Passage 1:
Popiel I
Popiel I was a legendary ruler of Poland, member of the Popielids dynasty. According to the legends reported by Wincenty Kadłubek in his Chronica seu originale regum et principum Poloniae, he was the son of Leszko III. Father of Popiel II.

Bibliography
Jerzy Strzelczyk: Mity, podania i wierzenia dawnych Słowian. Poznań: Rebis, 2007. ISBN 978-83-7301-973-7.
Jerzy Strzelczyk: Od Prasłowian do Polaków. Kraków: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1987. ISBN 83-03-02015-3.
Passage 2:
Beaulieu-sur-Loire
Beaulieu-sur-Loire (French pronunciation: [boljø syʁ lwaʁ], literally Beaulieu on Loire) is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France. It is the place of death of Jacques MacDonald, a French general who served in the Napoleonic Wars.

Population
See also
Communes of the Loiret department
Passage 3:
Sermon of Zaynab bint Ali in the court of Yazid
Sermon of Zaynab bint Ali in the court of Yazid  are the statements made by Zaynab bint Ali in the presence of Yazid I in the aftermath of the Battle of Karbala when the captive family members of Muhammad, prophet of Islam, and the heads of those murdered were moved to the Levant (equivalent to the historical region of Syria) by the forces of Yazid I. Zaynab delivered a defiant sermon in the court of Yazid in which she humiliated Yazid and exposed his army's atrocities while honoring the Ahl al-Bayt and those killed in Karbala and expounding upon the eternal consequences of the battle.

Zaynab bint Ali
Zaynab bint Ali (Arabic: زَيْنَب بِنْت عَلِيّ) was one of the daughters of Ali and Fatimah. Like other members of her family she became a great figure of sacrifice, strength, and piety in Islam – in both the Sunni and Shia sects of the religion. Zaynab married Abdullah ibn Ja'far and had three sons and two daughters. When her brother Husayn defended Islam and opposed the tyranny of Yazid caliph in 680 AD (61 AH), Zaynab accompanied his companions, 72 men who, together with Husayn, were brutally slain by government forces numbering 30,000 men at the Battle of Karbala. Zaynab played an important role in disclosing the true events leading up to the massacre of the third Shia Imam Husayn, and his supporters. She also protected the life of her nephew Ali ibn Husayn Zayn al-Abidin, the fourth Shia Imam, as he lay seriously ill and unable to go to the battlefield. Because of her sacrifice and heroism, she became known as the "Hero of Karbala". Zaynab died in 681, and her shrine is located in Damascus, Syria.

Background
After the battle of Karbala the captured family of the prophet and the heads of those who were killed were taken to the Levant by the forces of Yazid. On the first day of the month of Safar, according to Turabi, they arrived in the Levant and the captured family and heads were taken into Yazid's presence. First, the identity of each head was told to him. Then he paid attention to a woman who was objecting. Yazid asked, "Who is this arrogant woman?" All the audience paused for a moment. The woman rose to answer and said: "Why are you asking them [the woman]? Ask me. I'll tell you [who I am]. I am Muhammad's granddaughter. I am Fatima's daughter." People at the court were impressed and amazed by her.
According to the narration of Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid, in Yazid's presence a man with red skin asked Yazid for one of the captured women to be his slave. Yazid hit the lips and teeth of Hussein with his stick while saying: "I wish those of my clan who were killed at Badr, and those who had seen the Khazraj clan wailing (in the battle of Uhad) on account of lancet wounds, were here. At this time, Zaynab bint Ali began to give her sermon.

Context
Zaynab bint Ali started her sermon with the praise of Allah:
In the name of Allah, The most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. May praise and salutations be upon my grandfather, the leader of Allah's messengers and upon his progeny.

God gives time to disbelievers
Verse 178 of chapter of Al Imran was descended about polytheists of Mecca such as Abu Sufyan ibn Harb. Zainab bint Ali once again relates this verse to Yazid, grandson of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb. She said: "Do not be satisfied with this temporal achievement; this time passes quickly and Allah will punish you. You will be humiliated."As we see in the sermon:

O Yazid! Do you think that we have become humble and despicable owing to the martyrdom of our people and our own captivity? Do you think that by killing the godly persons you have become great and respectable and the Almighty looks at you with special grace and kindness? You have, however, forgotten what Allah says: The disbelievers must not think that our respite is for their good We only give them time to let them increase their sins. For them there will be a humiliating torment. (Quran 3:178 (Yusuf Ali))

Humiliate the enemy and honoring the Ahl al-Bayt
One concern of Zaynab bint Ali in the battle of Karbala was the humiliation of the enemy and the honor of the Ahl al-Bayt.
O son of the freed ones! Is it justice that you keep your women and slave-girls in seclusion but have made the helpless daughters of the Holy Prophet ride on swift camels and given them in the hands of their enemies so that they may take them from one city to another

Position of those killed in Karbala
Zaynab bint Ali told Yazid not to be happy because of his victory. She named verse 169 of Al Imran and emphasized that those dying for a just cause are victors and that Yazid's happiness will end with the torture of Allah.
It will be the day when Allah will deliver the descendants of the Holy Prophet from the state of being scattered and will bring all of them together in Paradise. This is the promise which Allah has made in the Holy Quran. Do not think of those who are slain for the cause of Allah as dead. They are alive with their Lord and receive sustenance from Him.(Quran 3:169 (Yusuf Ali))

Referring to the oppression
At this point in the sermon she referred to all the oppression and injustices of the Umayyad from time of Abu Sufyan till the time of Yazid ibn Muawiyah. She also believed that the Umayyad owed their power to the Islamic Ummah's failure to uphold the Quran and the rightful succession to Muhammad. She further stated that:

Our blood is dripping from their hands and our flesh is falling down from their mouths.

External consequences of the battle
Zaynab bint Ali stated that the battle of Karbala had a positive effect on history. She believed that jihad, struggle in the path of Allah, had eternal effects.
You (Yazid) may employ your deceit and cunning efforts, but I swear by Allah that the shame and disgrace which you have earned by the treatment meted out to us cannot be eradicated.

In the News
In his book, Explanations on Sermon of Zaynab bint Ali at the Levant, published by Bustan publications, Ali Karimi Jahromi reviews different opinions about this sermon.

See also
Battle of Karbala
Sermon of Ali ibn Husayn in Damascus
Passage 4:
Motherland (disambiguation)
Motherland is the place of one's birth, the place of one's ancestors, or the place of origin of an ethnic group.
Motherland may also refer to:

Music
"Motherland" (anthem), the national anthem of Mauritius
National Song (Montserrat), also called "Motherland"
Motherland (Natalie Merchant album), 2001
Motherland (Arsonists Get All the Girls album), 2011
Motherland (Daedalus album), 2011
"Motherland" (Crystal Kay song), 2004

Film and television
Motherland (1927 film), a 1927 British silent war film
Motherland (2010 film), a 2010 documentary film
Motherland (2015 film), a 2015 Turkish drama
Motherland (2022 film), a 2022 documentary film about the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War
Motherland (TV series), a 2016 British television series
Motherland: Fort Salem, a 2020 American science fiction drama series

Other uses
Motherland Party (disambiguation), the name of several political groups
Personifications of Russia, including a list of monuments called Motherland

See also
All pages with titles containing Motherland
Mother Country (disambiguation)
Passage 5:
Place of birth
The place of birth (POB) or birthplace is the place where a person was born. This place is often used in legal documents, together with name and date of birth, to uniquely identify a person. Practice regarding whether this place should be a country, a territory or a city/town/locality differs in different countries, but often city or territory is used for native-born citizen passports and countries for foreign-born ones.
As a general rule with respect to passports, if the place of birth is to be a country, it's determined to be the country that currently has sovereignty over the actual place of birth, regardless of when the birth actually occurred. The place of birth is not necessarily the place where the parents of the new baby live. If the baby is born in a hospital in another place, that place is the place of birth. In many countries, this also means that the government requires that the birth of the new baby is registered in the place of birth.
Some countries place less or no importance on the place of birth, instead using alternative geographical characteristics for the purpose of identity documents. For example, Sweden has used the concept of födelsehemort ("domicile of birth") since 1947. This means that the domicile of the baby's mother is the registered place of birth. The location of the maternity ward or other physical birthplace is considered unimportant.
Similarly, Switzerland uses the concept of place of origin. A child born to Swiss parents is automatically assigned the place of origin of the parent with the same last name, so the child either gets their mother's or father's place of origin. A child born to one Swiss parent and one foreign parent acquires the place of origin of their Swiss parent. In a Swiss passport and identity card, the holder's place of origin is stated, not their place of birth. In Japan, the registered domicile is a similar concept.
In some countries (primarily in the Americas), the place of birth automatically determines the nationality of the baby, a practice often referred to by the Latin phrase jus soli. Almost all countries outside the Americas instead attribute nationality based on the nationality(-ies) of the baby's parents (referred to as jus sanguinis).
There can be some confusion regarding the place of birth if the birth takes place in an unusual way: when babies are born on an airplane or at sea, difficulties can arise. The place of birth of such a person depends on the law of the countries involved, which include the nationality of the plane or ship, the nationality(-ies) of the parents and/or the location of the plane or ship (if the birth occurs in the territorial waters or airspace of a country).
Some administrative forms may request the applicant's "country of birth". It is important to determine from the requester whether the information requested refers to the applicant's "place of birth" or "nationality at birth". For example, US citizens born abroad who acquire US citizenship at the time of birth, the nationality at birth will be USA (American), while the place of birth would be the country in which the actual birth takes place.

Reference list
8 FAM 403.4 Place of Birth
Passage 6:
Yazid III
Yazīd ibn al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (701 – 3/4 October 744) (Arabic: يزيد بن الوليد بن عبد الملك) usually known simply as Yazid III was the twelfth Umayyad caliph. He reigned for six months, from April 15 to October 3 or 4, 744, and he reigned until his death.

Birth and background
Yazid was the member of the influential Umayyad dynasty.
His father, al-Walid was survived by several sons: al-Ya'qubi names sixteen, while historian al-Tabari (d. 923) names nineteen. Yazid III was the grandson of great Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik and his grand mother was Wallada bint al-Abbas ibn al-Jaz al-Absiyya.
Yazid was the son of a Persian princess who had been given as a concubine to Caliph al-Walid I. His mother was Shah-i Afrid, a daughter of Peroz. Al-Tabari quotes a couplet of Yazid's on his own ancestry:
I am the son of Chosroes, my ancestor was Marwan,
Caesar was my grandsire and my grandsire was Khagan.Tabari further records descriptions of Yazid as being tall and handsome.

Downfall of Al-Walid
During the reign of his cousin al-Walid II, Yazid spoke out against Walid's "immorality" which included discrimination on behalf of the Banu Qays Arabs against Yemenis and non-Arab Muslims, and Yazid received further support from the Qadariya and Murji'iya (believers in human free will). Yazid slipped into Damascus and deposed Walid in a coup, following this up with a disbursement of funds from the treasury.According to Yazid's own account, Yazid sent Abd al-Aziz ibn al-Hajjaj ibn Abd al-Malik to meet Walid at al-Bakhra'. 'Abd al-Aziz offered to set up a tribal assembly (shura) to decide the future of the realm. Walid rejected this offer and attacked, by which action he lost his life. Yazid had Walid's head hoisted "on a lance and paraded around Damascus"; Yazid then imprisoned Walid's sons 'Uthman and Hakam, whom Walid had designated as his heirs.

Accession
On accession, Yazid explained that he had rebelled on behalf of the Book of Allah and the Sunna of His Prophet, and that this entailed ensuring that the strong not prey upon the weak. He promised "to engage in no building works, squander no money on wives or children, transfer no money from one province to another" without reason, "keep no troops on the field too long", and not to overtax the ahl al-dhimma; instead, he would eschew discrimination and would make his payments on time. He promised abdication if he failed to meet these goals, and held in principle to al-amr shura – to an elected caliphate.Tabari records Yazid's nickname "the Diminisher" (Naqis), given because he reduced military annuities by 10%, whereas his predecessor had promised a raise. According to Islamic popular tradition, recorded in an apocalyptic style, Yazid would go himself into the marketplace.The city of Homs refused allegiance to Yazid, and there were several other dissident movements against him. Another cousin, Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan, governor of Armenia, had initially supported Walid and on Walid's death entered Iraq to avenge him. Marwan eventually rallied around Yazid.

Reign
Yazid appointed Mansur ibn Jumhur to replace Yusuf ibn 'Umar as governor of Iraq. On May 15, Yazid wrote a letter, preserved from oral sources in al-Mada'ini (reproduced in Tabari) and in al-Baladhuri. It supports the Umayyad dynasty up to but not including "the enemy of Allah" al-Walid II, at which point it lays out Yazid's version of the event at al-Bakhra'. At the end, Tabari's rendition has Yazid exhorting the Iraqis to follow Mansur ibn Jumhur.Yusuf ibn 'Umar was subsequently imprisoned and later killed by the son of Khalid ibn 'Abdallah al-Qasri. Mansur attempted to dismiss the Khurasani governor Nasr ibn Sayyar, but Nasr refused to accept this. Facing opposition from Juday al-Kirmani, Nasr invited al-Harith ibn Surayj to return from his thirteen-year stay in Turgesh territory. Al-Harith arrived wearing a fine suit of armour the Khaqan had given him and gained the support of many people in Khurasan.

Death
Yazid ruled the Caliphate from April 744 to 4 October 744. Yazid named his brother Ibrahim as his successor. Yazid fell ill of a brain tumour and died on October 3 or 4, 744. Ibrahim duly succeeded him.

See also
Umar ibn al-Walid, an Umayyad prince and a military leader
Abd al-Aziz ibn al-Walid, an Umayyad prince and a military leader
Al-Abbas ibn al-Walid, an Umayyad prince and a military general
Bishr ibn al-Walid, an Umayyad prince and a military general
Sulayman ibn Hisham, an Umayyad military general and cousin of Yazid III
Passage 7:
Where Was I
"Where Was I?" may refer to:

Books
"Where Was I?", essay by David Hawley Sanford from The Mind's I
Where Was I?, book by John Haycraft 2006
Where was I?!, book by Terry Wogan 2009

Film and TV
Where Was I? (film), 1925 film directed by William A. Seiter. With Reginald Denny, Marian Nixon, Pauline Garon, Lee Moran.
Where Was I? (2001 film), biography about songwriter Tim Rose
Where Was I? (TV series) 1952–1953 Quiz show with the panelists attempting to guess a location by looking at photos
"Where Was I?" episode of Shoestring (TV series) 1980

Music
"Where was I", song by W. Franke Harling and Al Dubin performed by Ruby Newman and His Orchestra  with vocal chorus by  Larry Taylor and Peggy McCall  1939
"Where Was I", single from Charley Pride discography 1988
"Where Was I" (song), a 1994 song by Ricky Van Shelton
"Where Was I (Donde Estuve Yo)", song by Joe Pass from Simplicity (Joe Pass album)
"Where Was I?", song by Guttermouth from The Album Formerly Known as a Full Length LP (Guttermouth album)
"Where Was I", song by Sawyer Brown (Billy Maddox, Paul Thorn, Anne Graham) from Can You Hear Me Now 2002
"Where Was I?", song  by  Kenny Wayne Shepherd from Live On  1999
"Where Was I", song by Melanie Laine (Victoria Banks, Steve Fox) from Time Flies (Melanie Laine album)
"Where Was I", song by Rosie Thomas from With Love (Rosie Thomas album)
Passage 8:
Sermon of Ali ibn Husayn in Damascus
The Sermon of Ali ibn Husayn in Damascus (Arabic: خُطْبَة عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن فِي ٱلشَّام) are the statements of Ali ibn Husayn in the presence of Umayyad caliph Yazid I. After the Battle of Karbala, the captured family of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and the heads of those killed were moved to the Levant by the forces of Yazid. By order of Yazid, a pulpit was prepared, and a public speaker gave a lecture that placed blame on Ali and Husayn ibn Ali.In reply to the Yazid's speaker, Ali Ibn Husayn;introduced himself and his descendants. Also, he recounted the events leading to the death of Husayn ibn Ali.

Ali ibn Husayn
Ali ibn Husayn (Arabic: عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن), also known as Zayn al-Abidin (Arabic: زَيْن ٱلْعَابِدِين, "Adornment of the Worshippers"), was the fourth Shia Imam, after his father Husayn. Ali ibn Husayn survived the Battle of Karbala and was taken, along with enslaved women, to the caliph in Damascus. Eventually, he was allowed to return to Medina, where he led a secluded life with a few intimate companions. Zayn al-Abidin's life and statements were entirely devoted to asceticism and religious teachings, mostly in the form of invocations and supplications. His famous supplications are known as Al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya.

Background
After the Battle of Karbala, the captured family of the prophet Muhammad and the heads of those killed were moved to the Levant by the forces of Yazid. According to Turabi, on the first day of Safar they arrived in the Levant (Damascus) and were taken into Yazid's presence.According to Bihar al-Anwar, Yazid ordered a pulpit to be constructed in Damascus. He designated a public speaker to blame Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. The public speaker sat at the pulpit and began his lecture by praising Allah and insulting Ali and his son, Husayn. Also, he devoted a long time to praising Yazid and his father Muawiyah. In the middle of the lecture, Ali ibn Husayn called out to him and said: "O you who preach! Woe be to you! You have bought the wrath of the Creator in lieu of the pleasure of the creatures, while your place is hell." Then he turned towards Yazid and said: "Do you permit me to speak that which would be agreeable to Allah and would be a means of reward for those present?" Yazid refused, but the people said, "Permit him to ascend the pulpit. Perhaps we may hear something (worthwhile) from him." Yazid replied, "If I permit him to mount the pulpit, he shall not descend it until he humiliates me and the progeny of Abu Sufyan." They said, "How could this ailing youth do such a thing?' Yazid replied, "He comes from a family that has from infancy consumed wisdom along with their milk." Yazid finally relented, and Ali ibn Husayn ascended the pulpit and gave his sermon.(According to Kamile Bahai, Ali ibn Husayn asked Yazid to let him give the sermon on Friday.)

Context
Ali ibn Husayn began his sermon by praising Allah.

Praise be to Allah Who has no beginning, and the Everlasting Who has no end. The foremost Whose beginning has no beginning, and the Last Whose end has no end.
Then he said about the knowledge, forbearance, munificence, eloquence, valor, and friendship of Ahl al-Bayt and also the name of Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib and Ja'far ibn Abi Talib.
O people! We have been bestowed six qualities and seven merits (by Allah). Knowledge, forbearance, munificence, eloquence, valor and friendship in the hearts of the believers are present in us. While our merits are that the Prophet in Authority is from amongst us; the Truthful (Imam Ali) is from amongst us; the Flyer (Ja’far at Tayyar) is from amongst us; the Lion of Allah, and that of His Prophet, is from amongst us; while also the two Sibtain (Hasan and Husayn) of this nation are from amongst us. Those who know me, know me, while those who do not know me, I reveal my pedigree and ancestry for them until they recognize me.
He drew attention to criteria that indicated the eligibility of Ahl al-Bayt for the succession of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. It was in this way that he introduced himself, saying that there was no need to introduce himself to people who knew him, but that he was introducing himself for those who did not know him.

The son of Mecca and Mina
Ali ibn Husayn introduced himself as son of Mecca and Mina.

O people! I am the son of Mecca and of Mina. I am the son of Zamzam and Safa.
With these sentences, he stated that his ancestors reached back to Abraham, who had constructed the Kaaba. He added that it was important to remember that people who honor the Kaaba must revere Ali ibn Husayn as the son of Mecca. In other words, anyone who did not respect Ali ibn Husayn was, in fact, blaspheming all that was sacred.

The son of Muhammad
I am the son of the one who was taken up to the Sidrat al-Muntaha. I am the son of the one "who was bestowed revelation by the Almighty, what He did reveal" (again referring to the night of Me’raj. For all the above verses refer Surah an-Najm, Surah No. 53). I am the son of Muhammad, the Chosen One!

The son of Ali
I am the son of person who fought against enemies with two swords. He emigrated twice, pledged allegiance twice (to the prophet), and prayed in the two Qibla. I am the son of Ali, the Approved One.

The son of Fatimah bint Muhammad
I am the son of Fatemah az-Zahra.

The son of who was killed at battle of Karbala
I am the son of Husayn, the one killed at Karbala. I am the son of the one who was smeared in blood and sand. I am the son of the one who was lamented upon by the genie in the darkness of the night. I am the son of the one who was mourned by the birds.

Call to pray
When Ali ibn Husayn said these statements, Yazid ordered the moazzin to call people for prayers. While the mu'azzin said: "I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah", Ali ibn Husayn stated:

O Yazid! This Honorable and Noble Messenger is my Grandfather or yours? If you say that he is your grandfather, then the entire world knows that you speak a lie. And if you say that he is my grandfather, then why did you kill my father with tyranny, and plunder his belongings and captivate his womenfolk?
Yazid knew that it was in his best interest not to answer, so he ordered the mu'azzin to continue.

Effect
After delivering the sermon, those in the audience began to cry. They gathered around Ali ibn Husayn to apologize.

See also
Sermon of Zaynab bint Ali in the court of Yazid
Battle of Karbala
Passage 9:
Yazid ibn Khalid al-Qasri
Yazid ibn Khalid al-Qasri (Arabic: يزيد بن خالد القسري) was a son of the famed Khalid al-Qasri, the longtime (724–738) governor of Iraq for the Umayyads.Due to his father's imprisonment, torture, and death at the hands of al-Walid II's governor of Iraq, Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi, during the Third Fitna he sided with Yazid III, apparently serving as his sahib al-shurta. Following Yazid III's death, he is reported as the executioner of the two underage sons of al-Walid II, and then participated in the unsuccessful revolt of the Syrians in 745 against Marwan II. He besieged Damascus, but the city was relieved by Marwan II, and Yazid was executed by the latter. His namesake grandson Yazid ibn Jarir al-Qasri was governor of the Yemen under the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun.
Passage 10:
Al-Walid I
Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (Arabic: الوليد بن عبد الملك بن مروان, romanized: al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān; c. 674 – 23 February 715), commonly known as al-Walid I (Arabic: الوليد الأول), was the sixth Umayyad caliph, ruling from October 705 until his death. He was the eldest son of his predecessor, Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705). As a prince, he led annual raids against the Byzantines from 695 to 698 and built or restored fortifications along the Syrian Desert route to Mecca. He became heir apparent in c. 705, after the death of the designated successor, Abd al-Malik's brother Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan.
Under al-Walid, his father's efforts to centralize government, impose a more Arabic and Islamic character on the state, and expand its borders were continued. He heavily depended on al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, his father's powerful viceroy over the eastern half of the caliphate. During his reign, armies commissioned by al-Hajjaj conquered Sind and Transoxiana in the east, while the troops of Musa ibn Nusayr, the governor of Ifriqiya, conquered the Maghreb and Hispania in the west, bringing the caliphate to its largest territorial extent. War spoils from the conquests enabled al-Walid to finance impressive public works, including his greatest architectural achievement, the Great Mosque of Damascus, as well as the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. He was the first caliph to institute programs for social welfare, aiding the poor and handicapped among the Muslim Arabs of Syria, who held him in high esteem.
His reign was marked by domestic peace and prosperity and likely represented the peak of Umayyad power, though it is difficult to ascertain his direct role in its affairs. The balance al-Walid maintained among the elites, including the Qays–Yaman army factions, may have been his key personal achievement. On the other hand, the massive military expenditures of his rule, as well as his extravagant grants to the Umayyad princes, became a financial burden on his successors.

Early life
Al-Walid was born in Medina in c. 674, during the rule of Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate. His father, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, was a member of the Umayyad dynasty. While Mu'awiya belonged to the Umayyads' Sufyanid branch, resident in Syria, al-Walid's family was part of the larger Abu al-As line in the Hejaz (western Arabia, where Mecca and Medina are located). His mother, Wallada bint al-Abbas ibn al-Jaz, was a descendant of Zuhayr ibn Jadhima, a famous 6th-century chief of the Banu Abs tribe. In 684, after Umayyad rule collapsed amid the Second Muslim Civil War, the Umayyads of the Hejaz were expelled by a rival claimant to the caliphate, Ibn al-Zubayr, and relocated to Syria. There al-Walid's grandfather, the elder statesman Marwan I (r. 684–685), was recognized as caliph by pro-Umayyad Arab tribes. With the tribes' support, he restored the dynasty's rule in Syria and Egypt by the end of his reign. Abd al-Malik succeeded Marwan and conquered the rest of the caliphate, namely Iraq, Iran and Arabia. With the key assistance of his viceroy of Iraq, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, Abd al-Malik instituted several centralization measures, which consolidated Umayyad territorial gains.

The war with the Byzantine Empire, which dated to the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 630s, resumed in 692 after the collapse of the truce that had been reached three years earlier. Annual campaigns were thereafter launched by the Umayyads in the Arab–Byzantine frontier zone and beyond. During his father's caliphate, al-Walid led the campaigns in 696, 697, 698 and 699. In his summer 696 campaign, he raided the area between Malatya (Melitene) and al-Massisa (Mopsuestia), while in the following year, he targeted a place known in Arabic sources as 'Atmar', located at some point north of Malatya. He also led the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca in 698.In 700 or 701, al-Walid patronized the construction or expansion of Qasr Burqu', a fortified Syrian Desert outpost connecting Palmyra in the north with the Azraq oasis and Wadi Sirhan basin in the south, ultimately leading to Mecca and Medina. His patronage is attested by an inscription naming him as "the emir al-Walid, son of the commander of the faithful". According to the historian Jere L. Bacharach, al-Walid built the nearby site of Jabal Says, likely as a Bedouin summer encampment between his base of operations in al-Qaryatayn and Qasr Burqu'. Bacharach speculates that al-Walid used the sites, located in the territory of Arab tribes, to reaffirm their loyalty, which had been critical to the Umayyads during the civil war.

Caliphate
Toward the end of his reign, Abd al-Malik, supported by al-Hajjaj, attempted to nominate al-Walid as his successor, abrogating the arrangement set by Marwan whereby Abd al-Malik's brother, the governor of Egypt, Abd al-Aziz, was slated to succeed. Though the latter refused to step down from the line of succession, he died in 704 or early 705, removing the principal obstacle to al-Walid's nomination. After the death of Abd al-Malik on 9 October 705, al-Walid acceded. Al-Walid was physically described by the 9th-century historian al-Ya'qubi as "tall and swarthy ... snub-nosed ... with a touch of gray [sic] at the tip of his beard". He noted that al-Walid "spoke ungrammatically". To his father's chagrin, al-Walid abandoned speaking the classical Arabic in which the Qur'an was written, but insisted that everyone in his company have knowledge of the Qur'an.Al-Walid essentially continued his father's policies of centralization and expansion. Unlike Abd al-Malik, al-Walid heavily depended on al-Hajjaj and allowed him free rein over the eastern half of the caliphate. Moreover, al-Hajjaj strongly influenced al-Walid's internal decision-making, with officials often being installed and dismissed upon the viceroy's recommendation.

Territorial expansion
The renewal of the Muslim conquests on the eastern and western frontiers had begun under Abd al-Malik, after he neutralized the Umayyads' domestic opponents. Under al-Walid, the armies of the caliphate "received a fresh impulse" and a "period of great conquests" began, in the words of the historian Julius Wellhausen. During the second half of al-Walid's reign, the Umayyads reached their furthest territorial extent.

Eastern frontiers
Expansion from the eastern frontiers was overseen by al-Hajjaj from Iraq. His lieutenant governor of Khurasan, Qutayba ibn Muslim, launched several campaigns in Transoxiana (Central Asia), which had been a largely impenetrable region for earlier Muslim armies, between 705 and 715. Qutayba gained the surrender of Bukhara in 706–709, Khwarazm and Samarkand in 711–712, and Farghana in 713. He mainly secured Umayyad suzerainty through tributary alliances with local rulers, whose power remained intact. With Qutayba's death in 716, his army disbanded and the weak Arab position in Transoxiana allowed for the local princes and the Turgesh nomads to roll back most of Qutayba's gains by the early 720s. From 708 or 709, al-Hajjaj's nephew, Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, conquered Sind, the northwestern part of South Asia.

Western frontiers
In the west, al-Walid's governor in Ifriqiya (central North Africa), Musa ibn Nusayr, another holdover from Abd al-Malik's reign, subjugated the Berbers of the Hawwara, Zenata and Kutama confederations and advanced on the Maghreb (western North Africa). In 708 or 709, he conquered Tangier and Sus, in the far north and south of modern-day Morocco. Musa's Berber mawla (freedman or client; pl. mawali), Tariq ibn Ziyad, invaded the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) in 711, and was reinforced by Musa in the following year. By 716, a year after al-Walid's death, Hispania had been largely conquered. The massive war spoils netted by the conquests of Transoxiana, Sind and Hispania were comparable to the amounts accrued in the Muslim conquests during the reign of Caliph Umar (r. 634–644).

Byzantine front
Al-Walid appointed his half-brother Maslama as governor of the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) and charged him with leading the war effort against Byzantium. Although Maslama established a strong power base in the frontier zone, the Umayyads made few territorial gains during al-Walid's reign. After a lengthy siege, the Byzantine fortress of Tyana was captured and sacked in c. 708. Al-Walid did not lead any of the annual or bi-annual campaigns, but his eldest son al-Abbas fought reputably alongside Maslama. His other sons Abd al-Aziz, Umar, Bishr and Marwan also led raids.By 712, the Arabs solidified their control of Cilicia and the areas east of the Euphrates River and launched raids deep into Anatolia. After one such raid against Ancyra in 714, the Byzantine emperor Anastasios II (r. 713–715) sent a delegation to negotiate a truce with al-Walid or decipher his intentions. The delegates reported back that al-Walid was planning a land and naval assault to conquer the Byzantine capital Constantinople. Al-Walid died in 715 and the siege was carried out under his successors, ending in 718 as a disaster for the Arabs.

Provincial affairs
Syria
Al-Walid entrusted most of Syria's military districts to his sons; al-Abbas was assigned to Homs, Abd al-Aziz to Damascus, and Umar to Jordan. In Palestine, al-Walid's brother Sulayman had been appointed by their father as governor and remained in office under al-Walid. Sulayman sheltered the deposed governor of Khurasan, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, a fugitive from al-Hajjaj's prison, in 708. Despite his initial disapproval, al-Walid pardoned Yazid as a result of Sulayman's lobbying and payment of the heavy fine that al-Hajjaj had imposed on Yazid.

Egypt
Between 693 and 700, Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjaj initiated the dual processes of establishing a single Islamic currency in place of the previously used Byzantine and Sasanian coinage and replacing Greek and Persian with Arabic as the language of the bureaucracy in Syria and Iraq, respectively. These administrative reforms continued under al-Walid, during whose reign, in 705 or 706, Arabic replaced Greek and Coptic in the diwan (government departments) of Egypt. The change was implemented by al-Walid's half-brother, Abd Allah, the governor of Egypt and appointee of Abd al-Malik. These policies effected the gradual transition of Arabic as the sole official language of the state, unified the varied tax systems of the caliphate's provinces and contributed to the establishment of a more ideologically Islamic government. In 709, al-Walid replaced Abd Allah with his katib (scribe), Qurra ibn Sharik al-Absi, who belonged to the same tribe as the caliph's mother. This was prompted either because of mounting complaints against Abd Allah's corruption, which was blamed for Egypt's first recorded famine under Islamic rule, or a desire to install a loyalist as governor. Qurra ibn Sharik served until his death in 715 and established a more efficient means of tax collection, reorganized Egypt's army and, on al-Walid's orders, restored the mosque of Fustat.

Hejaz
Al-Walid initially kept Abd al-Malik's appointee, Hisham ibn Isma'il al-Makhzumi, as governor of the Hejaz and leader of the Hajj pilgrimage. Both offices were of great prestige owing to the central religious importance of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities of Islam. Al-Walid dismissed him in 706 as punishment for flogging and humiliating the prominent Medinan scholar Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib for refusing to give the oath of allegiance to al-Walid as heir apparent during Abd al-Malik's reign. Although Hisham's act was in support of al-Walid, he considered it an abusive excess. According to the historian M. E. McMillan, other than al-Walid's "sense of righteous indignation", dynastic politics motivated his dismissal order. Hisham was the maternal grandfather of al-Walid's half-brother Hisham, who was a contender for the caliphal succession, which al-Walid coveted for his son Abd al-Aziz. Rather than leaving such a close relative of his brother Hisham at the helm of the Islamic holy cities, al-Walid installed his cousin Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, who was the husband of al-Walid's sister Fatima and brother to al-Walid's wife Umm al-Banin, the mother of Abd al-Aziz. On al-Walid's orders, Umar had Hisham publicly humiliated, an unprecedented motion against a sacked governor of Medina, which set "a dangerous precedent", according to McMillan.Umar maintained friendly ties to the holy cities' religious circles. He led the Hajj for at least four of the six years he was in office, with al-Walid's son Umar leading it in 707 and al-Walid leading it in 710, the only time he left Syria during his caliphate. Umar provided safe haven to Iraqis evading the persecution of al-Hajjaj. Umar informed al-Walid of al-Hajjaj's abuses, while al-Hajjaj advised the caliph to dismiss Umar for hosting Iraqi rebels. Al-Walid, wary of the Hejaz once again developing into a center of anti-Umayyad activity as it had during the Second Muslim Civil War, dismissed Umar in 712. He split the governorship of the Hejaz, appointing al-Hajjaj's nominees Khalid ibn Abdallah al-Qasri to Mecca and Uthman ibn Hayyan al-Murri to Medina. Neither was ever appointed to lead the Hajj, al-Walid reserving that office for Maslama and his own sons.

Balancing of tribal factions
As a result of the Battle of Marj Rahit, which inaugurated Marwan's reign in 684, a sharp division developed among the Syrian Arab tribes, who formed the core of the Umayyad army. The loyalist tribes that supported Marwan formed the Yaman confederation, alluding to ancestral roots in Yemen (South Arabia), while the Qays, or northern Arab, tribes largely supported Ibn al-Zubayr. Abd al-Malik reconciled with the Qays in 691, but competition for influence between the two factions intensified as the Syrian army was increasingly empowered and deployed to the provinces, where they replaced or supplemented Iraqi and other garrisons.Al-Walid maintained his father's policy of balancing the power of the two factions in the military and administration. According to the historian Hugh N. Kennedy, it is "possible that the caliph kept it [the rivalry] on the boil so that one faction [would] not acquire a monopoly of power". Al-Walid's mother genealogically belonged to the Qays and he accorded Qaysi officials certain advantages. However, Wellhausen doubts that al-Walid preferred one faction over the other, "for he had no need to do so, and it is not reported" by the medieval historians. The Qays–Yaman division intensified under al-Walid's successors, who did not maintain his balancing act. The feud was a major contributor to the Umayyad regime's demise in 750.

Public works and social welfare
From the beginning of his rule, al-Walid inaugurated public works and social welfare programs on a scale unprecedented in the caliphate's history. The efforts were financed by treasure accrued from the conquests and tax revenue. He and his brothers and sons built way-stations and dug wells along the roads in Syria and installed street lighting in the cities. They invested in land reclamation projects, entailing irrigation networks and canals, which boosted agricultural production. Al-Hajjaj also carried out irrigation and canal projects in Iraq during this period, in a bid to restore its agricultural infrastructure, damaged by years of warfare, and to find employment for its demobilized inhabitants.Al-Walid or his son al-Abbas founded the city of Anjar, between Damascus and Beirut, in 714. It included a mosque, palace, and residential, commercial, and administrative structures. According to the art historian Robert Hillenbrand, Anjar "has the best claim of any Islamic foundation datable before 750 … to be a city", though it was probably abandoned within forty years of its construction. In the Hejaz, al-Walid attempted to redress the hardships of pilgrims making the trek to Mecca by having water wells dug throughout the province, improving access through the mountain passes, and building a drinking fountain in Mecca. The historian M. A. Shaban theorizes that while al-Walid's projects in the cities of Syria and the Hejaz had a "utilitarian purpose", they were mainly intended to provide employment, in the form of cheap labor, for the growing non-Arab populations in the cities.Welfare programs included financial relief for the poor and servants to assist the handicapped, though this initiative was limited to Syria, and only to the Arab Muslims there. As such, Shaban considered it "a special state subsidy to the ruling class".

Patronage of great mosques
Al-Walid turned the example of his father's construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem into a wide-scale building program. His patronage of great mosques in Damascus, Jerusalem and Medina underlined his political legitimacy and religious credentials. The mosque he founded in Damascus, later known as the Umayyad Mosque, was the greatest architectural achievement of his rule. Under his predecessors, Muslim residents had worshipped in a small musalla (prayer room) attached to the 4th-century Christian cathedral of John the Baptist. By al-Walid's reign, the musalla could not cope with the fast-growing Muslim community and no sufficient free spaces were available in Damascus for a large congregational mosque. In 705, al-Walid had the cathedral converted into a mosque, compensating local Christians with other properties in the city.Most of the structure was demolished. Al-Walid's architects replaced the demolished space with a large prayer hall and a courtyard bordered on all sides by a closed portico with double arcades. The mosque was completed in 711. The army of Damascus, numbering some 45,000 soldiers, were taxed a quarter of their salaries for nine years to pay for its construction. The scale and grandeur of the great mosque made it a "symbol of the political supremacy and moral prestige of Islam", according to the historian Nikita Elisséeff. Noting al-Walid's awareness of architecture's propaganda value, Hillenbrand calls the mosque a "victory monument" intended as a "visible statement of Muslim supremacy and permanence". The mosque has maintained its original form until the present day.

In Jerusalem, al-Walid continued his father's works on the Temple Mount. There is disagreement as to whether the al-Aqsa Mosque, which was built on the same axis of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, was originally built by Abd al-Malik or al-Walid. Several architectural historians hold that Abd al-Malik commissioned the project and that al-Walid finished or expanded it. The earliest source indicating al-Walid's work on the mosque is the Aphrodito Papyri, which contain letters from December 708–June 711 between his governor of Egypt, Qurra ibn Sharik, and an official in Upper Egypt discussing the dispatch of Egyptian laborers and craftsmen to help build the "Mosque of Jerusalem". It is likely that the unfinished administrative and residential structures that were built opposite the southern and eastern walls of the Temple Mount, next to the mosque, date to the era of al-Walid, who died before they could be completed.In 706 or 707, al-Walid instructed Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz to significantly enlarge the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. Its redevelopment entailed the demolition of the living quarters of Muhammad's wives and the incorporation of the graves of Muhammad and the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) and Umar. The vocal opposition to the demolition of Muhammad's home from local religious circles was dismissed by al-Walid. He lavished large sums for the reconstruction and supplied mosaics and Greek and Coptic craftsmen. According to Hillenbrand, the building of a large-scale mosque in Medina, the original center of the caliphate, was an "acknowledgement" by al-Walid of "his own roots and those of Islam itself" and possibly an attempt to appease Medinan resentment at the loss of the city's political importance to Syria under the Umayyads. In the words of McMillan, the mosque and the works benefitting the pilgrims to the holy cities "were a form of reconciliation ... a constructive counterweight to the political damage" caused by the Umayyad sieges of Mecca in 683 and 692 and assault on Medina during the civil war. Other mosques that al-Walid is credited for expanding in the Hejaz include the Sanctuary Mosque around the Kaaba in Mecca and the mosque of Ta'if.

Death and succession
Al-Walid died of an illness in Dayr Murran, an Umayyad winter estate on the outskirts of Damascus, on 23 February 715, about one year after al-Hajjaj's death. He was buried in Damascus at the cemetery of Bab al-Saghir or Bab al-Faradis and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz led the funeral prayers.Al-Walid unsuccessfully attempted to nominate his son Abd al-Aziz as his successor and void the arrangements set by his father, in which Sulayman was to succeed al-Walid. Relations between the two brothers had become strained. Sulayman acceded and dismissed nearly all of al-Walid's governors. Although he maintained the militarist policies of al-Walid and Abd al-Malik, expansion of the caliphate largely ground to a halt under Sulayman (r. 715–717).

Assessment and legacy
According to the historian Giorgio Levi Della Vida, "The caliphate of al-Walīd saw the harvest of the seed planted by the long work of ʿAbd al-Malik". In the assessment of Shaban:  Walīd I's reign (705–15/86–96) was in every way a direct continuation of his father's and was unruffled. Ḥajjāj remained in power, in fact he became more powerful, and the same policies were followed. The only difference was that the tranquillity of these years allowed Walīd to develop further the internal implications of the ʿAbdulmalik-Ḥajjāj policy.
The historian Gerald Hawting comments that the combined reigns of al-Walid and Abd al-Malik, tied together by al-Hajjaj, represented in "some ways the high point of Umayyad power, witnessing significant territorial advances both in the east and the west and the emergence of a more marked Arabic and Islamic character in the state's public face". Domestically, it was generally a period of peace and prosperity. Kennedy asserts that al-Walid's reign was "remarkably successful and represents, perhaps, the zenith of Umayyad power", though his direct role in these successes is unclear and his primary accomplishment may have been maintaining the equilibrium between the rival factions of the Umayyad family and military.By virtue of the conquests of Hispania, Sind and Transoxiana during his reign, his patronage of the great mosques of Damascus and Medina, and his charitable works, al-Walid's Syrian contemporaries viewed him as "the worthiest of their caliphs", according to the 9th-century historian Umar ibn Shabba. Several panegyrics were dedicated to al-Walid and his sons by al-Farazdaq, his official court poet. The latter's contemporary, Jarir, lamented the caliph's death in verse: "O eye, weep copious tears aroused by remembrance; after today there is no point in your tears being stored." The Christian poet al-Akhtal considered al-Walid to be "the caliph of God through whose sunna rain is sought".Al-Walid embraced the formal trappings of monarchy in a manner unprecedented among earlier caliphs. He resided at several palaces, including in Khunasira in northern Syria and Dayr Murran. The considerable wealth in his treasury allowed him to spend extravagantly on his relatives. Expectations of such grants among the growing number of Umayyad princes continued under his successors. Their generous stipends and costly private constructions were resented by "nearly everyone else" in the caliphate and were "a drain on the treasury", according to the historian Khalid Yahya Blankinship. More significant were the costs to equip and pay the armies driving the conquests. The substantial expenditures under both Abd al-Malik and al-Walid became a financial burden on their successors, under whom the flow of war spoils, on which the caliphal economy depended, began to diminish. Blankinship notes that the enormous losses incurred during the 717–718 siege of Constantinople alone "practically wiped out the gains made under al-Walid".

Family
Compared to his brothers, al-Walid had an "exceptional number of marriages", at least nine, which "reflect both his seniority in age … and his prestige as a likely successor" to Abd al-Malik, according to the historian Andrew Marsham. The marriages were intended to forge political alliances, including with potential rival families like those of the descendants of the fourth caliph, Ali (r. 656–661), and the prominent Umayyad statesman, Sa'id ibn al-As. Al-Walid married two of Ali's great-granddaughters, Nafisa bint Zayd ibn al-Hasan and Zaynab bint al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan. He married Sa'id's daughter, Amina, whose brother al-Ashdaq had been removed from the line of succession by Marwan and was killed in an attempt to topple Abd al-Malik. One of his wives was a daughter of a Qurayshite leader, Abd Allah ibn Muti, who was a key official under Ibn al-Zubayr. Among his other wives was a woman of the Qaysi Banu Fazara tribe, with whom he had his son Abu Ubayda.Marsham notes al-Walid's marriage to his first cousin, Umm al-Banin, "tied the fortunes" of Abd al-Malik and her father, Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan. From her al-Walid had his sons Abd al-Aziz, Muhammad, Marwan, and Anbasa, and a daughter, A'isha. From another Umayyad wife, Umm Abd Allah bint Abd Allah ibn Amr, a great-granddaughter of Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656), al-Walid had his son Abd al-Rahman. He also married Umm Abd Allah's niece, Izza bint Abd al-Aziz, whom he divorced.Out of his twenty-two children, fifteen were born to slave concubines, including al-Abbas, whose mother was Greek. According to al-Tabari, the mother of al-Walid's son Yazid III (r. 744–744) was Shah-i-Afrid (also called Shahfarand), the daughter of the Sasanian prince Peroz III and granddaughter of the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III (r. 632–651). She had been taken captive in the conquest of Transoxiana and was gifted to al-Walid by al-Hajjaj. The mother of his son Ibrahim (r. 744–744) was a concubine named Su'ar or Budayra. His other sons by concubines were Umar, Bishr, Masrur, Mansur, Rawh, Khalid, Jaz, Maslama, Tammam, Mubashshir, Yahya, and Sadaqa.In 744, around a dozen of al-Walid's sons, probably resentful at being sidelined from the caliphal succession, conspired with other Umayyad princes and elites under Yazid III to topple their cousin Caliph al-Walid II (r. 743–744). His assassination in April 744 sparked the Third Muslim Civil War (744–750). Yazid III acceded but died six months later, after which he was succeeded by his half-brother Ibrahim. The latter did not attain wide recognition and was overthrown in December 744 by a distant Umayyad kinsman, Marwan II (r. 744–750). Several descendants of al-Walid, progeny of his son Rawh, were executed during the Abbasid Revolution which toppled Umayyad rule in 750. Others from the lines of his sons al-Abbas and Umar survived, including the Habibi family, which attained prominence in the Umayyad emirate of al-Andalus after its establishment in 756.

Notes


Passage 1:
Iwamura
Iwamura (written: 岩村 lit. "rock village") is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Akinori Iwamura, Japanese baseball player
Noboru Iwamura, Japanese biologist
Ai Iwamura, Japanese actress
Iwamura Michitoshi, Meiji era politician
Shunichi Iwamura (岩村 俊一, born 1940), Japanese sprint canoeist

See also
Iwamura Castle in Gifu Prefecture, Japan
Iwamura, Gifu, former town in Gifu Prefecture, Japan
67853 Iwamura, main-belt asteroid
Passage 2:
Little Rock Trojans women's basketball
The Little Rock Trojans women's basketball team represents the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. The school will join the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) on July 1, 2022 after 31 seasons in the Sun Belt Conference.

History
Little Rock has won the West Division in the Sun Belt in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2013. They won the Sun Belt Conference Tournament in 2011, 2012, and 2015. They have made the WNIT in 2008, 2009, and 2013. They made the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament in 2010 beating Georgia Tech 63–53. They lost to Oklahoma 60–44 in the subsequent game. They made the Second Round in 2015 after beating Texas A&M 69–60. They lost 57–54 to Arizona State in the subsequent game. As of the end of the 2015–16 season, the Trojans have an all-time record of 384–485, with a 288–231 record since joining Division I in 1999.

NCAA tournament results
Passage 3:
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock) is a public research university in Little Rock, Arkansas. Established as Little Rock Junior College by the Little Rock School District in 1927, the institution became a private four-year university under the name Little Rock University in 1957. It returned to public status in 1969 when it merged with the University of Arkansas System under its present name. The former campus of Little Rock Junior College is now (2019) the campus of Philander Smith College.
At 250 acres (100 ha), the UA Little Rock campus encompasses more than 56 buildings, including the Center for Nanotechnology Integrative Sciences, the Emerging Analytics Center, the Sequoyah Research Center, and the Ottenheimer Library Additionally, UA Little Rock houses special learning facilities that include a learning resource center, art galleries, KUAR public radio station, University Television, and a campus-wide wireless network. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

Academics
The university features more than 100 undergraduate degrees and 60 graduate degrees, including graduate certificates, master's degrees, and doctorates, through both traditional and online courses. Students attend classes in one of the university's three new colleges and a law school:
College of Business, Health, and Human Services
College of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Education
Donaghey College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
William H. Bowen School of Law

Student life
The student life at UA Little Rock is typical of public universities in the United States. It is characterized by student-run organizations and affiliation groups that support social, academic, athletic and religious activities and interests. Some of the services offered by the UA Little Rock Office of Campus Life are intramural sports and fitness programs, diversity programs, leadership development, peer tutoring, student government association, student support programs including groups for non-traditional and first generation students, a student-run newspaper, and fraternity and sorority life. The proximity of the UA Little Rock campus to downtown Little Rock enables students to take advantage of a wide array of recreational, entertainment, educational, internship and employment opportunities that are not available anywhere else in Arkansas.

Campus living
UA Little Rock provides a variety of on-campus living options for students ranging from traditional resident rooms to multiple bedroom apartments. The university has four residence halls on the eastern side of the campus and the University Village Apartment Complex on the southern side of campus. Six learning communities focusing on criminal justice, arts and culture, majors and careers, future business innovators, nursing careers, and STEM are available to students.

Athletics
UA Little Rock's 14 athletic teams are known as the Little Rock Trojans, with almost all teams participating in the Sun Belt Conference. Little Rock is one of two Sun Belt members that do not sponsor football (UT Arlington being the other); UA Little Rock last fielded a football team in 1955 when it was known as Little Rock Junior College. Little Rock's main athletic offices are located in the Jack Stephens Center. UA Little Rock offers the following sports:

Two Little Rock teams that do not compete in the Sun Belt are the women's swimming and diving team (Missouri Valley Conference) and wrestling (Pac-12 Conference), neither of which the Sun Belt sponsors. Wrestling is the school's newest sport, starting in 2019 and is the first Division I program in Arkansas.
Little Rock will move to the Ohio Valley Conference for the 2022-23 season.

Collections and archives
On July 1, 2014, the UA Little Rock Collections and Archives division was created. The division encompasses:

Ottenheimer Library
Center for Arkansas History and Culture
Sequoyah National Research Center

Weekend programs
The Japanese School of Little Rock (リトルロック日本語補習校 Ritoru Rokku Nihongo Hoshūkō), a weekend Japanese education program, holds its classes at the University Plaza.

Notable students and alumni
Government
Camille Bennett – Arkansas House of Representatives, 2015–present
Karilyn Brown – Arkansas House of Representatives, 2015–present
James Richard Cheek (1957) – U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador (1979–1981), Ethiopia (1985–1988), Sudan (1989–1992) and Argentina (1993–1996)
Charlie Daniels (attended) – Arkansas Commissioner of State Lands (1985–2001), Arkansas Secretary of State (2002–2010), Arkansas State Auditor (2001–present)
Vivian Flowers (B.S. in political science) – Arkansas House of Representatives, 2015–present
Kenneth Henderson - Arkansas House of Representatives, 2015–present
Douglas House (1976) Arkansas House of Representatives, 2013–present
Allen Kerr (attended) – Arkansas Insurance Commissioner (2015–present) and former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives
Mike Ross (1987) – U.S. House of Representatives, 2001–2013
Bill Sample (attended) – Arkansas House of Representatives, 2005–2010; Arkansas Senate 2011–present
Robert William Schroeder III (1989) - U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Nominated June 2014
Frank Scott Jr. – current mayor of Little Rock, AR.
Vic Snyder (1988) – U.S. House of Representatives, 1997–2011
James Sturch – (B.S., Political Science) – Arkansas House of Representatives, 2015–present

Education
James E. Cofer – Ed.D. alumnus, former UA Little Rock professor, and former president of both Missouri State University and the University of Louisiana at Monroe

Entertainment
Julie Adams (1946) – Actress (film & television)
Symone (2017) - Drag Performer & Model (winner of Rupaul's Drag Race Season 13)

Athletics
Malik Dixon - basketball player, top scorer in the 2005 Israel Basketball Premier League
Derek Fisher – Former Los Angeles Lakers player and New York Knicks head coach
Rayjon Tucker - Professional basketball player in the NBA with Milwaukee Bucks

Notes
Passage 4:
Little Rock Port Authority Railroad
The Port of Little Rock Railroad, sometimes called the Little Rock Port Authority Railroad, provides switching services through a 20-mile system of tracks at the 4,000-acre Little Rock Port Industrial Park at the Port of Little Rock, Arkansas.  It provides port access and railroad interchange services not only to the more than twenty businesses at the park, but also to any business seeking to ship or receive cargo through the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System.

History
Purchase of 151 acres in July 1967 started the planning process for the dock area at the Port.  Four miles of railroad were constructed by July, 1968, the year in which the port began operations.   In 1970, the railroad connected to what were then the Rock Island Railroad and the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and started work on a marshalling yard.  By 1974 the marshalling yard was complete.    In 1977, railroad engine storage and maintenance buildings were completed.

Interchange
The line extends from the dock to the interchange point with what is now the Union Pacific (UP) at a junction near Clinton National Airport.  Access to what is now the BNSF is obtained through trackage/haulage rights.

Operations
The port railroad operates with two locomotives and five crew members.  It utilizes a tandem unit with an EMD GP15-1 locomotive owned by the port, and one EMD SW1500 locomotive leased from GATX.  The railroad handles over 20,000 cars annually.
Passage 5:
Jamal Beyg
Jamal Beyg (Persian: جمال بيگ, also Romanized as Jamāl Beyg) is a village in Dezhkord Rural District, Sedeh District, Eqlid County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 305, in 76 families.
Passage 6:
Little Rock Trojans baseball
The Little Rock Trojans baseball team, is a varsity intercollegiate athletic team of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. The team is a member of the Ohio Valley Conference, which is part of the NCAA Division I. The team plays its home games at Gary Hogan Field in Little Rock, Arkansas.
On July 1, 2015, the Trojans officially announced they would no longer be branded as Arkansas–Little Rock or "UALR," but will be the Little Rock Trojans effective immediately.

Year-by-year results
References:

See also
List of NCAA Division I baseball programs
Passage 7:
The Abingtons, Cambridgeshire
The Abingtons are a community in South Cambridgeshire consisting of two small villages: Little Abington and Great Abington, about 7 miles (11 km) south east of Cambridge.

History
Though often listed as a single entity, Great and Little Abington have since early medieval times been two parishes divided by the River Granta and remain so. The southernmost of the two, Great Abington, covers 1,588 acres (6.43 km2) and is bounded to the south by the county border with Essex, to the west by a branch of the Icknield Way (now the A11), and to the east by the parish of Hildersham. Little Abington covers 1,309 acres (5.30 km2), again bordered by the Icknield Way and Hildersham to the west and east, and by the ancient thoroughfare of Wool Street to the north.The village history dates back to the Bronze Age, some 4000 years ago. The Saxons gave the village its name, originally called "estate named after Abba", and the village was listed as Abintone in the Domesday Book. The 'Great' and 'Little' prefixes came later: the Latin magna is observed from 1218 and the Modern English great from 1523 while the Latin parva is observed from 1218 and the Middle English littel from 1336.In the decades before the Second World War the Land Settlement Association created a site to the south of Great Abington consisting of over sixty houses and plots of land for unemployed miners mainly from the former shipyards of Tyneside and coalfields of Yorkshire and Durham.The Cambridge to Haverhill railway line that opened in 1865 crossed Great Abington just south of the village, but closed in 1967. The medieval Cambridge to Colchester road that was the main route through the village was by-passed in the 1960s.

Churches
Great Abington's parish church has been dedicated to St Mary since at least the 16th century and comprises a chancel, nave with south aisle and porch, and west tower. The majority of the present building dates from the 13th century, possibly earlier, including the two-storey tower with short leaded spire.Little Abington's parish church is also dedicated to St Mary, and has been since at least the 16th century. The present building consists of a chancel, nave with north chapel and south porch, and west tower. The nave is believed to date from around 1100, and the chancel was rebuilt in the 13th century. The three-storey tower is probably 14th century.
A Protestant chapel was built in Little Abington towards the end of the 19th century. It closed in late 2019 and the land has now been sold. Demolition of the chapel has been confirmed.

Village life
The village has a vibrant community with a primary school, village shop, pub, football and cricket team and a large number of local businesses, most of them at Granta Park including The Welding Institute which started in Abington Hall in 1946. In 2009 Abington cricket club played a friendly against Babraham cricket club to commemorate 150 years of the cricket team.
The village also has a village hall, called The Abington Institute, which has a café, a large main hall with video projection and an audio system allowing the showing of films and presentations. It also has a meeting room, another large room overlooking the cricket pitch and two changing rooms with showers. The Institute is used by many local clubs and organisations and also hosts regular lunches for older Abington residents.
The remaining public house, The Three Tuns in Great Abington, is a 17th-century building that was possibly open in 1687 and certainly by 1756. Former pubs in Little Abington include The Crown which closed in the late 20th century, and The Bricklayers' Arms, which opened in the mid-19th century and was sold in 1912. The Princess (later Prince) of Wales in Great Abington opened at the end of the 19th century and closed in about 1963. The King's Arms opened on the Stump Cross to Newmarket road (now the A11) just north of Bourn Bridge in the late 17th century, closing in 1850 with the advent of the railway. The antiquary William Cole was born there while his father was publican. The White Hart opened on the same road just south of the bridge in around 1750, but closed by the end of the century.
Passage 8:
Little Rock Creek
Little Rock Creek may refer to:

Little Rock Creek (Los Angeles County, California)
Little Rock Creek (Minnesota River), a stream in Minnesota
Little Rock Creek (Mississippi River), a stream in Minnesota
Little Rock Creek (Red Lake), a stream in Minnesota
Little Rock Creek (Montana)
Passage 9:
The Abingtons, Cambridgeshire
The Abingtons are a community in South Cambridgeshire consisting of two small villages: Little Abington and Great Abington, about 7 miles (11 km) south east of Cambridge.

History
Though often listed as a single entity, Great and Little Abington have since early medieval times been two parishes divided by the River Granta and remain so. The southernmost of the two, Great Abington, covers 1,588 acres (6.43 km2) and is bounded to the south by the county border with Essex, to the west by a branch of the Icknield Way (now the A11), and to the east by the parish of Hildersham. Little Abington covers 1,309 acres (5.30 km2), again bordered by the Icknield Way and Hildersham to the west and east, and by the ancient thoroughfare of Wool Street to the north.The village history dates back to the Bronze Age, some 4000 years ago. The Saxons gave the village its name, originally called "estate named after Abba", and the village was listed as Abintone in the Domesday Book. The 'Great' and 'Little' prefixes came later: the Latin magna is observed from 1218 and the Modern English great from 1523 while the Latin parva is observed from 1218 and the Middle English littel from 1336.In the decades before the Second World War the Land Settlement Association created a site to the south of Great Abington consisting of over sixty houses and plots of land for unemployed miners mainly from the former shipyards of Tyneside and coalfields of Yorkshire and Durham.The Cambridge to Haverhill railway line that opened in 1865 crossed Great Abington just south of the village, but closed in 1967. The medieval Cambridge to Colchester road that was the main route through the village was by-passed in the 1960s.

Churches
Great Abington's parish church has been dedicated to St Mary since at least the 16th century and comprises a chancel, nave with south aisle and porch, and west tower. The majority of the present building dates from the 13th century, possibly earlier, including the two-storey tower with short leaded spire.Little Abington's parish church is also dedicated to St Mary, and has been since at least the 16th century. The present building consists of a chancel, nave with north chapel and south porch, and west tower. The nave is believed to date from around 1100, and the chancel was rebuilt in the 13th century. The three-storey tower is probably 14th century.
A Protestant chapel was built in Little Abington towards the end of the 19th century. It closed in late 2019 and the land has now been sold. Demolition of the chapel has been confirmed.

Village life
The village has a vibrant community with a primary school, village shop, pub, football and cricket team and a large number of local businesses, most of them at Granta Park including The Welding Institute which started in Abington Hall in 1946. In 2009 Abington cricket club played a friendly against Babraham cricket club to commemorate 150 years of the cricket team.
The village also has a village hall, called The Abington Institute, which has a café, a large main hall with video projection and an audio system allowing the showing of films and presentations. It also has a meeting room, another large room overlooking the cricket pitch and two changing rooms with showers. The Institute is used by many local clubs and organisations and also hosts regular lunches for older Abington residents.
The remaining public house, The Three Tuns in Great Abington, is a 17th-century building that was possibly open in 1687 and certainly by 1756. Former pubs in Little Abington include The Crown which closed in the late 20th century, and The Bricklayers' Arms, which opened in the mid-19th century and was sold in 1912. The Princess (later Prince) of Wales in Great Abington opened at the end of the 19th century and closed in about 1963. The King's Arms opened on the Stump Cross to Newmarket road (now the A11) just north of Bourn Bridge in the late 17th century, closing in 1850 with the advent of the railway. The antiquary William Cole was born there while his father was publican. The White Hart opened on the same road just south of the bridge in around 1750, but closed by the end of the century.
Passage 10:
Little Rock Village
Little Rock Village was a Native American village of the Potawatomi people located on the north bank of the Kankakee River, at a site close to the current boundary between Kankakee and  Will counties of the state of Illinois in the United States. The location now lies within the present-day Kankakee River State Park, close to the mouth of Rock Creek on Kankakee River.


Passage 1:
The Wonderful World of Captain Kuhio
The Wonderful World of Captain Kuhio (クヒオ大佐, Kuhio Taisa, lit. "Captain Kuhio") is a 2009 Japanese comedy-crime film, directed by Daihachi Yoshida, based on Kazumasa Yoshida's 2006 biographical novel, Kekkon Sagishi Kuhio Taisa (lit. "Marriage swindler Captain Kuhio"), that focuses on a real-life marriage swindler, who conned over 100 million yen (US$1.2 million) from a number of women between the 1970s and the 1990s.The film was released in Japan on 10 October 2009.

Cast
Masato Sakai - Captain Kuhio
Yasuko Matsuyuki - Shinobu Nagano
Hikari Mitsushima - Haru Yasuoka
Yuko Nakamura - Michiko Sudo
Hirofumi Arai - Tatsuya Nagano
Kazuya Kojima - Koichi Takahashi
Sakura Ando - Rika Kinoshita
Masaaki Uchino - Chief Fujiwara
Kanji Furutachi - Shigeru Kuroda
Reila Aphrodite
Sei Ando

Awards
At the 31st Yokohama Film Festival
Best Actor – Masato Sakai
Best Supporting Actress – Sakura Ando
Passage 2:
Star Quest: The Odyssey
Star Quest: The Odyssey is a 2009 low budget American science-fiction film directed by Jon Bonnell, written by Carlos Perez, and starring Aaron Ginn-Forsberg, Davina Joy and Tamara McDaniel. The film was released on November 3, 2009.

External links
Star Quest: The Odyssey at IMDb
Trailer Star Quest: The Odyssey on YouTube
Passage 3:
Men's Group
Men's Group is a 2008 Australian drama film. The film is directed by Michael Joy from a screenplay co-written with John L. Simpson.

Plot
The film follows the lives of six men over a period of months as they convene weekly in a self-help style group. Meeting at the home of Paul, the men include Freddy, a depressed stand-up comedian; the elderly Cecil; businessman Lucas; the bereaved Anthony; taciturn Moses; and talkative, middle-aged Alex. As trust grows between the men they gradually begin to open up and learn to listen to each other, discovering they are not alone in their fears as they had presumed. When a tragedy befalls the group, the men realize they must take responsibilities for their own lives and those of their loved ones.

Cast
Grant Dodwell as Alex
Paul Gleeson as Paul
Steve Le Marquand as Lucas
Don Reid as Cecil
Steve Rodgers as Freddy
Paul Tassone as Moses
William Zappa as Anthony

Production
Development
The concept of the film was conceived by Michael Joy and John L. Simpson, while working together on another project dealing with men's issues and their inability to communicate. At that time, director Michael Joy was experiencing depression and attended a men's support group on the advice of a telephone counsellor. Joy was struck by the pain of the men in the room and the safe environment in which they could express what they were going through.

Filming
Joy worked with each of the actors separately, workshopping the script over two months. Using this technique, Michael and John L. would create scenes from key character points and events. Only then was a comprehensive screenplay drafted and delivered to the heads of departments.The actors were not allowed to see the screenplay prior to shooting, and had little or no idea of other characters' story lines. The filmmakers did this to capture the actors' first responses to what was unfolding in front of them. There was only one take for each shot that appears in the film, and the shoot lasted only 14 days. It was shot in sequence, so the filmmakers could not go back to reshoot. Before each scene, Joy spent time talking to the actors quietly and individually about their lives at that point, trying to get them to speak about specific things that needed to happen in the film.The film was a micro-budget production, created on a reverse finance model, with each key crew member and actor taking an equity position in the film.

Reception
The film was praised and is particularly recognised for the strong performances by the lead actors. Anton Bitel of Eye for Film wrote the film "represents a refreshing examination of the collective male psyche through pure drama", and added the improvisational nature of the film results in an "ensemble performances of searing, warts-and-all realism, so utterly believable that viewers themselves will feel like silent members of the party, compelled by the power of the proceedings to watch, listen, learn – and maybe join in the conversation after the credits have rolled." On At the Movies, Margaret Pomeranz awarded the film four stars and David Stratton awarded it three and a half stars.On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Men's Group has an approval rating of 86% based on 7 reviews.

AFI Fellowship and Tour
Following the theatrical release of the film by Titan View, John L. Simpson was approached by men's health groups who wished to screen the film and use it as a tool to prompt discussions about men's mental health. With this interest, Simpson proposed to tour the film around Australia to non-theatrical venues for community group screenings, and in the process create a map of all venues in Australia suitable to screen from. For this proposal he was awarded the 2008 AFI Fellowship.The program has allowed the film to tour to towns such as Tamworth, Armidale, Bellingen, Dorrigo, Bowraville, and Bowral.
In early March 2009, Men’s Group was screened to men's and women's prisons in Tasmania.

Awards and nominations
Film Critics Circle of Australia
2009: Nominated, Best Actor – Grant DodwellInside Film Awards

2008: Won, Best Actor – Grant Dodwell
2008: Won, Best Feature Film – John L. Simpson, Michael Joy
2008: Won, Best Script – John L. Simpson, Michael Joy
2008: Nominated, Best Music – Haydn Walker
2008: DigiSPAA Award
Passage 4:
Un Soir de Joie
Un Soir de Joie (French)  is a Belgian comic film directed by Gaston Schoukens and released in 1955.
The film's plot takes place in German-occupied Belgium during World War II and focuses on the so-called Faux Soir, a satirical version of the German-controlled newspaper Le Soir produced by the resistance.
The film includes extensive footage of Brussels in the 1950s, where it was filmed on location.Marcel Roels, Roger Dutoit, Jean-Pierre Loriot, Victor Guyau, Madeleine Rivière, Jacques Philippet, Francine Vendel all acted in the film.

Plot
Based on a true story from November 1943: the Resistance manages to publish a fake edition of the pro-German newspaper 'Le Soir', put on sale by surprise in the newsstands and stuffed full of parodic articles pouring ridicule upon occupying forces. The film faithfully traced the course of this humorous and enterprising attempt to wake up the populace, filling out the basic plot with irreverent patriotic gags.
Passage 5:
Times of Joy and Sorrow
Times of Joy and Sorrow (USA title), The Lighthouse (UK title), or
喜びも悲しみも幾歳月 (Yorokobi mo Kanashimi mo Ikutoshitsuki), is a 1957 color Japanese film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, who shot on location at 10 different lighthouses throughout Japan, including opening scenes at Kannonzaki, the site of the country's first lighthouse.

Plot
In 1932, a young lighthouse keeper returns from his father's funeral with a new bride, who quickly learns the importance of the marital bond to members of her husband's profession, which is often characterized by the hardships of physical isolation and sudden reassignment. Over the next 25 years they transfer to ten different lighthouses throughout Japan, raising two children and befriending multiple colleagues and their families. They endure wartime attacks on the strategically relevant lighthouses as well as a tragedy involving one of their children, ultimately celebrating the other's marriage and settling together into middle age.

Cast
Hideko Takamine as Kiyoko Arisawa
Keiji Sada as Shiro Arisawa
Takahiro Tamura as Mr. Nozu
Katsuo Nakamura as Kotaro
Yōko Katsuragi as Fuji Tatsuko
Kōji Mitsui as Mr. Kanemaki
Kuniko Igawa as Itoko Suzuki
Shizue Natsukawa as Mrs. Natori
Masako Arisawa as Yukino
Hiroko Itō as Masako
Noboru Nakaya as Shingo Natori
Takeshi Sakamoto as Postmaster
Ryūji Kita as Natori
Mutsuko Sakura as Mrs. Kanemaki

Featured Lighthouses
Kannonzaki Lighthouse - Miura Peninsula, Kanagawa
Ishikari Lighthouse - Ishikari, Hokkaido
Izu Oshima Lighthouse - Izu Ōshima, Izu Islands
Mizunokojima Lighthouse - Bungo Channel, Oita
Meshima Lighthouse - Gotō Islands, Nagasaki
Hajiki Saki Lighthouse - Sado Island, Niigata
Omaesaki Lighthouse - Omaezaki, Shizuoka
Anorisaki Lighthouse - Shima, Mie
Ogijima Lighthouse - Seto Inland Sea, Kagawa
Hiyoriyama Lighthouse - Otaru, Hokkaido

Legacy
The highly-popular film has been remade three times for Japanese television, and in 1986 Kinoshita himself reworked it as Big Joys, Small Sorrows, the Western version of its actual title (新・喜びも悲しみも幾歳月), which translates roughly as New Times of Joy and Sorrow.Its rousing, eponymous theme song was a major hit for Akira Wakayama and became a cultural touchstone of 1950s Japan.In 1993 a statue depicting the movie's two stars in an iconic pose from publicity materials was erected at Hajikizaki Lighthouse on Sato Island, one of the filming sites, as a tribute to lighthouse staff nationwide.

Availability
Although the film has not been released on disc or for streaming in the United States, Kinoshita's remake Big Joys, Small Sorrows was among the inaugural films available in Spring 2019 for streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Passage 6:
Eve's Leaves
Eve's Leaves is a 1926 American silent romantic comedy film starring Leatrice Joy and William Boyd. The film was produced and distributed by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Paul Sloane It is based upon the 1925 play of the same name by Harry Chapman Ford.

Plot
Captain Corbin (Edeson), who operates the tramp cargo ship Garden of Eden, has raised his daughter Eve (Joy) as a boy. After learning about men after reading some romance novels belonging to the cook Cookie (Harris), she goes ashore in a Chinese port to find her true love and spies American Bob Britton (Boyd), whom she then has kidnapped to augment the ship's crew. Pirate Chang Fang (Long) and his pirates capture the ship seeking passage to his stronghold. With Cookie's help, Eve remakes herself using an outfit made from a curtain and some beads, which draws the interest of both Chang and Bob. In the end, Eve saves the day and she and Bob are married on board by a missionary (Hoyt).

Cast
Production
Leatrice Joy had impulsively cut her hair short in 1926, and DeMille, whom Joy had followed when he set up Producers Distributing Corporation, was publicly angry as it prevented her from portraying traditional feminine roles. The studio developed projects with roles suitable for her “Leatrice Joy bob”, and Eve's Leaves was the second of five films before she regrew her hair. In both Eve's Leaves and The Clinging Vine (1926), Joy's character is mistaken as being male in at least one scene. In 1928, a professional dispute would end the Joy / Demille partnership and she signed with MGM.
Intertitles featuring quotes from stereotype Chinese characters are in a racist fictional Asian dialect that today would be considered offensive.

Preservation
A 16mm print of Eve's Leaves is preserved film at the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the film has been released on DVD.
Passage 7:
Wasted Time
Wasted Time(s) may refer to:

Songs
"Wasted Time" (Fuel song), 2007
"Wasted Time" (Keith Urban song), 2016
"Wasted Time" (Kings of Leon song), 2003
"Wasted Time" (Skid Row song), 1991
"Wasted Time" (Vance Joy song), 2014
"Wasted Times" (The Weeknd song), 2018
"Wasted Time", by Bret Michaels from Custom Built, 2010
"Wasted Time", by Cloves, 2018
"Wasted Time", by the Eagles from Hotel California, 1976
"Wasted Time", by Europe from Wings of Tomorrow, 1984
"Wasted Time", by Heavenly from Virus, 2006
"Wasted Time", by Holy Knights from Between Daylight and Pain, 2012
"Wasted Time", by Lionel Richie from Renaissance, 2000

Other uses
The Wasted Times, a 2016 Chinese-Hong Kong film

See also
Wasting Time (disambiguation)
Wasting My Time (disambiguation)
"Waste Time", a song by the Fire Theft from their self-titled album
Passage 8:
City of Joy (2016 film)
City of Joy is a 2016 documentary film directed and written by Madeleine Gavin. It follows the first class of students at a leadership center in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.The film was released by Netflix on September 7, 2018.

Premise
The east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is a region in which being a woman is hard since she often experiences violence in the wake of a 20-year war, driven by colonialism. In the film, women band together at the leadership center to find a way to handle the horrible experiences that they had to live and to come out on the other side to be leaders and inspirations for other women in the region.
Passage 9:
Talentime
Talentime is a 2009 Malaysian drama film written and directed by Yasmin Ahmad. Yasmin, in her blog, has described it "as a story full of joy and pain, hope and despair, a host of beautifully-written songs, and rich characters". A Hindu open cremation and a scene reminiscent of the 2001 Kampung Medan riots are included in the film.The film was released on 26 March 2009 in Malaysia and marks Yasmin's last feature film prior to her death on 25 July 2009.

Plot
"The music teacher, who is herself a great performer is organising an inter-school talentime. Through the days of auditions, rehearsals and preparations, running up to the big day of the contest, the characters get embroiled in a world of heightened emotions - ambition, jealousy, human comedy, romance, heartbreak - all of which culminate in a day of great music and performances." Yasmin also mentioned that the idea behind Talentime was that as humans, we have to go through a lot of pain and some measure of suffering before we can reach greater heights.A talent search competition has matched two hearts - that of Melur, a Malay-mixed girl and an Indian male student, Mahesh. Melur, with her melodious voice, singing whilst playing the piano is one of the seven finalists of the Talentime competition of her school organised by Cikgu Adibah. Likewise Hafiz, enthralling with his vocalist talent while playing the guitar, dividing his time between school and mother, who is hospitalised for brain tumor.
It all started after Mahesh, amongst the students assigned to get the finalists to school for practice, delivered the notice of successful audition to Melur's house. His handsome looks attracted the girl. Early on in their relationship, tragedy struck Mahesh's family when his uncle Ganesh who had been the care-taker of the family since the loss of Mahesh's father, was stabbed to death on his wedding day. Melur thinking that Mahesh's silence was due to his grief over the tragedy became furious when she was continuously ignored. She regretted it however after Hafiz revealed Mahesh's situation.
That changed Melur's perception of Mahesh. Likewise Mahesh, who grew comfortable with the presence of the girl who often quotes beautiful poetry. Mahesh, realising that the relationship will be opposed, kept it hidden from his mother, still grieving over the death of Ganesh. At last, the secret was exposed and Mahesh was assaulted before Melur's very eyes. Just a day before the competition, is Melur resilient enough to sing the poetic lyrics of her song when her heart is tormented by the thoughts of Mahesh? What about Mahesh who has found his first love? On Talentime night, everything unfolds.

Cast
Mahesh Jugal Kishor as Mahesh, a hearing impaired Indian boy who becomes Melur's love interest.
Pamela Chong as Melur, a Eurasian girl in the Talentime finals who sings and plays the piano.
Syafie Naswip as Hafiz, a Malay boy in the Talentime finals who sings and plays the guitar.
Jaclyn Victor as Bhavani, Mahesh's elder sister who has a penchant for picking on him.
Howard Hon Kahoe as Kahoe, a Chinese boy in the Talentime finals who plays the erhu and resents Hafiz.
Amelia Henderson as Melati, Melur's younger sister.
Adibah Noor as Cikgu Adibah, the teacher in charge of organising the Talentime.
Azean Irdawaty as Embun, Hafiz's mother who is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
Harith Iskander as Harith, Melur's comical father.
Sukania Venugopal as Mahesh's mother.
Jit Murad as Ismael, A patient who befriends Embun at the hospital during her final days.
Mislina Mustaffa as Melur's mother.
Tan Mei Ling as Mei Ling, a Chinese Muslim convert who works as a maid for Melur's family.
Ida Nerina as Datin Kalsom, a friend of Melur's mother who distrusts Mei Ling.Sharifah Amani was supposed to be cast as Melur in the film. However, due to clash of schedules, she was replaced by Pamela Chong. She did, however, play a role as the 3rd Assistant Director for the film. This would mark the first time that Sharifah Amani has played a behind-the-scene role in Yasmin Ahmad's films.

Music
The film score was composed by Pete Teo. Songs include:

O Re Piya by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, taken from the Bollywood movie, Aaja Nachle
I Go by Aizat Amdan.
Just One Boy by Aizat Amdan.
Angel by Atilia.
Kasih Tak Kembali by Atilia.All songs were written and produced by Teo himself, except Kasih Tak Kembali which was written by Ahmad Hashim.
The original soundtrack album was released by Universal Music, which also includes Malay language versions of many of the principal songs in the film. This includes I Go (as 'Pergi'), Angel, and Just One Boy (as 'Itulah Dirimu').

Screening
As in all of Yasmin's previous works, Talentime opens with the basmalah (Bismillahirahmanirrahim, "In the name of God, the most Gracious and most Merciful"). Like Muallaf, the verse is displayed in a language and script different from Arabic in Talentime, i.e. in Tamil - பிஸ்மில்லாஹிர்ரஹ்மானிர்ரஹீம்.

Awards and nominations
Passage 10:
Komaligal
"Komaligal" (1976) (Tamil: கோமாளிகள், "The Clowns") is a Sri Lankan Tamil language film written by S.Ramdas and produced by M.Mohamed.   This was the remake of the most popular radio comedy drama, "Komaligalin Kummalam" which was broadcast in Radio Ceylon in the mid 1970s. It was written by S. Ramdas who acted in lead role.

Development
M. Mohamed, a businessman, who used to listen this radio drama weekly, was attracted by it. Thus he thought to make it as a film. He expressed his idea to S.Ramdas. He also agreed and film was started.  Story and dialogues were written by S.Ramdas who acted as Marikkar in lead role. Film was directed by Ramanathan, an experienced person in the Sinhala film industry.

Casting
The highlight of the film was the performances of S.Ramdas, a Brahmin in real life, who played the role of a Muslim, and B.H.Abdul Hameed, a Muslim in real life, who played a Brahmin role. Also T.Rajagopal acted as a role of "Appukutty", S.Selvasekaran as "Upali" and Sillaiyur Selvarajan and his wife Kamalini Selvarajan acted as lovers in the film. K.A.Jawahir (Aboo Nana) acted as "Thanikasalam" in villain role.

Soundtrack
Music - Kannan Nesam
Lyrics - Sillaiyur Selvarajan, Fouzul Ameer and Saathu
Playback singers - Muthazhagu, Kalavathi, Sujatha and S.Ramdas

Box office
Komaligal was produced in 45 days. On 22 November 1976 the film was screened in 6 places. Film was very successful in box office rather than previous Sri Lankan Tamil movies. Komaligal was running in Central Colombo (Sellamahal) 76 days, in South Colombo (Plaza) 55 days, in Jaffna 51 days, in Trincomalee 33 days and Batticolao 32 days. As per Dominic Jeeva, author of Malligai magazine, "Viewers returned from Theatre without seeing the movie since it was houseful."
The financial success of Komaligal gave the belief to other producers that they could produce successful Tamil cinema in Sri Lanka.

Sources
Ilankai Thamil Cinemavin Kathai, Thambyayah Thevathas
http://www.noolaham.net/project/04/379/379.htm
Jeyaraj, D. B. S. (25 June 2012). "For a distinct identity". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 25 June 2002. Retrieved 11 September 2009.
"Komaligal (1976) Srilankan Tamil Movie". You Tube. Chennai, India. 16 September 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.