#samarra

Codextober 2025 - Day 27 : Sanctuary

As an architect, when I hear the word sanctuary, a few other words come to my mind. First, a safe architecture, a place where you feel peace and security and second, a sacred architecture, a place like a temple. That’s why I drew “Ishaq’s home”. You know, in Islam, one’s home is both a place for rest and for worship. While I was working on this piece, I felt as if I were designing a home for another architect; with all the limitations and beauties of the medieval ages.

Yes, I was imagining what Basim’s childhood home might have looked like, considering the architecture, culture and traditions of that time and region. Basim never mentioned his mother but he said that his father was an architect who built the Great Mosque of Samarra, yet the project was credited to someone else and his father died in poverty. From that, I assumed that maybe his father had a fondness for spiral staircases around the structure; so I designed one for him!

And when the first images of the new dlc (valley of memory) were revealed, I said it must be related to his father and later, when the details came out, I was right! I was so excited and honestly, I still am! Anyways, we’re all eagerly waiting for November 18th!!!

"God is between existence and non-existence. God is far beyond wujood and adam e wujood . God is that reality that there is no reality other than Him. To understand him is difficult, for to understand him requires a form of manifestation. It requires a form of a container. God is absolute, so absolute cannot be understood, until it waters down almost, until it comes through manifestation. So the very first thing that God creates in the tradition, the very first self determination, the very first ion that comes into creation is that act of being, the act of existence.

As they say, God is that black noor, that when light is shone in such a way, it blinds the intellect of man. And from that black noor comes a manifestation and that first manifestation that brings into existence all things that exist is what we call the Light of the Prophet (SAWW)"