so we can start with anwar al-awlaki's early career in colorado. he was a preacher there at least one small local area. very soon into his work it became clear that he had an ability -- he had an ability and doing things that preachers were not doing up at times that expense part of the popularity. he was tracked basically almost all of his early work life of the prophets life of mohammed. most of things he was famous for early that time are referred to as basically historical accounts. mostly with the prophet but his companion. and these are the second most important primary text. they're less reliable than historical accounts which brings together a lot of different sources and the history. that's pretty much all his work really was. it was the translations of previous existing history into english not just putting them in english to make them available to westerns. speaking to a lot of pretty influential preachers in america and others no one had done this for. no one in america and english had translated these and made them available. he got th

pleasure to help out with the book launch for alex meleagrou-hitchens with the book "incitement: anwar al-awlaki's western jihad" i wrote a book about this guy some years back he remains a fascinating character to me. and so it is an honor to be asked by alex to throw some questions at him. we will be doing this for an hour or maybe a little bit lo