be interactive. Feel free to intervene, much like you did. So interesting yesterday in the open mic. And in career advice, there's not really a kind of rules that I can give you. I more want to touch on various things that I think are relevant, and they kind of come together in a big soup of ideas, objectives, and things to consider when you're making decisions. So the material I've prepared today is basically in the form of cartoons. They're not offensive, but I don't want to offend anyone by, I mean, this is not really kind of joke material, but I think these cartoons highlight various aspects that we might want to think about. So this is the most negative cartoon of all. It's the fact that there is a pyramid in jobs, unfortunately, and this is kind of true in almost any career. If you define career by just progressing and getting a senior job, then there's almost always kind of more people looking at that senior job at any level that then there are senior jobs. And well, wherever you are, you're probably not kind of head of the United Nations up here or whatever is the top, top job in the world. So this is negative and we'll try to understand why this is not even kind of a sensible way to really kind of look at things. Or at least I think it's not very sensible. So a long time ago, there were only two jobs, hunting and gathering. And so a career advice was more simple, I guess. It just went to the cave. Today, there are more options and so more things to think about. Most of us are here in the spirit of either being just before PhD or we've done a PhD. We were here because at the moment we're investing in an academic career. And so that has kind of a traditional branching into one or two postdocs, some sort of tenure track or long term fellowship that then becomes, apparently goes well, becomes a life kind of job in some department or institute. But there's of course a very traditional other branch. At some point you might branch out and go more into industry or some sort of activity related to more direct economic impact in society. And a third branch is to go teaching in either a university level or some sort of high school or school situation. And most countries also have opportunities for qualified people to end up in institutes or agencies more or less research led. And I guess the point I want to make is that you can have a really successful career and life anywhere here really. The only reason one can be not happy is if personally you've invested every single aspiration one way and then you end up being in one of the other branches. But really the point I want to make also is if you look at industry for example then there are situations in recent decades where the best research was actually done in industry in certain fields of science. You just need to think about soft matter that you heard from Eric. Yes, was it just yesterday? Yes, feels like a long time ago. Yesterday morning you all kind of got a very nice picture about what soft matter is. Well a lot of that soft matter was built at Exxon Labs in an effort to understand how to improve oil production. But at that time the Exxon Labs wasn't just doing very applied research they actually took a very broad view and a lot of the big actors in soft matter today actually spent say a decade in that Exxon Lab. And similarly some of the food companies that the giant food companies like Nestle and Unilever have very big labs that basically act as research labs. And not all the time, not every company but there are companies at a given time that are doing some of the best research in certain fields. Of course Bell Labs has a very special place in electronics. There are other examples as well. Am I missing something big and obvious? Well I think I am. I mean today if you're doing either kind of applied automation or network analysis on the web or something like that then perhaps Google is the place to be. I mean you won't beat the resources that some of those companies have in specific areas if they really care about those by being in a small university group. So really depending on what you do and the well defined kind of historical moment that there are situations where the best research is done not really through this branch but through some other branch. And agencies, I'm thinking here for example most big countries have one big health institute that doesn't seem to do very much but then when there's a health emergency you see it on the news and that's the place that's actually trying to tackle the health emergency. So they're very valuable kind of other places to be as well as the path that probably most of us have in our minds kind of standard academic path. Okay so we've asked ourselves where we are. Each of us has some idea of where you want to be perhaps more than one option. It's actually healthy to keep having a few options and to weigh them up. And we've got to think about how to get there and how to keep our options open. Okay, there's an interesting lateral move so you're not really going forwards but about crowds only move laterally so for them it's the obvious thing to do. Who should stay in academia? That's one question. There isn't a faculty job for every PhD student. That's entirely obvious. In some countries that make a lot of PhD students like the United States, the United Kingdom, it's actually a very small diffraction of people that go on from being PhD students to being faculty people in that country. It's perhaps 10% or 15%. Others are going to other countries where there are faculty jobs and not that many PhD students being kind of produced but a lot of other people are exiting academia. So one thing to obviously keep in mind is try to do what you're good at. If you find yourself being very competitive and being very encouraged by everybody around you, then that's a good sign. That probably means that you can stay there. If the signs are a medium then that's an encouragement to look around more. Understand your constraints and see if you can get random. Especially while you're young and doing your PhD or soon after, you're still kind of not set exactly in stone. You're not kind of a marble statue. You can understand whether there are things you can improve, you can understand compared to people around you. If you have more constraints, for example, you don't want to travel then that's a fairly big constraint. Or on the other hand, if you are free to travel and others around you aren't, then that's a huge advantage in terms of finding opportunities and jobs. So how do you get a job? It's not just about kind of having a few good papers or kind of the best PhD, the best CV. It's really a product of many factors. So I guess for a given scientific output, you have to have a minimum that people recognize as yours or more than a minimum in many cases. But as well as that, you have to invest in your network of connections. People have to know you, people have to trust you. Essentially, people have to want you as part of the scientific community if you're going to make it that way. And if you're going to make it towards industry, there's a whole set of other things that you need to be able to prove and that the industry research people will be looking for. Okay, so this guy, this guy has his paper published. It has to cross all the swords and being battled around and says this is big improvement over previous peer review processes. So publishing is a key thing because the published paper is basically our little deliverable and it's the thing that people can most easily count in terms of seeing what somebody has done. We've got to ask ourselves, is there anything else as well as just publishing papers and having a list of papers that we should do and that we can do to kind of survive in this, especially in the academic path? Some of these are open points. I mean, I'll keep going and we can come back to them. There's constraints. I've mentioned travel. So obviously, your relationship is not just about incomes but kind of family and whether it's one relationship or a fact or parents or siblings, whatever. It's often something that does kind of put constraints and influences choices. If you are in a very kind of market-organized system like the United States and to some extent United Kingdom, then being mortal is a requirement sometimes. You have to move between places and definitely helps. It helps, not least because you can actually look at all the job openings anywhere they are. As I can't side to that, other countries don't actually encourage movements and what we have to do to progress is really stay put and be the person in place at the right time when a job appears where you are. So I think it's actually, it's healthy that science is organized with motility and generally there's a very strong correlation between countries where science is rich and healthy and countries where people move but countries that have less resources. And I know because Italy is always kind of a middle ground between trying to be kind of an advanced scientific country and not being one as it's always kind of halfway. Then countries that kind of are not in the kind of the traditional leading league are generally organized with much less motility. So that's something to be aware of. If you do want to actually make your career in New York country, which is not one of the Western like ones, then what is the best strategy to actually land that job? But also how can you, if you don't think, well, if you want the job, but you don't think that's actually the best way to run a scientific system, how do you kind of tension between the two things? Okay, don't get stuck. I was here last year as well. Sometimes people say, well, this is what I'm doing. My institute does this. I can do it, but I don't see kind of any opportunities or nowhere else to go. I don't know what to do. And also sometimes you're doing a PhD, which is kind of narrow and kind of a bit dead end. Well, I think in the spirit of how we've run this school, it should really kind of always be thinking as independent people. And in some sense, all the time you're actually doing a PhD, you're being trained, yes, to do research and make papers in that particular area, but also to be independent and to understand how to do research in general. And if you are going to be a good serious scientist, you really have to take that and believe in that and have confidence. So what we've tried to instill here in these two weeks is also the idea that it's not that expensive, not that difficult to do something quite creative and that this is a good moment in the history of this hands-on area of science to actually do very powerful things with not that much. So really the encouragement is to keep thinking and you can start side projects, whether they are with younger students in the spirit of kind of training them or whether they are really research projects, you can actually take power and do interesting stuff. So don't get stuck, I have this in mind as being scientifically stuck in a particular line that sooner or later will come to an end as all research lines do. This is a graph, still on the same point really, that I've taken from Uri Alon's career advice material. So he says that there are really two ways in which PhD advisors advise their students and more generally how people approach deciding that there's a science problem. One way is objective driven.  So sometimes that works and things are exactly as you planned. It's quite rare actually because if it was so obvious that you could go from A to B, then one of the other kind of hundred thousand people might have done this already with them sometimes. But other times it works, I mean you're the one who thought about it, it's fairly well-defined and you or your students in six months or one year gets from A to B and a paper is made, very good. And then B becomes A and you start again and as sooner or later this will actually not work. And then, so Uri Alon says quite often you start from A, you're heading to B but there's a big kind of cloud, things don't work, you get lost and in that situation, if you keep trying to get to B that may not be the best strategy. You've got to train yourselves and also train your students to also work out what to do in case the objective-driven strategy fails. And he says, well this is really where we're nurturing and explaining to people how they can find new problems is the best strategy because then every brain becomes an independent source of ideas and in going from A to B and getting lost you may end up in C. C may be more interesting because B was the obvious thing that you could actually see and that everybody could see as being the right thing. C is something where you've learned in part and also you've kept thinking more and more and sometimes C can be a better outcome than B. And if you're actually doing science and again I think this is relevant both if you're doing kind of applied research in some company or in academia. And again for yourselves if you're at the stage where you're deciding what to do for yourself or when you give tasks to students you've got to balance this kind of gain axis with a difficulty axis and you constantly have to assess especially if you're telling other people what to do you have to assess whether it's gonna be easy or hard for them and small gain or large gain on some sort of absolute scale. And of course there's kind of a sweet spot up here where it's not too hard to get the result and that the gain is big. What you don't want to do is kind of get people stuck on things that are very difficult and even if they work that they're not gonna be that exciting which would be kind of this corner. So you want to kind of maximize some sort of a locus of points up here where there's a balance between achieving the gain and the gain being some value of some value. So choosing topics and choosing things which are sensible for yourselves and for your students is a really, really key thing. And if you look around that's kind of people who've been successful and whose students have gone to be successful this is one of the things that they've done kind of with care and with consistency over long times. At some points again whether you're working for yourselves then this would be just have a main project but also keep thinking about possible side projects. Read on more than one topic so that if your main topic at some point fails you've got kind of other sticky points like a Jekyll with four legs attaching to things and knowing people in more than one area. That's really important. Develop a network. Again it could be for yourselves and also if you have students you've got to link your students into those networks. But by talking, by collaborating there's no shame in collaborating I believe. In collaborations you need to have your own special role but you will actually achieve a lot more by talking and being part of a system than you will by trying to be kind of a shell in the middle of this big science kind of big basket. Find out what can be your special contribution what are the things that you can do well. If you're just a master student starting a PhD these will be very simple things like okay I code well so I want a project which it's not gonna be 100% coding but where coding can be used because I can use that kind of skill. If you know how to build electronics again you're not gonna be defined by being the electronics person you don't want that but you can find a project where that will be used. If you're good at talking to people well if they put you down in a cave by yourselves then that skill will not be used. Don't kind of offend people. There's no reason and these things can kind of haunt you much later. People remember people for good reasons and also for bad reasons and there's no reason to be having enemies if you don't need that. And of course kind of try to have some level of funding. This will gain you the respect of everyone and will make kind of work possible. Get funding. We spoke about this with a few of you yesterday afternoon. Of course you have to write some sort of grant or attract some sort of funding from some local agency, local company or some charity. If you're in a big Western country then all these things are kind of very organized. There are websites with precise rules but depending on where you are you've got to work out what your colleagues and peers are doing or if there's even some avenue that nobody else has explored and you're the first ones to actually explore and get funding. So there's a lot of exploration and energy that is involved in getting the resources that you need for actually working. The advice is be as useful as you can. If you're useful to your colleagues then generally you get kind of a positive feedback back and help but it doesn't mean saying yes and doing everybody's tasks because that would kind of make you grind immediately to a halt in terms of everything else which is actually the things that you want to do. This is try to have a few eggs and be ready for different things to work out not just kind of one single idea that's very risky. Okay so I've been talking broadly, perhaps very broadly but we may want to go back to some of the points I tried to make. These are some more questions. What are the issues in your particular countries and for yourselves? I think if I were in your shoes and I was to some extent, I was studying in Italy then I went to UK. It's not such a big jump and it's not far away but it was still a different country. The big question is do you stay where you are or do you try to move?  On the other hand if you stay and you all come from different places so staying means quite different things but can you actually be a competitive scientist if you work locally? How can you do good science if the funding is much less than other people doing the same topic? So what you don't want to do is run a race where systematically you get beaten because there's just less money that kind of is very, it's completely pointless. So one way in which you know better than me if you look around this has been addressed traditionally is that lots of developing countries are very strong on theory and have very little experimental activity because theory is obviously something you can do with much fewer resources and it's more easy to be competitive doing theoretical stuff but this is just the way it is and it's not necessarily bad but it's also a limit to the system. Not least, I mean if the whole scientific system is doing very theoretical work then almost by definition it's much further away from any application, any company, et cetera and this creates a bit of a distorted view in society. Also in the West, depending on the country and the moments but there are moments when public opinion believes kind of science is a bit useless and should be cut but this would happen even more if that science was just theory and just very abstract which it sometimes is in developing countries. It's a very high level in groups but really completely disconnected from kind of the real economy. So that's definitely a limit and in the long run you would want things to be more homogeneous and science to have the whole spectrum of things that people and students can move and there can be a more natural and not traumatic kind of link and bridge between science and activities outside academia. It's crucial to have scientists everywhere so I would be really sad if the results of our thinking was then okay science can only be done in rich countries so the only solution is for everyone to compete and go there and say no science in Africa. That would be terrible for a huge number of reasons not least because I think we all believe that science actually has a role to play in developing countries. In developing the countries I mean but also it would be another worry I would have is that we actually want every citizen in the world to be educated to a level that they can understand the big problems and big challenges and so in that sense it would be incredibly wrong to just have a few hubs of great science because we're not, as humanity we're doing science to advance our knowledge but it's not just the knowledge that a few need to have of course it's the knowledge that we want to kind of bring back to everyone. Okay so I think although it's a model that might spontaneously emerge there would be one of hubs and places of excellence only in some places it's something that we need to be aware of and kind of actively counteract. So this is something that's close to my heart I mentioned this at the open mic the other day. There's a big thing about kind of models I mean I think if I understand correctly what China is doing it's really adopted almost a US system in terms of how faculties are recruited and how the grants work et cetera. South Korea has done the same, Taiwan is very similar. I mean there's a whole number of countries that have developed, have really expanded science in a big way in recent years and they've done so by just adopting a certain model. We heard yesterday that perhaps in South America that there's a movement to make things different I didn't really understand the details of that but I'm very curious. But this is a challenge for you. I mean if you're actually working in countries that are suddenly developing well that's the big opportunity to really think about how hiring people is done, how funding is going to work and what are the consequences of kind of setting in place rules which will then kind of affect entire careers of lots of people. And particularly if a model is adopted and distorted even worse than the original model then that's really where damage can come and I've heard kind of horror stories both from South Korea and China about rules that are very strictly imposed on a number of papers, first author ships. I mean things that are really kind of completely irrational and make the whole process of being a scientist kind of horrible, right? Some of these kind of very talented PhD students or postdocs that want to return to those countries are then kind of really single-mindedly trying to get first author papers and that's kind of, it's not the purpose of being a scientist and generating new results. Okay there's kind of causes of hope I think today now. Even if you come from a system that has fewer economic resources first of all because you have to keep in mind that kind of human capital comes even before kind of fancy instrumentation. With the access we have now to journals and to the preprint archive and generally to free information, large databases that provides very rich sources of data if you're doing kind of large data analysis and things like that. There's actually, I think less barriers than ever before in doing kind of competitive science with not very much. And also kind of cameras, computers, all of these things have progressed to the point that you can do very powerful things with very little money. And things are changing faster than I think the science system is really understanding. Publishing is being kind of constantly challenged by things like open access and generally although kind of journals with high impact factor have been taken as being very important for career progression and people who publish in a high impact journal factor impact factor journal are then hired. This system if you think of it as completely logic. I mean people have given the editors of these journals which are often, if you look at them, they're often the, don't say, I don't know how to say it, they're often the worst scientists who failed completely at being either an academic researcher or an industry researcher and the job they found was in the end being an editor and we're then giving these people the power to decide careers of everybody else. It's a bit absurd. It's a bit absurd also that the public funds the science, the scientists to do the work and then have to pay for publishing and then the journal gets paid again for people to read that paper and in the midst of that peer review was done which is a time consuming process that nobody paid. So I think that there's lots of kind of fairly illogic things that made sense when the science system was much smaller and made up of a few individuals but is not scaling up properly and is not kind of serving science as a system very well now. So whenever there's kind of something illogic, it goes on for a bit but then there can be a catastrophe and things change a lot. And if you look at the preprint archives and other ways of kind of giving value and commentaries to papers, and there's lots of ways in which potentially science outputs could be reorganized. And I think 20 years from now, maybe it was to be like now, there'll be journals, there'll be ranked. It could be, maybe the system will not change but it's also possible that the system will be totally different and whoever spots it first will have a big advantage. So this I think is my last slide and then I really want to try to hear comments back. So wherever you are, you've got to do the best science possible to you. You've got to get noticed for good reasons so that people, whether they're collaborating closely or just knowing you from a conference or from a workshop, they try to kind of have positive views of yourself in the community. You've got to always behave ethically. I mean this goes without saying but, so science has a very high kind of moral and unspoken rules and you can't really be a scientist unless you're playing by the non-written rules in every way. It's not just about kind of what choice of topic you go for, it's really the whole process of how you behave. The more you understand kind of broad changes and new challenges, the more you'll be ahead of the game. So the people who really, really make it as a scientist are not just the ones who publish well on areas defined by others. The real ground breaker of people, if you think of soft matter, the gens, perhaps people like some Edwards who brought polymer science into physics so those are people who, it wasn't even kind of the papers they made, they created entire fields and hundreds of faculty today wouldn't be doing what they're doing unless those people had suddenly kind of invented a field and the same is true for kind of non-linear systems at some point and in the 70s, the study of phase transitions and critical phenomena. So if you are, it probably wouldn't be one person, sometimes this is one person, sometimes it's a collection of two or three very talented people who just get together and have a sense that there's something that wasn't being done, that can be done and it is really tremendously important. If you are lucky enough to gather that and turn it into a field, then that's revolutionary. And it can't happen to everyone, but if you don't think, then it will definitely not happen. So here, I really want to stress linking to other people. You've got to be part of some community. My community, I mean people with similar interests with whom you can talk, sometimes collaborate or even just share ideas. And sometimes even better because if what you're doing is new, you actually got to grow your community and this is, if it works, it's really where you create lots of added value. I mean in science, fields and areas die when they get exhausted. It's not because they weren't good on the contrary. I mean, they might have been great, but at some point everything that made sense has been done and that area then shrinks away, but new areas are constantly growing. So if you're able to understand what is a possible area and grow it and create a community, then it would be at the center of that and you'll really enjoy being a scientist because you'll be central and part of something which is expanding. But if you're not lucky enough to do that, then at least you have to find some nice people with whom you enjoy working and sharing ideas. So careers are varied and predictable, but the best way of actually tackling that is to take satisfaction for whatever form of research or being a scientist you're able to do, even if you end up being an editor of a journal, you can do that in a good way. And then constantly in life, but the younger you are, the more you really have to invest in that. You've got to grow your skills in areas that you enjoy. Learn new subjects, learn how to do things in modern ways, et cetera. So that's all I have to say.


Where we're about to embark on a wild ride through the quirky world of Longmont's landmarks. Today we take a closer look at Florida Chano, aka the Flower of the Plain. This sculpture serves as a mismatch of history and art created by the one and only Greg Rich. Florida Chano merges past, present, and future into one heck of a city gateway. This project for Longmont, Colorado, commissioned by the city, is like a fancy entrance sign. It's all lit up from inside and blends into the scenery, showing off famous spots like Long's Peak and the old Sugar Mill Tower. The sculpture and the landscape plan were both carefully thought out to make sure you notice these landmarks as soon as you arrive. Fashioned from local stone, glass, and steel, the core of the artwork rises from the ground combining linear and organic forms in a striking display. Symbolically it nods to the enduring presence of native stone and prairie grasses. Surrounding this centerpiece and woven into the landscape design are 391 individual recycled limestone posts representing the original shareholders of the Colorado Chicago Company, who funded the foundations of the city in the late 1800s. Crafted to captivate both fast-paced commuters and leisurely pedestrians alike, this artwork is strategically positioned along one of the city's busiest thoroughfares, Ken Pratt and 3rd Avenue. So there you have it, Florida Shano is a captivating art piece that merges history, art, and imagination, inviting viewers on a journey through Longmont's past and present, through a playful design and creative elements. Tune in next time for more surprises and insights on what the hell is this? Until then, keep its flooring and stay curious, Longmont.


Inshallah everyone is doing well, everyone is staying safe, and everyone is in good spirits. So we're continuing our series on the Kitab al-Shifa'ah by Qaldi Iyyad. So we are on section five here. This is still part one, chapter two, section five. And if people have comments or questions, you can certainly type them into the live chat Inshallah, and I will try to answer them as they come in, or answer them next week if they require a bit of research. So this section in my translation, this is on page 39. Qaldi Iyyad, he calls it his eloquence in sound Arabic. So he says, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam's preeminence in eloquence and fluency of speech is well known. He was fluent, he was skillful in debate, and this is from the necessary attributes of all prophets, is that they should have acumen, sagaciousness. They should be extremely intelligent, especially in matters of religion. Skillful in debate, very concise, clear in expression, lucid, used sound meanings, and was free from affectation. Affectation is the word she uses to translate. This means pretension. So someone who uses affectation, or someone who is pretentious in speech, is someone who uses speech which is intended to impress people. And it has sort of an artificial quality to it. And so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam's speech is totally free of this type of pretension, that his eloquence was very, very natural. And this is simply how he spoke. There was no pretension behind anything he was saying. He was given mastery of language, he says, literally all the words, and was distinguished by producing marvelous maxims. These are wise sayings, like aphorisms, hikm. He goes on to say, he learned the dialects of the Arabs and would speak to each of their communities in their own dialect and converse with them in their own idiom. So this not only demonstrates the incredible wisdom and an intellect of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, but also demonstrates that he had incredible respect for others. That when he would speak to a certain Arab tribe that was not Qureshi, he would use their dialect as a way of honoring them and use idiomatic language that they were familiar with in order to communicate to them sound meanings of the Quran and of his message. And this is also part of the wisdom of Dawah, that you speak, as it were, the language of the people that you're inviting to the truth. And some of the Urdamah are better at this than others. Some of the Urdamah are better at written exposition than actually giving lectures. But a true scholar knows how to tailor the message to the given audience. So there are scholars in our community that can give an incredibly effective lecture to a group of five-year-olds in kindergarten and then that same scholar could go to a school of law at a university and give an equally effective message to law school students and everything in between. That's part of the wisdom of giving Dawah. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, not only in the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, before he made the Hijrah, we know that he sent before him some Sahaba to bring him back information as to the temperaments and the likes and dislikes and the character and attitudes of the people of Yathrib. And so Musa'ab ibn Umair, he went to Yathrib before the Hijrah and he would teach them Quran and he would get to know the people there and he would come and report back to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam received him and actually came into Medina Tummanawara, he would tailor the message for those specific groups. And again, that's part of the wisdom of Dawah and that's part of his incredible intelligence and that's him fulfilling his obligation because another one of the Wajibat of a Prophet, another obligatory attribute of a Prophet is Tabligh. They must convey the message in the Prophets. They convey the message in the best of forms. So he continues called the Ayyad. He says he answered their arguments using their own style of rhetoric so that more than once a large number of companions had to ask him to explain what he had said. So his companions, if you look in the Meccan period obviously, they're Qureshi, so they speak a certain dialect of Arabic. But then people would come in to Mecca or when he was in Medina, you have different groups of people speaking different dialects of Arabic, either in Medina or passing through Medina and he would speak to them in their language. And so the Qureshi Sahaba who weren't familiar with those dialects, they would ask him, what did you mean by that? What does that mean? The Prophet ﷺ would explain to them what he had said. Whoever studies his Hadith and biography will know that and verify that, he says. The way he spoke to the Quresh, the Ansar and the people of the Hijaz in the Najd was not the same as the way he spoke to, and then he mentions, Dawul Mish'ar al-Hamadani, T'ihafa al-Hindi, Qatan Ibn Haditha al-Ulayni, Al-Ash'ath Ibn Pais, Wa'il Ibn Hujrah al-Kindi and others from among the chiefs of Hadr al-Maut. Hadr al-Maut is in Yemen, it's the desert in Yemen, south of the Arabian Peninsula and the kings of Yemen, he says here. And then Qadi Iyyad here, he goes on to partially quote some of the letters of the Prophet ﷺ, the correspondences that he wrote or had dictated to the various tribes and kings. And it really doesn't come across, the Arabic doesn't quite come across here because it's obviously an English translation, but it's an interesting section, we're not going to go into it too much. We do want to look at some of the Hadith however. So he continues to say, Qadi Iyyad he says, and his point about all of this is that the Prophet ﷺ, he used the vocabulary of these particular people as well as their stylistic metaphors and common expressions, employing this language with them so that they could make what they had revealed for them clear, so that he could make what had been revealed for them clear to the people. And in order to speak to the people in a way that they would recognize. So this goes back to the ayah that we quoted in past classes, Surat al-Nahl, Surah number 16 verse 144. Indeed, we set down upon you a vikr, the reminder, the Qur'an, need to begyana linnaas ma nuzila ilayhim in order for you to make bayan, in order for you to clarify and explain to the people what has been revealed to them. Right? So it is part and parcel of the vocation of the Prophet ﷺ to make bayan, to make clear, to explain the message of the Qur'an to the people. And of course there's a famous Hadith of the Prophet ﷺ that is well known where he said, I was given, I was given incredibly comprehensive and eloquent speech containing jewels of wisdom. Right? So one of his companions actually described him and he said that the Prophet ﷺ he rarely spoke but when he did speak, he spoke the truth. So the Prophet ﷺ was more tassi term in speech. He didn't speak much. But when he did speak it was very powerful, it was very comprehensive, it was very wise. We'll give a few examples of that actually from the Hadith. Insha'Allah. So Qadi Iryadi continues, he says, In the Hadith, when Al-A'amiri asked for something, the Prophet ﷺ used the dialect of Bani Amr. That's just another example he gives. The Prophet ﷺ would use the dialect of the tribe that he was speaking to and their idiomatic expressions as a way of honoring that tribe in a way of facilitating their fahm, their understanding of the Rus'ala and of the Qur'an. As for his everyday speech, famous oratory and his comprehensive statements and maxims which have been related, people have written volumes about them, and books have been compiled containing their words and meanings. His speech comprises unequaled eloquence and incomparable fluency. This is shown by such expressions. Now he gives a list of many, many Ahadith here to demonstrate what he calls this unequaled eloquence and incomparable fluency of the Prophet ﷺ. We'll look at a few of these Hadith and then we'll add a few as well, Insha'Allah. So one of the Hadiths that he quotes here is translated here by Aisha Buli as, A man is with the one he loves. A man is with the one he loves, or a person is with the one that he or she loves. We'll say man because we're going to use it just as a default to include the female gender as well. This Hadith is, a famous Hadith is in Bukhari, al-mar'u ma'man ahabb. Al-mar'u ma'man ahabb. Look at this Hadith, it's very eloquent. It just kind of rolls off the tongue, al-mar'u ma'man ahabb. It's very eloquent. It's also a very iconic statement, very iconic. It's very famous. You hear it once and you tend to remember it. So it's also easy to remember. It's also, it communicates an incredible hope and is very optimistic, right? It's also very beautiful. And in fact, the Sahaba were overjoyed when they heard these words from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. You know, in the context of the Hadith, Nebedu and who came to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and said, what must I do to become a Muslim? And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam told him about the five. Ar-qan, the pillars, Bunya al-Islamu al-akhams, right? Islam is built upon five, the shahada and the prayer and the zakah and the Hajj and the fasting. And he said, that's all I'm going to do. That's it. I'm just going to do the bare minimum. And then he said, but I love Allah and His Messenger. ila anee ahibu allahu rasoolah. And the Prophet said, al-maru ma'aman ahab. Right? A person will be with the one whom he loves and obviously the Sahaba were overjoyed because they love the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam without question. So it was a day of great rejoicing for them. And by the way, if a hadith, according to the Mahadithin, scholars of hadith, if a hadith has a grammatical error or a grammatical weakness, then the entire hadith is considered to be weak. If there's going to be some weakness in the hadith, because it is well known that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam did not speak incorrectly and that he used the most eloquent and powerful forms of speech to communicate the message of the Quran and the message of Allah SWT. Another hadith I wanted to... He doesn't mention it here, but it's a very, very powerful hadith. It's in Bukhari and Muslim. Muqtathaqun alayh means the two best books of hadith, the most authentic books of Imam al-Bukhari, Imam al-Muslim, where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam said, يَسْصِرُ وَلَا تُعَسْصِرُ وَبَشِّرُ وَلَتْنَفِّرُ وَكَمْقَالَ عَلَيْهِ سَلَاتَ وَسْلَامَ There's a beautiful hadith. In fact, Yoram van Cleveren, who was a former anti-Muslim Dutch politician whom I just heard speak at the Zaituna College fundraising dinner, has an incredible story. He converted to Islam. And now he's touring the world, as it were, and telling people his incredible story. It's really incredible, by the way. He wrote a book, too, recently called Apostate, which is about his journey from Christianity to Islam. It's a very interesting book. I highly recommend it. But he actually said during that lecture, he said that this hadith, the hadith I just quoted, had a profound effect on him. يَسْصِرُ وَلَتُ عَسْصِرُ وَبَشِّرُ وَلَتْنَفِّرُ And he actually quoted it in Arabic. And he did a pretty good job. He's a very smart man, masha'Allah. So the meaning of the hadith, some of the meanings may suggest the following, make things easy for people. Facilitate things for people. And don't make them difficult. And give people glad tidings. And don't scare them away. Right? It's a beautiful hadith. It's incredibly eloquent. And it displays something called antithetic parallelism in its meaning. So that is to say that this hadith has a very strong rhetorical composition. It is very beautifully, grammatically balanced. Right? And, you know, I highly recommend people to study. All Muslims, all believers, to study some Arabic. You know, it's difficult, but it's very rewarding, even if it's once a week or something, just to sort of, you know, get something of the meanings in the words of the hadith, of the Quran, obviously. So what we have here is a form-to imperative, yassiru, followed by a prohibition, also in form-to. And then again, we have a form-to imperative, babashirulatunafiru, followed again by a form-to prohibition. So the statement is very balanced, grammatically. And antithetic parallelism, parallelism means that the hadith has opposite meanings to give it further balance, you know, to make things easy. Don't make them difficult. Those are antinems or antithetic. Give people glad tidings and don't scare them away. There's an antithetic relationship there as well. So you have multiple layers of symmetry, just with this one statement. It's an incredible statement. It's also easy to remember. And it's also full of hope. Gives people hope. In the context of this hadith is when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he sent, I believe it was mu'adid mujabal, so I'm not mistaken. Somebody can correct me. When he sent him to Yemen, he gave him these instructions. He judged people by the Quran. They don't find it then by my sunnah, then by what user intellect. And then beautiful hadith. Just unequal eloquence. Another hadith that struck me very personally when I began to practice the faith many, many years ago is a hadith in Musnad Ahmad. This is a famous hadith. It's called hadith al-Rahman. Al-Rahimun yarhamu khum al-Rahman. Irhamu man fil-ard yarhamu kum yarhamu kum man fis-sama. The most compassionate shows compassion to those who show compassion. Show compassion to those on earth in the one in heaven as it were in no anthropomorphic way and the one in heaven will show you compassion. It's a very, very beautiful hadith. We notice that there's a lot of repetition in this hadith. And this is another strong rhetorical device in Semitic rhetoric. The initial audience of the Quran and of the Risala of Islam the initial audience the flag bearers are Arabs. And these are Arabs that are extremely gifted with Arabic with language. And they took pride in their poetry and there's a surah in the Quran called Ashu'ara the poets and the poets were they were loved and they were feared. So the Quran message and the message of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the first instance is tailored for the Arab in order for the Arab to believe in the message and then take the message to the rest of the world. Obviously the message of Islam is for everyone but it's the initial audience are Arabs. And repetition as we said is a very, very strong rhetorical device in Semitic not just Arabic in Semitic rhetoric. So like in Hebrew for example you have a lot of repetition if you read the Psalms or if you read the book of Proverbs these books are written in Arabic sorry in Hebrew Aramaic is another Semitic language also the Akkadian language the epic of Gilgamesh you know some of my students will read this text it's a long poem in Akkadian written in ancient Babylon and you find a lot of repetition because the audience are Semites and then what else do we notice about this beautiful hadith well the prophet changed the standard syntax so that the final word of the first Jumla or sentence is Ar-Rahman right and the conceptual direct object is the first word of the sentence the nominative rather than in the accusative I don't know if that makes sense to y'all but it's a very interesting way Ar-Rahimuna right there's been sort of unconventional syntax here which makes the statement sort of pop out and have people take notice of it it's very eloquently constructed it's also beautifully synonymic and antithetic as well and it's parallelism so we have Ar-Rahamu the second statement Ar-Rahamu is an imperative in the plural show compassion to those on earth Ar-Rahamkum Ar-Rahamkum Ar-Rahamkum if it's a Sukun and it's from the same verb Ar-Rahamu but it's a different mood of the verb it's an adjustive and it has this sense of purpose show compassion to those on earth so that the one in heaven as it were the word heaven samah is in juxtaposition to all of the earth so you have an antithetic parallelism in Ar-Rahamu these are juxtaposed it's the same verb but a different person and mood so again the statement here is very deep structurally it's very beautifully composed it's not poetry the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam it's not a poet, it's not a shayr he has no training in poetry none of his statements in the Quran is considered technically to be poetry the Arabs were very familiar as I said with poetry and they had 16 Bihar they had 16 Ozan or they had 16 meters of rhymed poetry in the Quran does not fall into any of those categories nor the hadith right the Quran is in a league all its own does not have it's a sui generis it's in a category all its own it's not poetry but it's very poetic but not technically shayr it's not poetry another hadith that he quotes here actually is on page 41 the translation is injustice will appear darkness on the day of rising injustice will appear as darkness on the day of rising in this in the Arabic this is a very beautiful play on words beautiful what's known as alliteration the word voom in Arabic means oppression voom means darkness it's from the same root but has different meanings voom, voom, mat yom al qiyamah so oppression or injustice will appear as darkness is in the plural on the day of rising and this hadith is in muslim again very very eloquent very memorable very easy to remember oh another one I wanted to mention this is not mentioned by qadi iyad but it is a dua that we shall have memorized it is definitely a dua that you should have memorized especially during Ramadan which is coming up inshallah this is a dua of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam that he would recite during the last odd nights of the last third of the month of Ramadan Allahumma inna ka'afoon tuhipu la'afua fa'afu anni and this is recorded in the hadith of Imam al-Tirmidhi so if you look at this hadith again you have alliteration it's it's a beautiful and seamless alteration of parts of speech Allahumma inna ka'afoon a'afoon is an active participle tuhipu la'afua you love by the way the translation is oh Allah you are the effacer the one who erases or effaces the sin and you love to efface fa'afu anni so efface for me my sins that's the meaning of the hadith so Allahumma inna ka'afoon that's an active participle tuhipu la'afua that's an infinitive fa'afu anni and now we have a verb right and we don't call this an imperative even though it has the same morphology as an imperative the reason we don't call it a fi'il amr is because one is speaking to Allah swt right one is not giving a command to someone lower than oneself one is one is speaking to Allah swt so this is called a fi'il palab this is a verb of a request of respectful request but we have that seamless alteration active participle you know ism fa'il then the mustar then the fi'il all from the same root hence the alliteration we also have para-taxis what's known in English rhetoric is para-taxis which is also very common in Semitic rhetoric para-taxis is one two words or a clause of some sort two sentences are juxtaposed without using a coordinating conjunction so Allahumma inna ka'afu tuhipu la'afua oh god you are the effacer you love effacing not therefore and then thus nothing like that there's no coordinating conjunction and the rhetorical effect of para-taxis is that it makes the words again sort of pop out makes it more impactful the last one I'll mention here from the hadith insha'Allah is the hadith in Bukhari it's a famous hadith where the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said indeed in the body there is a lump of flesh if a salah salah jassadu kullu if it is sound or healthy then the entire body is healthy if a fassadat fassadat jassadu kullu and if it is corrupt or unhealthy then the entire the entire body is unhealthy ala wahial talb indeed it is the heart the qalb so here we have synonymic parallelism with mudgha and qalb it's explaining what is the mudgha it is the qalb you have antithetical parallelism with the verb salahat and fassadat healthy unhealthy you also have something called concentric composition hyasm in this short statement it's like a big circle it's really incredible so the first line mirrors the fourth line the fourth line explains the first line what is the mudgha it is the heart so these two lines mirror each other A and A prime and then the second and third line mirror each other they have identical initial terms and they have identical final terms but they also have antithetical middle terms salahat and fassadat so multiple levels of rhetoric and composition and symmetry this statement is a nice circular composition called a kaiazm in fact you have books written by non-muslim scholars of the Quran Raymond Farron Michelle Kipers and others Raymond Farron in his book he says that the surah al-baqarah is one big kaiazm al-baqarah 286 verses and in the center usually a kaiazm doesn't have to but usually a kaiazm will have a center a focus and he says that the center of al-baqarah is verses 141 to 157 I believe and right at the center of that center you have al-baqarah indeed that Allah swt made you a middle nation and that's actually verse 143 right in the middle of 286 al-baqarah the center of the kaiazm according to Raymond Farron who's a professor, you see Berkeley or has his PhD from Berkeley near eastern studies but he wrote this incredible book and al-baqarah is one big kaiazm so if you think about this the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam is not writing down the Quran but he's receiving these ayaat and so how did he know where to put these different ayaat to maintain this kaiazm structure you know was he keeping all these ayaat in his head and I have to put this here so he's doing that with al-baqarah he's also doing that with al-ma'idah Michelle Kuiper says that al-ma'idah has an incredible rhetorical structure it's an entire book on al-ma'idah it's called the banquet just an surat al-ma'idah and how it's an incredible ocean of symmetry so he's doing that in his head all of these are just in his head and he's able to know where to put these ayaat and also with this with this hadith about the heart it's a double entendre right so that the condition of the physical heart is generally a good indicator of overall health I don't think any doctor would dispute that statement a general indicator if the heart is good then overall health tends to be good and vice versa but also the condition of the spiritual heart right if it is healthy then that's a good indicator that one's overall spirituality is healthy as well it's a very interesting study of these hadith rhetorical analysis Semitic rhetorical analysis of the statements of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and then he goes on to say that there's much more besides this at various groups of people have related about his words, conversations, speeches, supplications, comments and contracts there's no disagreement about the fact that in these things he occupied a station beyond compare he obtained a preeminence in them which cannot be properly estimated his unique sayings that no mouth had ever uttered before also have been compiled no one can ever do them justice his companion said to him we do not find anyone more eloquent than you he said how could it be otherwise the Quran was revealed on my tongue in a clear Arabic tongue another time he said I am the most eloquent of the Arabs since I am from Quraish and was brought up by the Bani Sa'ad so children who are raised in the desert because the Bedouin spoke the best Arabic the most eloquent Arabic so the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam not only has that incredible intellect he has he has wahi descending upon him from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but he was also raised among the Bani Sa'ad and so the first Arabic that he was hearing was extremely eloquent this gave him the strength and purity of the desert along with the eloquence of the expressions of the city and beauty of his words this was all combined with the divine support which accompanies revelation which no mortal can comprehend remember the hadith we quoted the last class we had a few weeks ago umum ma'bad remember the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam during the hijra they stopped at a small village and this old woman was there and she met the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam so umum ma'bad she said that the prophet was sweet in speech, distinct without using too few or too many words it was as if his speech consisted of threaded pearls he had a loud voice which was very melodious sallallahu alayhi sallam so that is the end of section 5 umum looking forward there's only 3 more classes after this and I do want to get to some of the rest of the chapter here so I invite you to read sections 6 through 11 but I'm going to go to section 12 now this is on page 54 section 12 so we're still in chapter 2 but it's section 12 and this is called his forbearance longsuffering and pardon so he begins by saying forbearance, longsuffering and pardoning in spite of having the power to punish and patient endurance and affliction are distinct from each other so he's going to define these terms what is what is forbearance what is what is longsuffering what is what is what is patience and pardoning so he says that forbearance or it's a state of dignified bearing and constancy despite provocation someone is being provoked right and they don't give in they stay dignified that's longsuffering is self-restraint and resignation in the face of pains and injuries so while one is suffering sabr is similar to it but it's meaning is slightly different he says as for pardoning it is refusing to hold something against someone else you know sort of forgiving and forgetting as it were of course that's related to the Hadith we quoted Allahumma inna kaafoon that oh Allah indeed you are the effacer so Allah is Al-Ghafer I mentioned this distinction in the past Al-Ghafer the one who forgives Al-Ghaffar really forgives Al-Ghafur these are both these terms mean forgiveness the latter two are very emphatic Ghaferah has a meaning to cover something but Afwah has a meaning to erase it completely to take it out of existence so he says all of his qualities are part of the adab with which Allah endowed his prophet he says so Allah speaks to the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam in the Quran he's going to quote Surat al-A'raf verse 199 so chapter 7 verse 199 hold tight to pardoning hold tight hold fast to forgiving and forgetting وَأَمُرْ بِلْعُرُفْ and command to the correct command to the good وَأَعْرِدْ عَنِ الْجَاهِرِينَ and turn away from the ignorant turn away from them so you can imagine what kind of ignorance just average believers here on a daily basis whether it's in person or on TV or on the internet and so Allah swt is telling the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam just ignore them walk away from them turn away from them it is related that when this was revealed to the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he asked jibreel to interpret it for him jibreel told him wait until i ask the one who knows he left and came back and said to him oh muhammad Allah commands you to unite yourself but those who cut you off is very difficult for people someone cuts you off someone severs ties with you it's very difficult to be the better person because you think well if i do that and i've admitted i'm wrong or something i'm going to be humiliated in that person's eyes whatever it may be so this is very very difficult unite yourself with those who cut you off and give to those who refuse to give to you and pardon those who are unjust to you so this is very difficult thing to do and this is why the character of the prophet is magnanimous is exalted because these are very difficult for people who have ego issues almost impossible for people who have ego issues people that are self-aggrandizing people who who think of themselves more important than they really are megalomaniacal people Allah told him be patient be steadfast in the face of what afflicts you right these are quoted here by qadi iyyad be steadfast as those of resolution among the messengers are steadfast the messengers of resolve we mentioned those earlier these are the five great messengers of god the great Allah bearing or law-giving messengers of god nuh alayhi salam ibrahim alayhi salam mousa alayhi salam the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam if you look at these five prophets they went through tremendous affliction and hardship and they stayed patient and resolute if you look at ibrahim alayhi salam his father although there's a difference of opinion as we said azar probably his paternal uncle was an idolater his father biological father his father probably died when he was very young didn't have a father because Allah swt created him in a miraculous fashion nuh alayhi salam did not know his biological father the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam was an orphan never met his father at all his mother died when he was six years old his grandfather died when he was eight and that's just starting out life you know and then you think about what happened during the lives of these prophets so you know we're reminded of the hadith that if Allah loves the people he will try them right and that the most severe of tribulations came to the prophets and those closest with them those were prophets so if something happens to a prophet some sort of moussiba it's not because a prophet has deliberately disobeyed Allah swt it is inconceivable for a prophet to do that because a prophet has ismah there's a type of divine protection prevention from Allah swt so if there's some sort of moussiba it is to raise that prophet in degrees and also for that prophet to teach humanity how to react to such situations but for non-profits we deny if these things happen in our lives it could be a type of punishment so what we have to do is a type of moussiba or self audit and try to determine why are these things happening and we need to make adjustments in our lives so generally if something like that happens to you you should take it as a type of punishment correct, rectify your behavior and have a good opinion of Allah swt because that's a good thing punishment is a way that he purifies us in a way to we have provoking toba in changing our lives so it's a subtle type of mercy actually when you think about it and then when it happens to other people we shouldn't assume that they're being punished and that we should treat people with have a good opinion of people and assume that Allah swt is raising their degrees and if it is a punishment then have a good opinion that this person will recognize what they're doing and they'll make toba and correct their behavior then he quotes here he says he's quoting here part of the ayah 22 of Surah Noor Wal Ya'fu Wal Yasfahu so pardon them let them pardon let them pardon and let them overlook right so Wal Ya'fu in Arabic this lamb here is called Lamu Amr the herbs here are in the jasif mood so this has sort of the effect of a third person imperative that it's expected of us to pardon and overlook and then Allah says do you not love that Allah would forgive you and Allah is forgiving and merciful compassionate intimately loving the one who is steadfast and forgives that is part of the resolution of affairs the results of this and then Qadi Ayyad he says the results of his forbearance and long suffering are quite evident every man with forbearance is known to have occasional lapses the prophet however was only increased in steadfastness when the injury to him was great and was only increased in forbearance when faced with an excess of important people so he would become more and more patient with people the more they quote annoyed him which is exactly the opposite of what you would expect with someone you know the hadith in Bukhari when the man came and said like advise me counsel me and the prophet said don't get angry and the man for whatever reason he said counsel me and the prophet said and then again counsel me and the and the the hadith he said and he said this over and over and over again to the prophet and he said don't get angry Aisha said this is in Bukhari and muslim the messenger of Allah was not given a choice between two matters that he chose the easier of the two as long as it was not a wrong action he would be the furthest of people from it the messenger of Allah did not take revenge for himself unless the honor of Allah was violated then he would take revenge for the sake of Allah it is related that when the prophet had his tooth broken and his face cut on the day of right so he had a ruptured lip he chipped a tooth he actually had a lacerated forehead and there was chained a cut to his cheek here because the chainmail had penetrated his cheek and there was blood flowing just basically flowing down his face he says he was practically unbearable for the companions they said if only you would invoke a curse against them he replied I was not sent to curse but I was sent to the summoner of mercy and then he made a famous statement Allahumma had yukumi O Allah guide my people for they don't know Allahumma had yukumi so in the books of Sira it actually says that the prophet was catching the blood with his hands preventing the blood from striking the earth and he was like absorbing the blood with his clothes why are you doing that and he said one drop of my blood should strike the earth and then immediately the wrath would descend upon the Quraysh these people who were fighting against us so for the sahaba that was a bit strange we were fighting against them let the blood flow and then they saw him a short time later with his hands raised and they heard him say Allah and they thought now he is going to curse them and he said Allahumma had yukumi Allahumma had yukumi O God guide my people for they don't know you know there is something similar attributed to Isa A.S in the Gospel of Luke in Luke chapter 23 we are told that when Isa A.S according to the Gospel of Luke when he was being crucified he said father forgive them for they know not what they do and I have studied the New Testament extensively for years I have a master's degree in New Testament I did my Ph.D. dissertation on the Gospel of John so very familiar with the textual history of the New Testament and I'll tell you this that passage I just quoted from Luke chapter 23 verse 34 is now universally regarded as a fabrication to the text of the Gospel of Luke that I mean Isa A.S according to the dominant opinion of our Ulema was nowhere near across to begin with the Christians believe that he was crucified for various reasons although even in earliest Christianity there was a difference of opinion and this is historically documented but in Luke's Gospel that statement that father forgive them for they know not what they do is now universally accepted by New Testament textual critics as being a later fabrication to the text of the Gospel of Luke it is related that Omar said to him my mother and another thing is even if Christians wanted to say no it's authentic to forgive them while he was being killed by them well that shows a strong type of character from Isa A.S but compared that to the conquest of Mecca and he's going to get into that actually when the Prophet is in a position of power to punish them and he forgives them in the position of power he doesn't forgive them while he's powerless while he's being killed right I mean that's also a demonstration of magnanimous character don't get me wrong of course it is but imagine being in a position of power over your enemies and forgiving them it's just a more exalted or higher level of magnanimity I think it is related from that Omar said to him said to the Prophet my mother and father your ransom and messenger of Allah Muh A.S. invoked a curse against his people when he said my lord do not leave even one of the rejecters upon the earth had you invoked a curse like that against us we would have been destroyed to the last man your back had been trodden on your face had been bloodied and your tooth has been broken and yet you have refused to utter anything but good you have said oh Allah forgive my people for they don't know so it is a different version of the same statement of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that he either said Allahummaa diqumi or Allahummaa diqumi oh Allah guide my people or Allah forgive my people for they don't know so I remember one time years ago and I will end with this story years and years ago we had a Halakha on Friday nights there was a Christian brother who visited us we had Christian brothers come once in a while one of the brothers know some brothers in the MSA some Christian guy would come and he would invite him to the Halakha anyway so there is a Christian brother at the Halakha and he was there and he was asking some difficult type questions but he was very respectful he was not trying to disrespect us at all he was trying to get real clarification on issues most of the issues were theological things I remember in the course of the discussion a man came into the masjid and he listened for about two minutes and then he said these kafar their hearts are sealed and their ears are deaf and their eyes are blind this type of thing and the Christian brother he was like who is he talking about is he talking about me so we had to reassure the brother that it's his opinion I mean he was there for a few minutes and this man's judgment about this Christian guy I mean he had basically his threshold of halm was 5-10 minutes when you compare that to the prophet who is dealing with mushriqeen who is trying to kill him actively for 20 years and he doesn't give up on them right and Badi Ayyad he actually relates the story of Abu Sufyan whom the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam continued to address with respect after 20 years of fighting and eventually Abu Sufyan became muslim and then the prophet recognized his chieftaincy in Mecca and said when Dakhala Baita Abu Sufyan whoever enters the house of Abu Sufyan is safe he had this announced during the conquest of Mecca so that's the difference between our threshold or limit of halm or forbearance again forbearance is being able to be dignified in the face of provocation and the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam forbearance when you have mushriqeen actively trying to kill him and have killed his companions and members of his Bait and he continues to show them respect and dignity and they become muslim eventually so we can take a lesson from that obviously so I think at this point we'll end the class so we got about halfway through section 12 here so we'll continue with this section inshallah ta'ala next week thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time inshallah ta'ala assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh


All right, so I was surprised that when I checked my Facebook account permissions, there were still some websites and old apps that I had used in the past that still had access to change things on my Facebook and the same thing with Google. So I wanted to show you, first of all, my dog, buddy, besides buddy, which you'll be able to see him better. I want to show you how to remove the ones that you don't need anymore. So let me go ahead and share with you my screen, and then we'll get right into it here. All right. So, okay, so I've given you a couple of links below the video, and one of the links goes to here. It's called, it's in your Facebook account. By the way, I use the dark theme. That's why my Facebook might look different than yours, but it's still facebook.com. So, this is your Facebook account settings area. And this is called business integrations. If you want to find it in the future, you go to your Facebook settings, and then you scroll down. And it's on the left hand side called business integrations. And you might also want to check apps and websites, but I think the business integrations is more intrusive. It's more data from your from your Facebook account. So they think that's more important to check first. So here, for example, I want to remove TubeBuddy. I no longer use TubeBuddy. So I'm going to click view and edit. And then it says, look, descriptions of what TubeBuddy can do have an updated TubeBuddy can create and manage content on these following pages, the ones that I've checked. I no longer use TubeBuddy, but they can still manage my content on my page. They have the full power to do it. They can manage comments on my page. They can do a bunch of other things, I think. So anyway, to remove it, I basically scroll down and I click on remove. Okay, just like that. And then do I want to remove TubeBuddy. This may delete your TubeBuddy account, blah, blah. So you just want to make sure you read everything. And yeah, I'm okay with that.  Okay, and I'm not responsible if you don't read your read these things before you click remove. Okay, so here we go. Click remove. Right. And there you go TubeBuddy removed. And so I just would encourage you to do this for each of the old apps that you no longer use that you might be surprised. Wait, this is still here. What is this? Okay, so do that. Same thing with your Google. I've given you another link to Google. And basically, these are all the softwares, websites that have access to various things on my Google. So for example, MindMup has access to my Google Drive, but I no longer use MindMup. So I'm going to go ahead and click on this, and I'm going to click remove access. Click okay. Right, there you go. So it's very simple here on Google. Anyway, if you scroll down, you can also find the websites that you have used Google, your Google account to sign into. And by the way, SiteKit I think is an official Google thing. In case you see that and you're like, what is that? But you might want to remove ones that you never sign into anymore. So let me see here. I don't know. I haven't signed into Grubhub for a long time. So I'm going to click on that, click remove access. And it just means that the next time I go to Grubhub, I want to sign in using my Google account. I would just have to put in my Google password again, but it can't, nobody can just easily sign into that account using my Google without putting a password. So anyway, I hope that helps. Go ahead and use those links below and see if you want to remove anything. All right. See you.


Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. It's our pleasure to meet all of you at the virtual event of Embedded Leaders Conference Europe. Today, we would like to share the topic three modeling key methodology and applications from open source software CIP, C4 infrastructure platform perspective with you. Today, we have two speakers. Dinesh is working for Toshiba Software India and participating in a security work group in the CIP project for years. Another speaker is me, S. Z. Lin. I'm working for Mosa Inc. and I contribute to NINUX and several open source software projects. Let's talk about the C4 infrastructure. C4 infrastructures are supporting the human activities, including the electric power generation and energy distribution. All in guess, water and wastewater, healthcare, communication, transportation and community management. However, there are some key challenges in the C4 infrastructure. As you may know, typically the left cycle of the system where in C4 infrastructure is more than decades. So we have the challenges such as have to apply the IOD concept to industrial systems to ensure the quality and gravity of the product and to keep millions of connected systems secure. In order to overcome these challenges, there are three vital requirements need to be fulfilled. And that is industrial grades. We may have to provide a function for the availability, functional safety or real-time capability. The second one is sustainability. As I mentioned, the left cycle period may be very long over the decades. So it's very important for providing the back work compatibility and standards. The last one is security. As you know, it's vital for the C4 infrastructure system regarding the security feature. And those, we would like to provide the function to reduce and minimize the risk of regressions. The CIP, C4 infrastructure platform is the solution. The CIP is a collaborative open source project hosted by the NINUS Foundation. SAPI project members work together to develop a base layer, a set of industrial grade core open source software components, tools and methods to create the NINUS base embedded systems that meet the requirements of industrial grade sustainability and security. As I mentioned in the previous slide, SAPI project established an open source base layer of industrial grade software to enable the use and implementation of software building blocks for C4 infrastructure system. In the SAPI project, the scope of the software includes the kernel space to user space. As you can see, the scope of the CIP, we have the software stack include the kernel space and user space. We have tools and concepts. The number of the block means the order of the workgroup. So in today's presentation, we are the security workgroup. From the security workgroup's perspective, our goal is to protect the asset in the C4 infrastructure system by reducing the risk. And we will adapt the international standard. That is ISA, IEC 62443. It is a standard regarding the industrial automation and control system cybersecurity. As I mentioned, our goal is to reduce the risk. What is the risk? Risk is commonly described as a threat plus vulnerability plus consequence. As you can see, the threat source, for example, the insider hackers, the threat source can launch the threat factor. For example, the unauthorized access or social engineering to exploit the vulnerability within the assets. And it will cause the consequence or the impact. That is the basic concept of the risk. So the first factor of the risk is threat. The threat is a set of circumstances and associated sequence of events with the potential to affect operations, including the functions and reputation. Assets, control system or individual via unauthorized access, extraction, disclose, modification of data or denial of service. That means the threat is dynamic and is very hard to be predicted. Therefore, we need to conduct the threat modeling. The threat modeling is the process of anticipating what could go wrong. And then we can forecasting how it can go wrong. So the general threat modeling objectives include to know the service which could be a tech. And then we can reduce the attack surveys. And we can have some idea to set security for configurations. We can also adjust the access control to fulfill the least privilege. We can have the multiple layers of security control throughout an information by using the defense in depth. And by using the threat modeling, we can segment critical and non-critical information. And after that, we can have the policy compliance or the standard conformance. And to the CIP, our goal is to help the CIPM users to use the CIP platform reference threat modeling and build further security on top of it. As you may know, the product is built based on the platform. So if the platform can conduct threat modeling, it can reduce the effort from the end user. And we will periodically review and update the threat model to incorporate newly reported threats. As I mentioned, the threat is dynamic. And so it's important to have a good approach and a good content to review the threat periodically. The last but not the least, we want to reduce the risk of the open source base layer.  The first one is threat source. The threat source means we just think like a attacker or the insider or the hacker. We will model the capability intent and the targeting about the threat to find out that threat agent might conduct. The next one is threat action. The threat action means we will model the actions which might conducted by the threat actor. The famous method belongs to this category is strike. Strike model is developed by Microsoft. The third one is threat activity. In this methodology, the threat was modeled based on the activity which conducted by a series of threat actions. The last one is vulnerability few points. In this methodology, we will check and examine the vulnerability within the asset. And we can know the threat. So based on the methodology which I mentioned, there are several key threat modeling methodology, such as the stride threat modeling, attack trees, PASTA, CVSS, security codes, and hybrid threat modeling method. In this presentation, we will introduce the stride threat modeling and attack trees. So as I mentioned, we want to reduce the risk. And the risk mitigation by threat modeling is very vital for us. There are four ways to reduce the risk by using the threat analysis reports. The first one is to redesign. It will be great if we can mitigate the risk in the very beginning. So if we conduct the threat modeling in the very beginning phase of our development, we can redesign and we can emulate the risk. And the second one, we can use the best practice, such as a standard, to mitigate the risk. The third one is we can think and even the new mitigation to the design or the development. The last one is we can adapt the conversating controls and to take the operate extra measures in implementation. If we can conduct the threat modeling in the very beginning, we can reduce the total cost of the development. Otherwise, the cost is pretty high after work. So allow me to give the floor to Dinesh. Dinesh, please. Thank you, SD. So I will further go in the detail of threat modeling by the use cases of CAP as well as I will see what the activities we are doing in CIP. So as she mentioned in this presentation, basically we are focusing on two methodologies for threat modeling, stride and attack phase. So for stride on the main element for before doing the threat modeling is creating data flow diagrams. So data flow diagrams help us to understand the processes which are taking place inside the software system and data issues, data flows, external interactors and trust boundaries. So these are the points from here. A lot of times it is found that vulnerabilities are introduced and when things are not taken into consideration like proper security measures, then there are many points of communication or interaction within the system that can be exploited by adversaries. So we can see as part of data flow diagrams, there are mainly of five elements, processes, data stores, data flows, external interactors and trust boundaries. So we will see the detail of these elements. So the example of external entities are, there could be people outside the system who can interact, they can send some kind of data, commands, et cetera, or there could be other systems which are interacting with the system and web portals. And the examples of processes could be some other processes running as dll.so, exes, components, services, web services, similar kind of things. And data flow includes function calls, our network traffic, RPC. So examples of data stores could be databases, files, registry, config files, shared library. So these are the main elements of data flow diagram. Now in further slides, we will see how in a straight we utilize data flow diagrams and how we can do the threat modeling using data flow diagrams. So first of all, we will see CIP development context diagram where it is depicted like CIP platform has multiple processes and the external entities, which are shown as other OSS developers, CIP developers or testers, CIP member companies, members, and CIP customers or end customers. So all these external entities interact with CIP platform in various ways where based on the type of members, they interact like sometimes they are doing, adding packages, doing work fixing or applying upstream fixes. So again, we can see here there is a lot of data flow to CIP platform from different external entities. So there could be many paths or many ways where the system can be exploited. So we have to model the system in a way that we can identify those points. So let's go and see more detail of CIP development. Here in this diagram, as you can see, there are external entities like CIP developers. And as you know, CIP developers means it's open source project and CIP developers contribute from all across the world. And there is no limitation. And on top of that, you can see the source code documents, all the artifacts are kept openly and anyone can do operations, but in a restricted way. You can see here repositories like upstream repositories, CIP JITLAB repositories, Google Docs. So these are the data stores for CIP development. And here, one thing which is important to notice is the right axis or we can say merge privilege is only with limited people. So that's how we protect these data stores. So any malicious users when try to put some code or some binary, that's not be possible. And in CIP, especially in CIP kernel and CIP code development, we have dedicated maintainers. They constantly keep reviewing and incorporating security fixes. That way we keep the system up to date. So let's see in further slides about more detail of stride, how we apply stride methodologies for doing the threads modeling. So here we can see, as we have seen in previous slides, four elements of DFD, like Dataflow, Datastore, Process and Interactors. So you can see like four data flows. Data flows can be affected by doing tampering, information disclosure and denial of service. And you can see Datastore and Processes, Interactors, they all have some or other kind of way which can be exploited or used by someone for malicious intent. So you can see the Processes are the most vulnerable where you can see spoofing, tampering, repudiation, information disclosure, denial of service and elevation of privileges. All this kind of malicious things can be exploited. Now, we will see one example of CIP use case as when the CIP has been used to develop a network switch and in this diagram we see the reference ICS model which shows the four different zones. And in this, we can see in zone one, there are almost the most important asset of entire system like DCS, PLC, safety systems and these are the core part of entire system. Even though as you can see each zone is protected by various sort of mechanism like antivirus, firewalls and all, but still we need to have additional mechanisms and we need to do that modeling to make sure that all the points are protected. So you can see here a switch in zone one which is like assuming based on CIP. So in next slides, we will see the data flow in case of network switch. So this is the diagram which has been created using Microsoft threat modeling tool and we can see here there are four external entities which include admin user, DCS Distributed Control System, PLC, SD and Safety ES. And as you have seen in previous diagram where it is shown how this DCS safety system and other part of the entire system can interact with switch or CIP system. So here we have tried to depict what kind of data flows and interaction could happen when the system is running. So there is one authentication service running which is a process and one is store and forward process. So these are the processes running inside the system and these external entities will interact with these processes and these processes inter will take some action. So for example, either they store the data, process the data or pass the data to either other external entity or to data store. So as part of threat modeling, all the interactions, for example, admin user tries to authenticate or DCS external entity tries to pass some data or safety system tries to pass some data to PLC. So all these interactions have to be analyzed for weak access points. And this is done through threat modeling and this Microsoft tool helps us doing these things. So let's see how it helps us. So in this slide, you can see there is one window in the bottom where you can see the threat analysis view. So this view presents the detail of each interaction. As you can see in this screen, it is depicting the interaction of user credential when admin user tries to authenticate to the system, then this tool analyzes this interaction and it tries to tell, like if you see the description, it says authentication for configuration claims that it did not receive data from a source outside the trust boundary. Consider using logging or auditing to record the source time and summary of the received data. So it gives us the pointer, what could go wrong and what actions we should take. Now it's our responsibility while doing the threat modeling and doing the analysis of each interaction, we should deploy appropriate mechanism so that this threat can be mitigated. So this tool helps us to analyze entire system one by one from different angles and it gives us close how we can protect it. Let's see one more huge case of CIP when CIP is used as PLC. So we can see in this data flow diagram, there are three external entries where temperature sensor is the sensor or sort of IoT device which keeps sending the data to CIP based DNC. Similarly, there is another pressure sensor connected outside the system which keeps feeding the data and on the other side, you see there is HMI system which has a UI which can be operated by HMI operator to give various kind of commands or see the output of sampling process. So this way you can see the various data flows. We can see here the PLC has mainly two services, authentication service and a sampling process. So they are like two processes and you can see here data stores where like sampling data is being stored after sampling is done and there is file system storage which is used to store the authentication information or credentials in turn, we can say. So we can analyze each interaction. For example, when temperature sensor is sending data, so it has to be first authenticated by authentication service and once it is authenticated, it will be allowed to send the data further for sampling and the sampling process will do the sampling by doing some kind of calculation or predefined process and stores the data, let's say in a data store and this data can be viewed by HMI UI application. So HMI operator can send various kinds of commands. So as you can see in the red boxes, we will analyze from threat modeling perspective, the interaction of data for monitoring, commands and data for starting HMI. And we will try to see what kind of pointers this tool is giving, what kind of additional security measures we should take in order to protect the system. So we can see here, this tool is giving few pointers. So for example, for commands interaction, it is telling about if HMI GUI is given access to memory or such as shared memory or pointer. So this can be exploited. HMI can send some different commands and that can be exploited. And similarly, it gives another pointer about the escalation of, sorry, elevation of privilege. And if you see in the data for monitoring interaction, there is indication of tampering. The data can be tampered when the data is being monitored. Similarly, we can see another example of tampering. It is pointing. And if we see data for starting HMI interaction there, it is telling about the exploitation of elevation of privilege. So these are the pointers, which have been given by this threat modeling tool. And this way, this tool generates a complete analysis of all the threats possible for each interaction. Okay, so next we see here in CIP, how are we handling standard threats and how what are the standard mitigations available for us? So as we can see for like spoofing, general security property which is affected is authentication. Someone can spoof. And without doing the authentication, he can do some operation and we cannot identify him. So the general mitigation method is to utilize some authentication system like Kerberos, PKI or digital signatures. And in CIP, we have CEDO, PAM, and Google Authenticator for multi-factor authentication as well as support of OpenSSL. Similarly, for tampering, in CIP we have access control list. It's like a standard feature, but it helps to achieve many threats mitigation. And OpenSSL library supports various types of has and digest algorithms, including highest strength has digest algorithms, including stuff 5.1. Then for reputation, we have audit D and R-SYS log, which can monitor the system and the activities of all the users. So later using the logs and the audit system, we can always trace back what were the operation done by individual user. Similarly, the measures for information disclosure, OpenSSL, ACL, denial of service, PAM, OpenSSL and ACL. So using PAM, we can control like number of concurrent sessions where after a certain number of sessions, additional opening of sessions won't be allowed. Then elevation of privilege is achieved by applying additional security policies and ACLs. Okay, so this was so far we discussed about straight methodologies. This is another methodology of using attack trees. So this is the example of generic attack trees. Here we can see how attack trees work. So root node of the tree is the global goal of the attacker. How to achieve the global goal? He has to go through a lot of child nodes depending upon the goal. So each node represents one attack and an attack tree defines a collection of possible attacks. So if we traverse any particular, any one path and reaches to root, it means the global goal of exploiting root node is achieved. So here we can see like the goal is password attack should be successful. And for this, it can be done by cracking alternatives or other types of password attacks. And cracking alternatives can be achieved either by dictionary attacks or guessing or brute force. Similarly, we can see in the right side tray, password attacks either it can be done through social engineering keyloggers and they are further divided in different ways. So this is the way attack trees work.  So in order to keep threat modeling very extensive and comprehensive in CIP we are planning to use two methodologies so that we can think and we can cover as many huge cases as possible. So here is one example of attack tree for CIP repositories. So let's say the goal is to obtain CIP repository admin privilege. So this is the global goal. Now how it has, how it can be achieved if we try to further break down it. So the options could be obtain repository honors password and then we can obtain CIP repository admin privilege or still repository honors SSH private key or still repository honors token. So these are the ways we can obtain admin privilege. Then further, if we try to break down how can we obtain repository honors password? So one option is bribe the owner but it depends. It may or it may not work. Then brute force, try as many combinations as possible and try to guess the password. Similarly, stealing repository honors SSH private key the easiest way is to steal the laptop or key card and then get the private key. So this way we try to model, we try to think how we can analyze all possible paths of attacks. Next, this is the attack tree for running CIP system or when the system is in production. Here we can see the global goal is how to temper CIP software. So we can see here four possible immediate possible ways are like replace CIP official image. It could be maybe stored in AWS or any other clouds. Then force Debian binary packets where again this could be exploited inject malicious code and exploit non vulnerabilities. So these are the four possible ways to temper CIP software. Now to further break down it, we can think of to replace the CIP official image. It could be one of the options could be hack into file server or someone can think of some other ways where this could be possible. Then for like second option of force Debian binary packets we have three options hack binary packets or change APT source list. So it points to a malicious repository and still deviance developers private key.  So this kind of ways help us to think about doing the analysis of for threat modeling. So once we have completed doing threat modeling now it's the time to think how should we validate? How should we validate the threat models are appropriate that they can protect the system or there could be something else which should be again planned and executed. So to validate whole threat model what all things we should do? Thus we should think like does diagram match the final code or final system implementation? Are all threats enumerated or there are still some threats which are not even thought or maybe try to do stride as we have seen in previous slides stride for each element, each interaction or each you see the process interaction external entities. So all the interactions we should analyze from stride perspective and see how the interaction is happening. Also other option is has test QA reviewed the model then tester often finds issues with threat models which are not covered during threat modeling. So discussion with QA or testing team is also equally important and each threat mitigated. Yeah, so mitigation is where we should appropriately think and we should mitigate each threat because once we find all the threats enumerate all the threats then next step is always to mitigate them and include security measures so that all the threats are mitigated and no risk remains because as it was explained in first part of the session ultimate goal of threat modeling is to reduce the risk. So all mitigations are done correctly. If all these things are done it means that the threat model have been validated to achieve the end goal but threat modeling is again something which is not complete in one time. We have to do this activity periodically and keep repeating whenever there is change in terms of design or additional component. Okay, so as part of CIP what is the next model? Sorry, next step for CIP threat modeling. So as we can see in this diagram generally the cycle is defined security requirements and then do the threat modeling considering security requirements and entire system. So as we can see in the diagram we have completed defining security requirements for CIP and currently we are doing the threat modeling and this is just the beginning as we are also in discussion with the certification body for compliance to IEC 6243-4-1 and 2. So 4-1 requires the system and software should do threat modeling and so the system should be protected in a way that all the threats are mitigated. So currently we are doing threat modeling and we are analyzing all the components, all the interactions during development or during execution and we are also thinking different huge cases of CIP and after this next step would be to mitigate potential threats which are identified as part of threat modeling and then again at any design change or additional package addition we have to again do the evaluation of existing threat models and update them if needed and based on that we have to repeat the cycle. So this is as I mentioned and it was mentioned in previous session a previous part of the session it's a RIP T2 exercise which we have to continuously do because new threats keep coming and we have to incorporate the fixes or the mitigation for those threats. So that was all about this session and you can see the references for CIP resources to get further information or you can get the additional details about CIP work groups and CIP repositories and documents for further information you can refer these hotels. It's also listed a few more threat modeling tools though for this presentation and for this exercise currently we have mainly focused on using Microsoft threat modeling tool but we are also planning to use open source tools such as ThreadDragon and draw.io so we will be using this down the line. In addition to this talk there are few more talks planned as part of ELC and you can see there will be sessions on CIP kernel and international effort to establish base layer that's also from CIP security work group and there is one mini summit on 30th October where all the work groups of CIP will update their status and you can see the detail of each work group activities. Also please don't forget to visit CIP virtual booth where we will have CIP members they will try to assist you to get more information about CIP and please join us for contribution at different levels and you can see current CIP member companies are listed in this space. So thank you, thank you for attending this session. I hope you enjoyed the session and along the way we would try to answer all your queries. Thank you, stay safe.