on Truthfulness (part 1)

A reminder to myself first: as reported by Abdullah—and with thanks to Gyasi McKensie for the beautiful reminder at last Sunday’s meeting of the After Shahada Project at ICI—the Prophet, peace be upon him, said:

‏عَلَيْكُمْ بِالصِّدْقِ فَإِنَّ الصِّدْقَ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْبِرِّ وَإِنَّ الْبِرَّ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْجَنَّةِ وَمَا يَزَالُ الرَّجُلُ يَصْدُقُ وَيَتَحَرَّى الصِّدْقَ حَتَّى يُكْتَبَ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ صِدِّيقًا وَإِيَّاكُمْ وَالْكَذِبَ فَإِنَّ الْكَذِبَ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْفُجُورِ وَإِنَّ الْفُجُورَ يَهْدِي إِلَى النَّارِ وَمَا يَزَالُ الرَّجُلُ يَكْذِبُ وَيَتَحَرَّى الْكَذِبَ حَتَّى يُكْتَبَ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ كَذَّابًا

It is obligatory for you to tell the truth, for truth leads to virtue and virtue leads to Paradise, and the man who continues to speak the truth and endeavours to tell the truth is eventually recorded as truthful with Allah, and beware of telling of a lie for telling of a lie leads to obscenity and obscenity leads to Hell-Fire, and the person who keeps telling lies and endeavours to tell a lie is recorded as a liar with Allah.

May Allah guide us to truthfulness with Him, with ourselves, and with each other, and may He protect us from falsehood.

Thierry Gervais (ed.)-‘The “Public” Life of Photographs’

Back in August, MIT Press ran a 35% off special on all photo books to celebrate Camera Day, and I picked up 5… Four arrived straight away, but the fifth wasn’t even published yet.

With essays from Joel Snyder, Geoffrey Batchen, Vincent Lavoie, Mary Panzer, Olivier Lugon, André Gunthert, Nathalie Boulouch, Heather Diack, and Sophie Hacket, if I didn’t have a reading list for a senior seminar in Photography already, The “Public” Life of Photographs by Thierry Gervais (ed.) should have it covered.

Continue reading “Thierry Gervais (ed.)-‘The “Public” Life of Photographs’”

Unboxing Blackwing Volume #344

Blackwing makes some swanky pencils… Four times a year, they put out a special ‘limited’ edition run, and for Q4 2016, they honor Dorothea Lange with Volume 344.

https://youtu.be/oBTxLUe0FMU

I’m not a huge pencil user, and these are so fancy, I’ll probably end up gifting them or maybe reselling them in a year or two and maybe make a bit of profit off of them. Really, they look like some quality pencils, with good-looking wood and a really interesting flat eraser… Very exciting. If you’re a pencil-user, go check them out: they’re really some fine-looking pencils.

Six Pillars: Recap

If you followed the discussion over the past month or so, I hope you recognized the similarities between what Muslims believe and what your faith tradition believes, and I hope I cleared up some misconceptions, especially about God, the One God, the Only God, the Creator, Sustainer, Provider of all that was, all that is, and all that will be.

If all that was too long and dense for you, here’s a brief recap: Continue reading “Six Pillars: Recap”

Winterizing the Veggie Patch

I woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago, and decided it was time to tackle something I’ve been dreading for quite awhile… After a long summer, during which I more or less let the garden go completely, it was time to do something… Continue reading “Winterizing the Veggie Patch”

Six Pillars: 6

God. He exists. He is the Creator of all that exists, and He is One in His Lordship of all. He is One in His Right to be worshipped, alone, without any partners. He is absolutely beyond comparison with any living thing and Is Unique in His Names and His Attributes.

From His boundless Mercy, He sent us prophets to teach us about Him and how to worship Him, and He sent His Books down to His Messengers, so that His words could exist and spread. He sent angels to teach His Words, to guard and keep watch over us, to make sure the all the various physical operations work as He Designed.

From His Most Perfect Justice, He has guaranteed the Day of Judgement, the day on which all humans and other sentient parts of the creation will be judged on our performance in this life: on our belief and our actions, the state of our hearts and our minds in this life. From our limited, human perspective, this Day of Judgment is a mystery; for God, it has already happened, so to speak. He is the Creator of all, the Sustainer of all, and He not only knows what you did last summer, He knows what you did next summer, and what state your heart was in when you did it: it’s all part of the sixth pillar of belief, the belief in the Decree of God, the good and the bad of it. Continue reading “Six Pillars: 6”