confession #02

Hi Prof Astrid

I need some help!

I have been trying some documentation and some serious thinking. i think about the definition of zahir and batin in my patterns again.

from last presentation, i was sure about my definition. but the assignment re-connect could have misled me a little bit. but now i am trying to make sense of
everything again.

TRUE DEFINITION OF ZAHIR AND BATIN
from http://www.sherifbaba.com/batin.htm

It is like this body and the ruh, the spirit. The Zahir is the body. It is seen, visible. It is known. It moves. But Batin is the inner side of this. This is not seen through the eyes. Existence is felt. And how is it felt? With the actions that it performs. With the art that is brought forth.

Let's say we see a painting. We look at this painting; it’s beautiful. There is a beauty in its Zahir, its outer side. But this doesn’t happen by itself. When we look, we think, “There is someone who created this.” The person who painted it is not visible, but she has hidden herself inside of the art that she has created. That is the Batin.

Another example: a block of ice. Its form is this block. This is Zahir. Its Batin is water. How are you going to understand that it’s water? When it melts, it softens and lets its water flow. Then we understand that its Batin is water, but its outside, set in a form, is ice. Zahir and Batin are like this.

THEREFORE, my stand here is that the patterns I create is ZAHIR but the batin comes from within my patterns, cause I am not seen but my thoughts are felt through my own work. The calligraphy I created to make my patterns, I am not visible in my patterns but I am hidden inside. I think that's the beauty of batin; defined as the interior or hidden meaning of a zahir.

So the last conversation we had in class about the re-connect assignment, i have to re-think about the analogy. BATIN is not something that changes ZAHIR overtime. It is there all the time. It is still fluid in the staticness of ZAHIR because i feel that batin is organic in the sense that it can be altered through feelings, meanings and the development of zahir itself.
that quality is showing its fluidity.

In wider sense, 'batin' can refer to the inner meaning or reality behind all existence, the zahir being the world of form and apparent meaning.

I believe that all that Allah created has two sides. We see there's always two sides to everything. the Zahir face and Batin face.We have to work well with our zahir, then we can have good batin as well.

With this body we are going to serve everybody well, and make our thoughts beautiful and good. The more beautiful our Zahir gets, the more beauty Allah will manifest in the Batin.

Also, the Divine books have to be seen in this way. There is the Zahir writing, the outer writing. This is the Zahir judgment. But there’s also a Batin meaning, and to find this, we have to work towards good behavior and conduct. Otherwise we can read the Zahir, but still understand nothing.



So, Prof Astrid, can you help me sort this little mess in my head now.

What I really really really want to show in my system of patterns is my signature style of typographic exploration through the mergence of the two scripts I chose to explore.

I am keen to show the beautiful mergence of the zahir and batin quality of the two scripts in order to express a balanced individual as a whole.

the zahir is my outer form, the patterns.
the batin is the inner meaning of the patterns, the fluidity of my hand when i draw the calligraphy, the poetic meaning of my personal thoughts for universal use. i find that the many layers of my patterns is the beauty of batin in my patterns itself.

are you convinced now? that one can see batin through my patterns cause me, my thoughts and many other things is hidden but existence is still felt?


hope to speak to you soon.

thank you!

.s